Emotion

Cycle number: 8

Cycle day: 37

Meds: Still the Met

Outlook: Sunny

I forgot to add to my last post something about the emotional impact of trying to conceive for a long time. It's probably better that this gets its own dedicated post anyway. It's not to be underestimated. I've touched on it before but it's worth reiterating, because although no-one* really recognises it, the reality for a lot of women is that it's a pretty traumatic experience, with a negative impact on self esteem, confidence and general happiness.

I'm talking about the feeling that you are a failure as a woman, that your body has let you down. Dealing with other peoples' insensitivity, lack of sympathy and sometimes downright nastiness and rudeness. Having to maintain a calm, collected facade at work when AF arrives for the 500th time (after all, it might mean the end of the world to you, but what is it to anyone else?). Having to maintain a calm, collected, happy facade when everyone around you falls pregnant for the first, second, third time. Fighting off the hormonal surges that tell you to reproduce and make you feel bad for not having achieved it yet, and may never...

And of course there is everyone elses' emotions intertwined with ttc: your parents waiting eagerly to be grandparents, wanting to see your family grow and flourish, unable (or sometimes unwilling) to provide any real comfort to you, their child. The way friends either feel too bad to let you in on their pregnancies or over compensate by treating you like a fragile flower, just in case you weren't already feeling awkward enough. And of course your darling partner, waiting just as you are to become a parent, feeling every hurt and frustration but sometimes unable to express it to anyone but you.

It's funny though how unaffected women seem by all this one they finally achieve their pregnancy. I guess the tremendous warmth you get from knowing there is a life growing inside you makes everything you have been through seem worth it a thousand times over. I wonder how many of these women even remember how tiring the whole thing was once they have their little one to dote on? Or do they just take it all in their stride? I wonder, then, what happens to the (relatively) small proportion of women who never achieve pregnancy or acquire a child in another way? Are there significant lasting effects to what they have experienced? What do they do to move forward without that hurt inside them? I would be interested to find out. I do hope I never get to that point.