Hello everyone,Trigger warning:// infertility
It has almost been a year since I wrote a blog post and much has happened. On the 21st of October 2019, I received some devastating news which caused me to have to do a lot of self-work, self-care and self-assessment, in order to heal. A couple of months ago, I sat down to write this post, but at this point, I just was not ready. Even now, I have second thoughts as to whether I should be writing about this at all. I feel a weird sense of shame surrounding the topic. However, I am one of many, and I should not feel shame. I hope by sharing my story, I may help somebody. Maybe you're someone who can have children, but does not want to, and you feel judged by society for such a mindset. Or like me, you fall into the unfortunate category of women, who would one day love to be mothers, but cannot. This is how I learned, aged 20, that despite what society tells us, women do not need children to feel fulfilled and you can in fact know what 'real love' is, without birthing a human. The real love I talk of, is found inside and if you haven't yet found it, I hope this post helps you along the way. A little context is needed to understand my story. I was born 7 weeks premature via emergency c-section and had open heart surgery at 9 months old. Although I am generally healthy now, this prematureness, came back to bite me in the uterus twenty years later. When you turn 12/13, it is usual for girls to get their first period, and I did – aged 13. Except my situation was not normal. For the forceable future, I’d get one and nothing for 6-9 months. This cycle continued. There were a few times when a pattern did occur, and I thought FINALLY!! IT IS FINALLY BECOMING REGULAR! No more surprises! - perhaps that was the worst thing. I was never prepared, I mean how could I possibly prepare. This was also very dehumanising because I found myself in my late teens, still struggling to deal with a very normal part of being a woman. Now, if this was anyone else, they’d be on their way to a pregnancy scan! *insert laughter, I use humour as a coping mechanism*. Sixteen and concerned, I went to my GP who reassured me that it was not uncommon to have irregular periods and to wait a few years, it should regulate itself. However, nothing changed. At aged twenty, I returned. Deep down, there was always the fear that I might be infertile. What I was not prepared for though, is the further complications, which I will get to later. Given my many medical complications in the past, it was always a fear of mine. Without anyone ever mentioning the possibility to me, it was my biggest fear. Why? Because I adore children. Some people can’t stand children. They’re loud, throw tantrums and sometimes, can be very testing. But I still adore them. So, it was a fear, and long before I heard the news from the gynecologist's mouth, I think I knew it was a reality. My GP still remained unalarmed, or maybe she just appeared that way for my sake, But, I had a gut feeling. How painfully, I knew. I didn’t really want to deal with the possibility of infertility so I asked for the contraceptive pill. I was sick of dealing with the irregularity and inconvenience of never knowing when a period may come. My GP wanted to make sure everything was as it should be, before putting me on anything. I was referred to a gynecologist and I had a scan. This is where my memory goes a little fuzzy, so forgive me if not everything I say is medically correct. The one thing I noticed, the couple of times I was there, was all the maternity photoshoots and pictures of babies on the wall. I just found it so insensitive to all the people like me, who walked through those doors. The scan came back relatively clear. My ovaries seemed maybe a little underdeveloped, which wasn’t uncommon for premature babies, but given a few years, they should be ok. She decided to run some blood test just in case. Just in case. It was meant to be just in case. What was revealed was this – it seemed some months my ovaries decided to work, - hence the sporadic periods – but overall, they did not. I failed to produce the hormone estrogen, which controls the menstrual cycle. Now the short version of what all this means, is that I can’t have children. To add salt to the wound, I have a reduced amount of eggs (yey they never developed, wohoo prematureness!!), so freezing my eggs and having test tube babies is not an option. The real problem lay in the fact my body does not produce a hormone which is very important for bone health, cardiac health and god knows what else! This meant I would have to go on HRT (hormone replacement therapy). If I didn’t, I would enter early menopause and be at a high risk of heart disease, stroke and blood clots by the end of my twenties. It was a no brainer, and although HRT brings its own risks, going without was far worse. So, I went on estrogen patches, for maybe two months. I did not realise how badly I reacted to these, until I had to come off them, for reasons completely unrelated to anything discussed in this post. While on them, I was essentially depressed. I couldn’t have more than one alcoholic drink without having a panic attack and I was constantly crying. I convinced myself that it was just my body catching up for lost time as I enduring three 7-day periods in 6 weeks. The pain of which, was crippling. On my check-up appointment, I learned that these patches should not have caused me to bleed at all which means they did the exact opposite of what they were meant to do. Finding this out was upsetting because I felt as though I was running out of time. I was aware of the consequences if we didn’t find a fix and was angry at the fact the problem hadn’t been flagged when I originally started asking questions, at age 16, four years previous. I am now on a pill form, called ‘Trisequens’, and thankfully, it seems to be a much better fit. The heartbreak of all this, happened in two waves. The first wave happened on the 21st of October 2019, when I initially found out I couldn’t have children, and I would have to go on HRT until my early 50’s - that’s the majority of my life, which is a scary thought in and of itself. The second wave happened on the 17th of February 2020, when I found out the patches were