I haven’t written about infertility for a while now but it’s always hanging at the back of my mind. Even as we think about having a sibling for the littlest of us all, the possibility that we will have to go through all that heartache again is something that has never left my thoughts.
Recently, a friend of mine confided that he and his wife had failed to conceive after a series of IUIs. Luckily for them, they conceived their two kids after one shot at IUI respectively. Well, I use the term “luckily” very loosely and reluctantly – if they were that lucky to begin with, they wouldn’t be needing the help of artificial reproductive technology (ART) to conceive in the first place. But in the world of infertility, getting it right the first time around is considered extremely fortunate indeed.
Anyway, given their age, they have decided that this would be their last shot at having another child, despite their strong desire to add another little one to their family. He teared while sharing the news with us and it was patently obvious that the decision to give up was not an easy one to make.
While sharing this story with two other friends who also went through IVF, the first reaction that I got from both, on separate occasions, was: but they already have two, they should consider themselves lucky.
It’s true, and yet as I watched him wipe his tears, I realised that the pain of secondary infertility is no lesser than that of primary infertility. The longing for a child is not lessened by the fact that you already have children. While yes, it may help the heartache fade away easier, it’s still painful nonetheless.
Sometimes, I find that those of us who have gone through infertility tend to be a lot more judgmental. Unconsciously, we compare the amount of trauma and hoops that we have had to jump. To be honest, I am guilty of that myself too.
You went through one IUI? Pish, that’s nothing compared to SEVEN.
I had to go through 3 IVFs to conceive, you are so lucky to get your baby at your first IVF.
The thing is, ultimately, all infertility survivors are champions. Full stop. Every journey, every experience is different. Some are stronger than others, some are still searching for that happily ever after. But in the end, we are all brave, brave souls because we dare to take the unknown by the horns and wrestle for a different future.
We are all strong people because we DO something to solve the problem. We try and we try and despite the tears and the heartbreaks, we try and try again. Every little Clomid tablet that we take, every raging headache that we suffer from due to the influx of hormones in our bodies, every experience with the freaking speculum, every indignity that we willingly go through – we do it again and again.
So no matter how many IVFs we had to go through, or how many times we crumbled at the tell-tale sign that our efforts did not succeed, we are all brave and strong.
We wrote on this ema early in our journey while on holiday in Tokyo.
Yannisms 