Infertility diaries Part 1

 

Hi Guys!!

Something a little different for you this time…..

 

Depending on how well received this is I thought I’d share my infertility story from start
to finish, so i don’t bombard you all my idea is to do it across a number of posts.
I don’t feel like i have really pinned down for you guys exactly how my infertility journey has developed over time, or even explained everything that has gone on.. so here it is, its going to be long, its going to be painful to write so i guess could be to read too.. but i think it could be helpful for

1. People who have recently been diagnosed (as a way to see what is to come) 
2. For people in the middle of it all (to know you are not alone in all of this)
3. For people who have come out the other side..whichever point this is ..baby, adoption, childless…travelling the world, anything.. 

This is for all you guys and girls who need or needed someone to speak out about infertility….its time to break the taboo.

Where it started for me.

I was young. and it was over ten years ago.. but it was such a life changing diagnosis it hasn’t been something I could forget. No matter how much I try…. although some details are now a little hazy but i have always written thoughts and feelings down which is helpful for this for sure.

I remember being 13 ish and being told by a friend of mine at school that one of the popular girls had started her periods. I remember thinking…. what does that even mean? It sounded awful, bleeding, out of your… you know what, every single month for the rest of your life (50 ish felt like the rest of my life when i was that age) EW!!!

NO THANKS!!

The girl i was talking to said that she could see the outline of the pad the girl was wearing… although I’m not sure if she really could. I had no idea what they looked like so i was non the wiser. But to me, the whole idea of a period seemed scary, and embarrassing,

Was it something other people laughed at and talked about behind your back?

It must be because we were doing it weren’t we?!?.

I remember thinking, well she’s okay. She’s one of the popular girls so no one will make fun of her, but what about when it happens to me??! I don’t think I had even grasped that for all women it was perfectly natural for this to happen.

‘I often think that maybe somewhere along the line I wished so hard that it wouldn’t happen to me that it didn’t and that’s why I became infertile, of course that is a load of rubbish and that’s just me being in a negative frame of mind as usual!’ 

I was aware that this girl was really early starting, and most of my friends hadn’t but someone had to be the first and it started the conversations at home for me and all the girls in my year.

My mum used to say to me that one day i will start bleeding it could be while i was at school but that was okay and she stocked me up with period related parrifinalea, she used to be open about her periods and never hid tampons away….when we asked what they were she would tell us. It felt scary but not embarrassing or secretive as I know some people were brought up to believe.
It felt like a ticking time bomb, waiting for it to happen to me, i remember clearly a stage where it was obvious more girls had started than hadn’t and it was no longer a regular narrative as part of the school day, and then it felt odd, why hasn’t it happened to me yet? Yes it sounds traumatic but the girls said you got used to it, but not with me.
When I was older- high school definitely but unsure at what stage, i was sitting in a PE class with a good friend of mine and a girl i wasn’t very close with, she was okay but she said what she thought and wasn’t afraid to let her opinions be well and truly heard, i have always been the shy type who would hate to say anything to upset anyone and i found her pretty intimidating to be honest with you! Anyway…we were sat on the bench in the hall and she was ill, and wasn’t joining in, i’m pretty sure we were trying to skive off too (iv’e never been athletic)  we were standing with her and she said something about having really bad PMT, my friend clearly understood and sympathised with her and how it happens to her all the time, i literally had ZERO clue what they were on about… nothing..she looked ill and i had no experience with periods and what they can do to you, so i asked what that was?!

The memory is so clear for me, when i think of it i still feel the same fear i felt then, like, SHIT iv’e dropped myself in it here! They both stared at me like i was mad, and the mouthy girl said in her loudest voice, how do you not know what PMT is?? I felt so stupid and it clicked straight away that is must be period related, and that fear i had previously of getting periods and feeling embarrassed went away in a flash, and from then on it was all i wanted, and the embarrassment moved to that of not having them, and the fear of being different from others!

There came a time….

not too long after that…I’m sure a difficult one for my mum, where she said she thought we should go to the doctors about me not having any periods, by then i had given myself a complex and couldn’t think of anything worse that talking to my mother, let alone a doctor about this stuff, from what I had heard I didn’t want them, they sounded traumatic so I put it off until finally she booked the appointment for me.

At this point children/sex/reproduction non of it had crossed my mind at all, it didn’t really matter that i hadn’t started other than feeling different from my friends, but obviously my mum knew differently, she was getting worried, in hindsight i can totally appreciate why, but at the time i felt like it was more pressure, and i just wanted to block it out!

I am going to leave it there for now, i know i haven’t got very far into the story, but its good to have background and there it is.. a lot of what i remember i actually wrote down at the time, on a giant computer that took up my WHOLE desk in my room! It was great to get my concerns down though, as it felt then, like it has done for most of this journey that nobody could really understand how i was feeling.

I would love you guys to give me feedback on the theme of these posts, i think it will probably be 3 or 4 that will cover it, do you think it is of interest to others? I am hoping so, and i think at the time if i could read someone else’s story i probably wouldn’t have felt quite so alone!!