Today starts Infertility Awareness Week. I’ve had a few thoughts about infertility that I’ve wanted to share for a while, but have been kind of waiting for my ideas to fall into place. In a way, infertility is maybe harder for me to talk about now that I’ve had kids than it was when I was waiting for them. Infertility used to be such a consuming part of my life. I mean, I tried to focus on other things, and I think Spencer and I have always been pretty good at enjoying each other and our time together. But Infertility used to be on my mind a lot. How could it not be? Between monitoring my temperature first thing when I woke up in the morning to sometimes daily doctors appointments… between the charts, kits, pills, drugs, and tests… between other people’s baby showers and pregnancy announcements… between the frenzied hope and desire at the beginning of the month to the acute heartache and despair at the end of it, it’s kinda hard to forget even when you’re trying not to dwell on it.
Infertility is not the all-consuming presence in my life that it used to be, much to my happiness and gratitude. I think the main reason I don’t TALK about infertility as much as I used to is because I don’t THINK about it as much as I used to. But sometimes, usually pretty rarely, infertility is still hard. Even now, as a mother to two spectacular little boys, there are still things about myself and my path to parenthood that make me feel like I don’t fit in. Infertility can be isolating and lonely.
However, after over seven years of infertility, I can say that while I will never love the heartache of infertility, I have developed an appreciation for how it has shaped my story.
Infertility led me to my boys. You may say that if it weren’t for infertility then I probably would have had kids anyway. But the thing is, they wouldn’t have been MY Mason and MY Kellen. Those mischievous, curly-haired, curious, sweet, little fire-engine-loving boys who are currently sound asleep cuddled up with their stuffed monkey and stuffed alligator respectively. I can’t think about life without infertility, because what if that would have meant life without them? Infertility is part of what created our family and it is definitely one of the significant things that makes me… me.
For years I have tried to think of the perfect way to explain the feeling I have that our children were meant to be ours. It may be one of the very few things I feel and know with more certainty than anything else I have ever known or felt. I love those boys so deeply, so abundantly, so consumingly. I wouldn’t change a single thing about them, most especially the way they came to me. You see, the waiting for them so long, and the wanting them so much is part of what makes them so precious.
So during this week when I’m thinking a bit more about infertility than I usually do, I will try to feel even more grateful for my family. I will try to be more thoughtful to those who are in pain or struggling. I will try to include those who are feeling lonely. I will try to remember those feeling forgotten. And I will try to use the insights and empathy I am developing through my struggles with infertility to continue to become a better Whitney.