not working and that there was no way I would ever have a biological child – I literally do not have the eggs to facilitate it. This leads me to my next point. When I first found out, many people kept bombarding me with the fact that medicine is always advancing. People told me I could always adopt or foster – as if it was meant to be a consolation or a substitute. But it is not. It is not the same. Nothing will make it the same. To some people, that’s a comfort but for me, it is the last thing I wanted to hear. From October to February, I did a lot of crying, talking to friends and more crying. I healed and I will talk more about that soon, but something else happened too. I started to cling to the hope of medical advances because at this point, I was not aware of the lack of eggs and it was the glimmer of hope I tried to fight but couldn’t let go of yet. This is what made the second wave so strange. I had made peace with not having children and I had grieved. But what I found out in February meant there was no hope of a biological child under any circumstances and that was heartbreaking. It is a funny thing. Grieving something you never had. I grieved what I thought my life would be, what my future would look like. To anyone who hasn’t experienced anything like this, and I hope you never do, it sounds dramatic. But, I didn’t know what my purpose in life was anymore. I didn’t know what my future looked like. I felt like the chance for any future had been ripped out of my hands. The societal narrative does not help women who face infertility. I have heard many people say that you don’t really know what love is until you have a child. I have also heard people say you don’t feel fulfilled until you have a child. So, along with all the hurt and trauma, was the thought that my life was now meaningless. It has taken many many tears, and sleepless nights – but I set new life goals, different life goals. I warmed up to the idea of adoption and I have come to terms with the fact that although the route may look a little different to how I thought originally, I will still get to be a mother, if I choose to. My life goals now, are career orientated and I can’t wait to see what the future holds. I have also grown to love myself and the body I live in. For a long time, I was angry. I was angry that yet again, my body had malfunctioned. I have grown to appreciate all the good things about it, like the fact my hands allow me to play multiple instruments and my legs run on a treadmill, in a way that makes me feel powerful when I sometimes feel powerless. I love how my laugh fills a room and how resilient I am. I am more than the things I am not. I hope this post helps anyone in their teens or early twenties, who finds them in a similar situation. There were few resources or support groups online for people my age. Many for women in their 50’s going through menopause and lots for miscarriage survivors. But nothing for a twenty-year-old, infertile woman. That is why I have written this post. To let you know, you are not alone, and if you actively choose not to have children, you can still live a fulfilled life. Too much weight is placed on having children and it is a conversation I will continue to have to have for years to come. When the guy I’m on a date with, asks me how many children I want and if I have any names picked out. When I have to watch my friends get pregnant and raise children and experience life events I never will. It is not going to be easy, but I am strong. Life wouldn’t give me something I can’t handle and that is what I will continue to tell myself, on the bad days. This has been vulnerable, but there is power in being vulnerable. Stay safe, stay inside and stay in touch with loved ones, Rosie.
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Hello Lovelies, Growing up, I was an energetic child. I was never sporty. I took more of an interest in the arts; dancing, acting and anything that involved performing. I had an outlet up to a point. When I was nine, I had to have surgery on my leg, and that is when everything effectively stopped. I gave up dance and never went back. During my year of essentially learning how to walk again, the school started teaching camogie, football and soccer. When I arrived back a year later, everyone was already well advanced in their skills. I was lost in the midst of it all, trying to keep up. It didn't help matters that most of my classmates were doing one if not all of these sports outside school. As for me, I always got picked last for teams which didn't encourage me much. I don't blame my classmates because I have the coordination of a peanut, but at 11 years old, I concluded that sport and exercise was my enemy.
Hello Lovelies,Everyone has heard the phrase 'your teenage years/school years are the best years of your life'. For some, this may be true and if this was the case for you, I'm so glad that that was your experience. This post for those of you who didn't have such a happy experience. Whenever adults would tell me how lucky I was to be living through the most exciting time of my life, I would laugh nervously. I felt like I was going through hell and these comments really didn't offer much hope for the future. From the outside, everything seemed fine. I have always been myself and nothing else, and in secondary school, nobody ever gave me any hassle over it. On surface level, everyone was friendly, teachers and staff members were obliging and helpful. I should also point out that it wasn't all bad. I do have some fond memories and made some lifelong friends from school. I also understand why adults look back on their school days with rose-tinted glasses. Teenagers don't have any 'real life' worries or deal with the same issues that adults do. As we get older, life does get more complicated. I can see that only eight months after leaving but being more complicated isn't always synonymous with being worse. It also doesn't mean that the problems we deal with when we are younger, are any less important. I would argue that they are even more important, primarily because you don't have the wealth of life experience which teaches you how to deal with these things.
Hello Lovelies, |
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