A 'Proper' Family

by Bex

It was brought to my attention recently that I may have caused offence to people with the post I wrote when I was really struggling.  When I wrote that post, I think it was clear that I really was in a pit of despair and I wasn't coping very well at all with everything that has happened over the last few months.  I mentioned a lot of my feelings at the time and also all of the things I was worried we would never get to experience.  One of those things was feeling like a proper family, making people grandparents and uncles.  I absolutely never meant to imply that not having children means you aren't a proper family.  I absolutely respect that some people choose not to have children and others, like us, simply can't and for whatever reason decide not to pursue other routes such as adoption.  Of course I realise that a life without children can be a happy one but for me, at that time, I couldn't see that for my life.  Having wanted children for years and always having assumed it would one day happen made it hard for me to deal with the fact it may not.  When that possibility was constantly slipping out of our reach I really struggled to see the good things in life.

Reading it back, I do sound awfully dramatic about it all.  At the time, I was genuinely convinced that our chance at ever being pregnant was over.  I was grieving for that loss.  You may not understand that as I never had a child to grieve but I had lost something.  Our child has always existed to me.  Yes, only in my head, but ever since we decided to start trying for a family, or if I'm being honest, even before that, I could imagine our family life.  And back when I wrote that post, I was trying to come to terms with the fact that our family was never going to be the way we expected.

I had already dealt with the fact that our route to start a family was different, we could no longer just make it happen, we needed help from doctors, nurses and embryologists.  When it seemed like even that was beyond reach, the decision to start a family was no longer in our hands.  If we go down the adoption route - someone else makes the decision about whether we ever get to be parents!  That scares me.

The thing is, I guess it depends on your definition of family.  As you can see above, I have said the words "start a family" a few times because that's what we all say when we decide to have children.  It doesn't mean that you don't already have a family.  If anything, I feel like I have a huge family as I count many of my friends as family given that many of my actual family live far away.  But having grown up always thinking that one day I would get to have a family of my own, i.e. have children.  Having that possibility taken away from me has been very hard to bare.  It was part of our wedding ceremony, that we wanted to share a life together and start a family.  That is all I meant by my comment.  That and the fact I know our parents also wish to be grandparents.  Seeing others sharing their new young families with the rest of their family, uncles, aunties, cousins, I just want to be able to do the same thing.

I know fairness has nothing to do with it, we are no more or less deserving than anyone else who wants a baby but the feeling of just how unfair it seems that we want this so much and it still wasn't happening was too much for me on top of everything else - not knowing where we'd be living, Nik having been on nights all week, a general feeling of lack of control over our lives.  I gave up.  I'm not proud of that but I am grateful to have received so much love and understanding at the really tough times.

I wish I could have handled this whole experience better.  I wrote about how I couldn't see a future and had nothing to look forward to.  Luckily that has now changed (even before our doctor miraculously managed to navigate my crazy cervix to implant our embryos, I actually started writing this before that happened!) and I can look forward to living in Brighton, we have a holiday to enjoy, there are lots of weekends of plans coming up...

I do know how lucky we are, even though it doesn't always feel like it but I'm sorry, sometimes the sadness just takes over because when you want something THIS much and this life changing and it just seems like it will never happen, it can get hard to see the good things.  I don't mean to only dwell on the bad.  And I am so grateful for my husband, family and friends who stand by me and help to pull me out of that pit and see the good things in life again.  I'm glad I never stay down for long.  Thank you for believing for me, for having hope when mine was lost and for sticking by me even though I thought I'd lost myself.

I have been told I have a romantic view of what having a baby will be like and yes, that is true.  I'm pretty sure all soon-to-be mothers probably do but I have always been realistic about it too.  Having seen friends go through some pretty tough times with newborns and toddlers it would be impossible to have an entirely rosy view of life with a baby!  I've even said in previous posts how I try to think of all the things I wouldn't enjoy such as lack of sleep, constant worry, being covered in vomit and poo (and I'm sure there are many, many more challenges to being a mother) when it seems like we will be missing out on so much.  But that's just it.  I've also seen the joy, happiness and magic in people's lives as a result of their children and that's what I'm so afraid I may never get to experience.  The good comes with the bad but I'd still want to be part of the good.  Reading magical comments like those on this post over on Florence Finds can be hard when things are not going well but also remind me that it's a big thing we're going through, whether it works or not, and wanting it isn't just in my head - my body wants it too which makes this so much harder to deal with at times.  I was hormonal and particularly emotional during that very bad week which just made everything seem so much worse.

Sometimes I wonder if we're being spared - perhaps I would have a horrendously difficult pregnancy, or really struggle to cope with being a mother.  I still can't imagine not getting to be a mother though and it's not just the baby stuff I think about.  I do think adoption could bring us happiness but it doesn't take away the grief we feel for the start of family life we thought we'd have.  (I also feel guilty for not just adopting anyway since there are so many children in need of a good home, but that's another post in itself and adoption brings with it so many different challenges which we need to be prepared to face.  We're just not ready for that yet.)  My counsellor has reassured me that everything I have been feeling is totally normal considering what we've been going through and I am not the only one dealing with IVF and having all of these thoughts.  That is one of the reasons why I write about it.  As much as I might cringe when I look back over certain posts, I'm leaving them there because they are utterly honest account of how I feel as we struggle through this time.  Life isn't always happy, even if it may seem from the outside like it should be and although I try not to dwell on things too much, I won't can't ignore the bad times.  I chose to write about IVF, with Nik's permission, and I will always write the full story, warts and all, even if it does make me seem a bit dramatic from time to time!

I guess I just wanted to try to explain myself better, when not in a bad place.  I hate the thought of being misunderstood and would never mean to cause offence to anyone.