Against the Dark

Rebecca, 51. Mother of one.

He’s called George. 

George is 18.

I am infertile.

I wasn’t always. And I don’t often say it out loud.

Part of me thinks that I would only be saying it to draw attention to myself.

Like it was an invite to a pity party.

Mind you, sometimes I think I’d at least like the sympathy, if not the pity.

Being infertile does, after all, suck.

It hurts deep inside.

Right in my heart – maybe that’s where I carried my imagined children as I grew up?

It’s like there’s an innate bit of me that was put there to ‘mother’.

Like it was built to be used, and the more time passed and I didn’t conceive a third time,

the more it became inflamed. 

Angry? Broken?

Devastated? 

Yeah,  I was properly devastated.

Maybe I still am?

Why don’t I say it out loud?

Hmm… good question.

Can I first tell you a bit more about back when I was fertile?

Pregnancy took about 3 – or maybe 6? – months? 

It felt like an eternity, but I guess it was pretty normal.

We had a fairly easy nine months, and what would’ve been a very quick labour, were we not back-to-back… 

After 22 hours, George was born by C-Section.

Sigh. A whole other story – not only am I infertile, but I never ‘gave birth’ either. (See How can I be a mother if I never gave birth?)

Aren’t we all brought up to think we will procreate – ooh, be careful, you really wouldn’t want to get pregnant by accident (what the fuck would that even look like?!).

Then we will give birth in some miracle fashion – pushing our baby down the birth canal in a pool of warm water. The most excruciating pain – that we will instantly forget – will be the most amazing thing we will ever do in our life…

Fuck. That.

When George was about 2 – or maybe nearly 3 – we were ready to try again.

And we tried.

And tried.

Tried.

I had some tests after a few years – and a very traumatic miscarriage – but, all was well. My egg count was good. No obvious problems.

My husband never got as far as being tested, but we had always said – pre ever trying for children – that if we couldn’t conceive naturally we would adopt. 

There are so many children out there needing parents so, we didn’t look into it any further.

We went through all the usual things.

Tracking my cycle. Tracking my temperature. Having sex every other day. Just not worrying about it and it’ll happen naturally.

Yeah, yeah.

Fuck that too.

Eventually, I had a breakdown.

Diagnosis: Generalised Anxiety Disorder.

I started taking antidepressants.

I didn’t want to conceive on drugs.

We’d tried for 9 years.

I was 42.

We stopped trying. 

And at long last I was able to start to heal.

I could begin to accept.

To know the outcome.

I was so grateful – or certainly was with hindsight – to have an end and a new beginning.

Even if it wasn’t the life we had planned, dreamed of, or thought we’d have – it was a life I could begin to imagine again.

And so we carried on.

We had one child.

Not the plan, but nobody’s fault.

It just wasn’t meant to be.

We were meant to be three.

One flipping awesome boy. He got so many opportunities he wouldn’t have had if he’d had siblings. He loved that he didn’t have them. Happy, content and very well travelled. A win for him!

And life ticked along quite happily.

I continued to have pretty crap periods.

I couldn’t walk upright when I was on.

I would sit in a large chair and woe betide anyone who should accidentally brush past me.

Using the toilet was excruciating, but periods are painful, right?

We all know that.

More painful than labour it turns out.

I didn’t remember being told this.

But periods are painful, right? 

Thinking I was perimenopausal I went to the GP.

Things escalated pretty fast from that moment.

Endometriosis.

Severe. Deep-seated.

Common symptoms?

Very painful periods.

Abnormal, heavy or irregular bleeding.

Fatigue.

Anxiety.

Difficulty getting pregnant.

Infertility…

Infertility.

I still get a lump in my throat saying that.

Maybe a few tears welling up behind my eyes.

A kick in the gut.

Feeling winded.

It was me?

All the years of trying.

Of failure.

It was a joint venture, wasn’t it?

It was something we couldn’t do.

It was more of an outside, worldly thing – in the blue skies, in the beautiful flowers, in the moments on the beach breathing in the sea air, looking out at the horizon.

It had been our destiny.

And then, in a fumbling, not that monumental moment, the doctor was telling us it was ME.

It was ME that had failed us. 

MY body. 

MY brain. 

MY inability to fulfil everyone’s dreams.

I am infertile.

I don’t often say it out loud.

Part of me thinks that I would only say it to draw attention to myself.

Like it was an invite to a pity party.

Saying it out loud will make other people hurt, no?

Because of my hurt. 

(Could that be a neurodivergent thing?) 

For sure I feel if I am too honest, all it does is transfer some of that pain onto other people? And what right – or why – would I do that?

My Mum once said that she hurt so much for me.

She’s dead now, so of course I’d love to hug her and thank her for taking some of the hurt away from me. 

But at the time I was cross. 

I was hurting so much – even though on a day-to-day basis I was learning to accept it by then – I still didn’t have the capacity to acknowledge the hurt she felt as well as my own.

It felt like, not only had I hurt me beyond words – I’d stolen my husband’s chance of another child. I’d stolen so much from my son – firstly a playmate, then someone to share those childhood experiences with, actually, not just childhood – whole life experiences – and ultimately someone to share the burden of care that will come with our old age.

And now I knew I’d caused my Mum so much pain too.

Wow, it hurts to write all that.

Can I – should I – take on that level of responsibility for everyone’s feelings?

I’m old enough, wise enough, to know the answer is no.

But it was my body that failed.

Failed me. And failed them too.

I am infertile.

I don’t often say it out loud.

Part of me thinks that I would only say it to draw attention to myself.

Like it was an invite to a pity party.

Mind you, sometimes I think I’d like at least the sympathy, if not the pity.

Being infertile sucks.