Who am I?

It’s been 6 months since we drew a line under ivf and made the decision to, for now, stay childless.

To begin with I felt a huge sense of pain and loss.. the loss of a child I never had in the first place, the loss of the hope that it would happen eventually. The pain of wanting something so much you felt like you could burst, whilst always knowing it’s unlikely to get it, and the realisation that actually, as much as for some reason i always thought deep down that it would work, that it hadn’t, and it wasn’t going to, although this immediate pit of the stomach awful feeling didn’t actually last as long as I expected, fairly soon I went on to have a huge sense of relief, there wasn’t this huge pressure on me anymore. To take all the vitamins and tablets and pessaries (oh how I won’t ever miss those pessaries) and the strict nutritional food I made myself eat! The relief that family and friends wouldn’t ask me how it was going every time they saw me and having to talk about it even if I wasn’t prepared to, and it was like a cloud of smoke lifted up from over me! Like when you have been away from home for any length of time and you look for changes in things around you, I felt like I was doing that. Looking at the world the way it is now compared to before I started treatment as if I’d been on some alternate planet the whole time!

And then I remembered that actually, I’m not ivf. It ruled my life for years, without me even realising it had taken over, i was consumed by it, every fibre of my being was dedicated to it and every waking hour was spent thinking about it! It was like I had held my breath for 3 whole years and I was finally breathing out again, but it was new, it was different, I couldn’t breath like I used to, I couldn’t be the person that I had been before I took that final breath in before I started this journey! That person was young and carefree who breathed in the freshest air your could imagine, cold , crisp, healthy!

Now I’m not that person, the air Im breathing has been polluted and grey.. but it is getting better, it’s getting clearer and I’m finding who I am post ivf, I’m not the person I was, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be a happy, fulfilled person, I might have scars, mental scars and physical, and I have good days and bad.

I am in constant battle with myself for some sort of control but I’m getting there! I’m challenging myself to do what makes me happy, and what feels right, I’m not a slave to ivf anymore, and although it didn’t have the outcome I wanted more than I’ve ever wanted anything, I think I’m mostly relieved I came out the other side at all, there were times that I couldn’t see that happening!