Don't Ignore...Yourself!

As you can see, it is the close of National Infertility Awareness Week.  They sponsored a blogging challenge with the theme of "Don't Ignore...", and as I am always up for a challenge...I accept.

Obviously I picked "Don't Ignore...Yourself!"  Of the many things I learned on the crazy hell-ride that is infertility is that it is super easy to get consumed.  Infertility consumes your life, marriage, and happiness.  While undergoing fertility treatments, it is so easy to let your life revolve around your ovaries.  You forget how to enjoy life because all you can think about is am I eating the right things, doing the right things, taking my medication at the right times and hoping against hopes that this is going to be your cycle.  

Through the process, it is easy to ignore all the things that made you happy.  I know I let myself become too miserable to enjoy anything.  I loathed my husband's ability to live his life and enjoy things and people when what we were going through was just so sad.  I allowed myself to wallow in my pain.  I avoided things and activities that made me happy because I just didn't want to be happy for anything but having a child.  Trust me, infertility treatments are sad enough in their own right, you don't need to add to that.

Worse than that, I ignored the things in my life that weren't making me happy in the first place.  Infertility really has been a gift to me in a way, because I am forced to look at the things in my life that were making me miserable, and I am getting a chance to fix them.  I put those things aside, because I thought being a mom would make me care less about them. It wouldn't have, and I risked jeopardizing my entire family's happiness on the shoulders of an infant.  What a terrible burden to place on a child!

So, if you're seeking any advice from a thus far unsuccessful infertile, it is this.  Take a deep breath and seize the moment!  Take the opportunity to examine the current state of your life.  Are you happy? Fulfilled? Are you proud enough of who you are to say that to your child? If you can say yes, then proceed.  No matter what road to a child you take, you will be successful.  It may not look like what you thought or originally wanted, but if you are truly happy with everything else in your life...the details of how your child came to be won't be near as important.

If you can't, then I strongly urge you to take a little extra time.  Work on yourself and resolve those issues or at least figure out a way to be at peace with them without a child in the picture.  Afterall, don't you want to bring a child into a happy home?  I do.

Peace, love, and being otherwise happy despite infertility,

Mary Katherine