A silent anniversary passed a few months ago – it’s one that I don’t necessarily want to take note of, but it’s one of those irritating ones that will forever be lodged in my brain – *click* another year has passed. Not just one year older (and hopefully wiser!), but one more year that we don’t have a little addition to the Ring household.
Being well into our 3rd year now since we started this, it is hard to imagine that it will ever happen for us and I flit between believing it will, being indifferent and being absolutely certain that we will remain just the 2 of us. And most days that’s fine, but as most women can probably understand, some days it’s not. And those days are genuinely very few and far between – I don’t allow myself to get down about it too often, but I do allow myself the occasional ‘woe is me’ allotted timeslot of 5 minutes. And it strikes me at the weirdest times. I’ve had a few of those in the past 2 weeks, so I’m just about out of my allowance for the next few months!
Everybody gets it right? At whatever point you are in your life, there is always something that seems unachievable. As a teenager when all your friends have finally been noticed by their secret crushes, you wonder when it’ll ever be your turn. When you’re out of work or in a job that doesn’t really fulfil you, you wonder if it’ll ever turn around for you. If you haven’t met someone you want to spend your life with by the time you’re 30, you wonder if it’ll ever happen for you. If you have a terrible break-up, you wonder if you’ll ever be able to find love again. And it goes on and on and on. All these things my friends and countless others are struggling with, I don’t happen to be struggling with right now, but it just goes to show that we all have our own battles and it’s up to us to determine whether we’re going to wallow or whether we’re going to come out the other side of it with all guns blazing, knowing that we’ve got the mindset to make it happen – or at least know that we’ve tried our absolute best! After all, the 'want to' creates the 'how to'.
This is the point we’re heading to. We have done the doctor’s appointments, the fertility drugs and all the unromantic stuff. And that’s all we can do. We’ve just been living our lives for the most part of this year so far, totally uncommitted to ovulation tests and calendars. Since the, frankly apathetic, fertility specialist uttered the words ‘the only option for you now is assisted conception’ in February, I really haven’t bothered about it all. And it’s been liberating! It took a couple of months to let go of all the structure that comes with battling infertility, but one day I just suddenly couldn’t remember when last I worried about all of it. And I’m in a genuinely happy place now, knowing that the stress of all of it is behind me. The future stress is figuring out where to next. The most asked question I get whenever I chat to anybody about this is ‘have you considered IVF or adoption?’. Absolutely no offence to anybody who has ever asked me this, because I absolutely understand that it is an obvious one to ask, but just know that it is an equally obvious one to consider when you’re going through this, so the answer is always ‘yes’. Yes, we have considered it. We have talked in length about it and the reality is that for reasons that I will not put down here, adoption is not an option for us. And yes, we’ve considered IVF, but the answer to that one is much more simple. We can’t afford it. I have only 4 months of the year next year when I will be eligible for free IVF on the NHS, however there is a BIG ‘but’. Because I have PCOS, it is incredibly difficult for me to lose weight. And before you ask, yes, I’ve tried everything. Low Carb diet, exercise, Metformin, completely changed diet and attitude to food, the works. Still nothing. And without losing more than ¼ of my body weight, the NHS won’t even give me the time of day. And why 4 months, you ask? Because... get this... I’ll be too old as of the 16th November next year – my 35th birthday. Yes, you read that right. But I don't define myself by my weight, I take absolute responsibility for it.
We are so incredibly lucky in other ways and it is not lost on me that we have the lifestyle that we have because we don’t have children and I am very grateful for the fact that we are able to see the world. It is something I’ve wanted to do since I first came to the UK all on my own in 2000, however I didn’t truly start exploring and seeing the world until I met Dave. So yeah, I’ve just had to learn to take some and lose some. And believe me, we take FAR more than we lose, which is a pretty good place to be in.
George Bernard Shaw said "There are 2 tragedies in life – one is to lose your heart’s desire and the other is to gain it".
Money, success, possessions. These are the things that we leave something behind in order to find, whether it be home or dreams or even our health. But in doing that, we leave behind family, friendship and love – the things we already had. I always actively try to concentrate on the things I have, not on the things I thought that I possibly might have one day. One day might come and it might not, but if or when it does, I’ll know that I’ve worked hard to appreciate everything up until that point. Although life is the longest thing you ever do, it’s still too short to live with regrets.
So this post doesn’t really have any point other than to get these thoughts out of my head and my heart and onto paper (or screen?). And that makes me feel better! Onwards and upwards towards all those silver linings out there just waiting to be discovered! Oh, and the unicorn too.
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