Today, while commenting on a fellow blogger's post about her recent BFP. I realized something about my own fears, and probably the fears of many infertiles, when first getting that BFP after struggling with infertility for so long. I think part of what makes our worries so strong, isn't just the terrible, gnawing fear of losing what we've worked towards for so long, but is also the lack of trust we have in our own bodies to do that which they were designed to do.
Infertility, for so many women, represents a failure of our bodies to be able to do something that it seems should be as natural as breathing in and out. We begin to hate ourselves, doubt our femininity, and hate what we think of as our "broken" bodies, as month after month our hopes at conceiving are not just dashed, but stomped into the dust in a painful, bloody show. We watch, helpless, as our bodies bleed out yet another month of beautiful dreams of a baby already so real that we can feel the curl of their little hand wrapped around our fingers. It's a betrayal, a deception! Our bodies look normal, but inside something is wrong, and we can't help but feel we have failed as a woman, a wife, a girlfriend, etc.
Furthermore, many of us have not only experienced first hand the pain of repeated chemical, ectopic, or blighted ovum pregnancies, miscarriages, cervical issues, preterm labor, and other losses, but we have watcher our sisters in the IF community going through them as well. So really is it any wonder we find it near impossible to trust our bodies to do what they are supposed to do, once we do find ourselves clutching that positive pee stick?
After holding my own positive pregnancy test, watching to see if the tests would grow darker before even thinking to hope, crying in panicked relief over each successive beta test and then each ultrasound, I quickly realized I had completely lost faith in my body, and I was expecting the worst at every moment. Doctors, midwives, family, books, all told me the safest place for my little one was and would always be, tucked away in my perfectly designed by nature womb, but it took daily affirmations, the baby reaching viability, and a lot of visits to the OB and midwife, to really begin to believe them.
There will always be fear, I know -- after all, I'm almost 30 now and my own mother and grandmother have never stopped worrying about me -- but at 32 weeks I prefer feeling confident that my body knows what it is doing. Something could always go wrong, but I prefer to have faith in my womb, in my cervix, and in myself. I prefer to believe, that regardless of what it took to get here, nature made me perfectly to carry this little one to term and deliver her safely into the world.
I guess all I'm trying to say is, there is hope for us all, and we can learn to trust our bodies again but it is a long road for any IFer staring down at two pink lines. In the meanwhile, don't let anyone tell you that you are worrying for nothing, that your fears are silly, or that you should just relax and celebrate. Take your own time finding your peace with your body and your pregnancy, and enjoy what you can until you are able to enjoy more fully.
Furthermore, many of us have not only experienced first hand the pain of repeated chemical, ectopic, or blighted ovum pregnancies, miscarriages, cervical issues, preterm labor, and other losses, but we have watcher our sisters in the IF community going through them as well. So really is it any wonder we find it near impossible to trust our bodies to do what they are supposed to do, once we do find ourselves clutching that positive pee stick?
After holding my own positive pregnancy test, watching to see if the tests would grow darker before even thinking to hope, crying in panicked relief over each successive beta test and then each ultrasound, I quickly realized I had completely lost faith in my body, and I was expecting the worst at every moment. Doctors, midwives, family, books, all told me the safest place for my little one was and would always be, tucked away in my perfectly designed by nature womb, but it took daily affirmations, the baby reaching viability, and a lot of visits to the OB and midwife, to really begin to believe them.
There will always be fear, I know -- after all, I'm almost 30 now and my own mother and grandmother have never stopped worrying about me -- but at 32 weeks I prefer feeling confident that my body knows what it is doing. Something could always go wrong, but I prefer to have faith in my womb, in my cervix, and in myself. I prefer to believe, that regardless of what it took to get here, nature made me perfectly to carry this little one to term and deliver her safely into the world.
I guess all I'm trying to say is, there is hope for us all, and we can learn to trust our bodies again but it is a long road for any IFer staring down at two pink lines. In the meanwhile, don't let anyone tell you that you are worrying for nothing, that your fears are silly, or that you should just relax and celebrate. Take your own time finding your peace with your body and your pregnancy, and enjoy what you can until you are able to enjoy more fully.
