Motherhood.

This post is probably harder for me to write and be open about than all of the mental health problems I’ve been through in the last year, +.

Earlier, on Facebook, my mum had shared a beautiful piece written about motherhood (seen here https://www.facebook.com/karen.luck/posts/666370319162 ). It had me in tears and got me thinking about our struggle to conceive, and the endless bites I have written about it, saved for “one day”. In my mind that one day was once we had conceived, carried, birthed, a health baby – but what if that day never comes? And don’t tell me it will all happen when it’s meant to – because you don’t know that for sure. For me; it’s meant to be now! I can only hope (amongst other things!!) it will come – but conception is a miracle as it is without any added difficulties….

I don’t ovulate. I do now ~ it would appear ~ with the aid of some medication. I have my “old” (she was young, but I have finished CBT, for now) therapist to thank for getting this far; for managing to draw that anxiety out of me, still not knowing the half of it, but raising it with my GP to help me get the ball rolling. Yet still we haven’t successfully conceived or carried a healthy baby. We have one little question mark of miscarriage under our belts and every month or so I find myself in tears once again.

I can feel my own anxiety and self-pressures bubbling away in my belly. Translating into insomnia, panic attacks, increased anxiety about random given situations, and now, at times into IBS. I’m not sure any kind of therapy would ever resolve some of these new anxieties. All this anxiety is literally pressure I am applying to myself for no real reason – so why am I still doing it? Years ago ~ some of you may remember this! ~ I announced to James that if he wasn’t going to ever propose (yeah, we’d been waiting forEVER!), then we’d start trying for a baby when I turned 26. He proposed 6 months before.

He proposed – so why do I still apply the fact that I am now just over a month away from being 3 years older than 26 – to being “behind”?! The only explanation I can come up with for this; is that we’d now be an extra 13 months down the line of trying – but that potentially might mean nothing!

It’s almost laughable to think now – of the speed at which my heart beat 7 years ago in the sheer panic at the possibility of being pregnant as James and I bought our first house, as I sat with a doctor testing my urine sample due to stomach cramps, convinced that the test was saying pregnant. How “inconvenient” timing would have been to have been pregnant then; how financially we weren’t ready, how really, we should be married first. I wish I could turn back time and ignore all of those social expediencies. James and I have been together for so long – we were and are always going to be together; being married or financially  “ready” for a baby is nothing when that body clock is ticking. Our families would never have seen us, or their grandchildren, struggle anyway.

Why wasn’t I being open and honest to everyone about this pain? Some of our friends know, but even my brother, parents and in laws are unaware of these struggles. Because it hurts, breaks my heart. Because sometimes I just can’t talk about it anymore; because I’m tired of being the one always in tears.A potential direct result of years of abuse to my body unbeknown to my mind.
More evidence for those ignorant disbelievers, of mental health issues affecting me physically. Please tell me again that this is all in my head?

I have tried all the typical tempting-fate scenarios. We’ve booked THAT long haul holiday (roll on September!), I’ve signed up to another half marathon and VLM 2017. I’ve tried talking about it and not talking about it and even attempting the impossible; to no think about it. To not over worry myself about it. I’ve tried to stop taunting myself by following friends or even strangers on Facebook and Instagram posting perfect family pictures with their perfect bouncing bundles of joy; only to find myself finding new people bouncing babies to cry over.
I’ve reduced my “over-exercise” and worked ridiculously hard to fight age-old instincts to starve myself or purge (bar once; and that little question mark is the horrible reminder of what I’ve done). I’ve been taking the recommended folic acid supplement for almost longer than a full term human pregnancy; we better have the healthiest happiest baby ever at some point!

And please, please don’t mention the big A. Adoption. James and I are practically childhood sweethearts. We’ve been together more of my adult life than we haven’t. We feel in love quickly and I knew right from those early days I wanted his children. Our children. I do not want the offspring of someone who didn’t want children and yet didn’t bother to think of the consequences of unprotected sex; and was fortunate enough to conceive the impossible; a beautiful baby.