National Infertility Awareness Week - You Are Not Alone

You are not alone. That's the message this year for National Infertility Awareness Week (#NIAW). You are not alone. Do you believe it? It feels like one of those things we all say but a lot of us have a hard time believing it. Feeling it. I don't feel it.

We are absolutely so much less alone than our spiritual sisters that came before us. Think of how alone it was more than 30 years ago? My parents tried for years. My mom says she had every test you could imagine, she read all the books she could find, and got nowhere. 3-4 years in they adopted my brother. As much as they loved him, that didn't heal the hurt of infertility. She still wanted to carry a child, give birth, and nurse a child. So they had more tests. They went through different procedures. She cried a lot. She was alone. She didn't have social media or any support. She didn't tell people because she didn't want to hear people tell her to relax or for them to offer her their kids. She didn't know of any support groups. (Happy ending: 7 years after adoption she went to the doctor with the flu and found out she was pregnant with me. 3 years later she has a 10 year old boy and 3 little girls 3 and under)

Now we have internet. We can connect with people who understand way more of how we feel than the average person. We have support groups, both virtual and physical, and where there may have been some support groups back then, now we have more, and we can find them. We can connect to them. We can find people so that we aren't alone.

But I still feel alone. No matter how many people I meet who have been on this road, we all have different experiences. Different things that affect us. Different triggers that tick us off or make us cry. We all approach things in different ways. We can't really understand what another person went through or how their experiences affected them emotionally. I will never know what it feels like to pay for In Vitro Fertilization and have it fail. One of my regular prayers is that I will never know what it feels like to lose a baby after hearing its heartbeat. Some have no idea how it feels to get pregnant after trying for years, tell the world, and lose it a week later. And you can't untell that kind of news.

Most people I have met seem to eventually get their miracle. Though intellectually I know I'm not, I feel like I'm the only person who won't have a baby. The only person who is filled with motherly instincts, who would give away my (relatively) uninterrupted nights and my late weekend mornings who will never have the option. I know I'm not alone. I'm not the only woman who has wanted a baby this bad but will never get one. But knowing something intellectually and feeling it for me is separated by a huge divide. I deal with it by ignoring it. By not thinking about it. By compartmentalizing my infertility away from every other part of my life. I'm really good at that. I know it's not healthy, but I just put those thoughts in that same box and be on my way.

When it comes to infertility (or any other difficult life situation), the best way to not be alone is to find people that, if they aren't on the same page as you, maybe they are at least somewhere in the book. Find people who can relate to the first time you found out that having a baby, the thing that seems to be the easiest thing in the world for all of those teen moms, was going to be harder for you than for the majority. Find someone who can relate to X amount of barren years. Someone who can relate to an excess number of failed months, of seeing that red stain and knowing that once again, this is not your month. Remember that you are not alone. Even though it feels like it.

As for how to go from knowing you are not alone to feeling like you are not alone, I'm stumped. I suppose that knowing it long enough and well enough and having enough evidence that points to not being alone, maybe the feelings will follow.