I've recently become increasingly aware of my age, strange as that may seem. It's always been a foreign concept to me, probably because I'm incredibly lucky to still have friends I met at the age of 8 in my life. When you grow up with the same people, all growing up at the same time, turning a year older in quick succession alongside each other, you all just seem to remain the same age, never get older, always feel as though you're 'forever young'. Unfortunately, when it comes to that idyllic picture, if it includes children, the 'forever young' plan comes to a screeching halt at some point, because you realise that that pesky timeline is stretching further and further out and it's not something that you have much control over.
I never wanted to be an older mom. There has always just seemed to be time before now, but on the eve of my 37th birthday it hit me, this was the age by which I said I had to have children or this was it. It broke me. At the dinner table. With Dave looking on.... pretty horrified. Not out of embarrassment (I hope!), but because the tears just came from nowhere and he was concerned about this sudden flood of emotion from his (not normally overly dramatic) wife. I couldn't explain it at the time and I still can't, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop the tears flowing.
Infertility has been an annoying dark cloud hanging above our heads for the past almost 6 years. That's what it's been... an annoyance. Most of the time, I manage to ignore it and the shadow it casts, but every now and then, it sucks me in and the cloud and I have a bit of a face-off. I'm healthy. I've never broken a bone in my body. I can't remember the last time I had a cold or 'flu. I have never had the need to maintain a skin routine - up until I few years ago, I used to wash my face with shower gel. I used to have a washboard stomach - nobody who has met me in the past 6 years would ever believe that. I was once fit. I was a dancer for 16 years of my life, dancing 6 days a week, sometimes 6 hours a day. In between that, I fit in the swimming team, as well as the diving team. I also did the occasional high jump and athletics race, although I was definitely far from good at it. I was always more comfortable in my tap shoes or in any one of my dance classes (except ballet... because pointe shoes are created by evil goblins who hate feet) . I hate not feeling fit anymore, but I'm largely healthy, despite not having that level of energy anymore. In fact, apart from a minor form of skin cancer which is kept under control with regular check-ups and the occasional surgery, I'm absolutely fine. And I don't mean that in the usual, girly way of saying 'I'm fine' when they're clearly not, I genuinely mean that I'm fine. Throughout the past 6 years, all my tests have been perfect. There is nothing to report. Now comes the 'but'. The exception to all of this is that I am significantly overweight. That's not healthy. For 6 years, I have gone to various GPs, raising concern over my significant weight gain since coming off the pill to try to conceive, to be met with very little in the way of guidance, help or support. I have tried eleventy million different diets, detoxes and eating plans, most to much the same effect - I'll lose a few pounds, but nothing significant enough to make a difference and I have yet to find a plan that feels like the lifestyle change it needs to be to work for me.
If you've followed my blog or know me personally, you'll know that I was sort-of diagnosed, then un-diagnosed and then re-diagnosed with PCOS. I'm serious. It took 5 years, 4 fertility specialists and about 6 GPs to land on a diagnosis of PCOS. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome unbelievably affects 1 in 10 women of childbearing age. We are definitely not alone, but it certainly feels it. I'll start with the 2nd fertility specialist we saw, just to get him out of the way for the purposes of this story, because I hate giving him even a second of my brain space. The first thing he said to Dave and I after 'Hello' was '... so I'm guessing you've come to me for a second opinion because you think I can work miracles'. Well, he got crossed off the list with lightening speed! I separate him out, because he is the only specialist who hasn't uttered some frustratingly annoying words to me - mainly because all he saw was a me-shaped puff of smoke when I beat a hasty exit from his office after his
It is so difficult to explain to someone what having PCOS feels like on a daily basis. It also presents itself so differently in those who suffer from it that no two accounts will be the same. For me, it's like starting a diet every Monday. But unlike with a diet, where you can identify where you went wrong - like falling off the wagon after that last cheat day; or you didn't do enough exercise or you stopped going to the gym - this, and particularly with unexplained infertility, is like starting a diet every week, falling off the wagon, but not knowing when, where or how nor, more importantly, how to get back on it and just getting completely run over by the wagon and all of the horses pulling it. And then there's the feeling that you're the only one going through it, even though logically, you know that's not true. It's like you're at a birthday party which you can't invite anybody else to. To invite anybody would be to invite messages of sympathy which - conversely - is like a red rag to a bull for someone struggling with infertility. We fancy ourselves superheroes, able to get through it all alone. It's a constant cycle of gritted teeth smiles, feelings of despair, overwhelming loneliness and, thankfully for me, only the occasional tear shed. So here we all are, 1 out of every 10 of us in the UK alone, all at our own individual parties. Sounds lonely, huh? It's really difficult to articulate it any other way. It shouldn't be something to be ashamed of, but even sharing with my husband when I'm feeling down about it is difficult. I know some of you reading this will think 'What? You should be able to share anything with your husband of all people. You must not have a very strong marriage!'. For me, and I am almost certain I am not alone in dealing with it this way, I love him and don't want to see him in pain. It feels natural to me not to share with him every single time I feel this way, because if he knew I felt like this, he'd feel the same pain and I want to shelter him from that. I don't want him to be upset or hurt because quite frankly, there is nothing he can do about it so for the most part, I take one for Team Us and spare him. I share only when I need to, and mostly to spare myself, because I never feel more exposed and vulnerable than when discussing this with him. It is almost the only time I shed tears over it. This isn't the case for everybody, but for us, we are happy with our lot. A child would be the cherry on top, but the lack of one will not break us and that is a decision we made when it first became clear that we'd struggle on this particular journey. So why do I feel at my most vulnerable when discussing this with my husband of all people? Well, simply because as a woman of a particular age, no matter what we've decided as a couple, it still comes as a blow that I can't give my husband a child.
I read a blog earlier this week that was almost word-for-word, the same as something that has been going around in my head for ages. It talked about all the 'at leasts' you get when you're struggling with infertility which struck a chord with me because it is just so true. For me, it's almost always 'At least you have Dave...'. If you are reading this and have said that to me, then please know, from the bottom of my heart, that I know that it is well-intended and meant as support. But it's counter-intuitive. If I didn't have Dave, I wouldn't feel the way I do about it. Then I get to thinking about what I've actually lost. Nothing tangible, that's for sure. It's the 'forever young' picture, the possibility of something that was always meant to happen. Losing that ideal is not supposed to happen to us, it only happens to other people.
Things have a funny way of working out. When I think back on it all now, I can see that there is a lot of truth to the old adage that everything happens for a reason. Had everything gone to my 'forever young' plan, we'd have a 5 year old, and potentially one a little younger. 3 years ago, almost to the date, Dave's dad collapsed and was very ill in hospital, to the point that the doctors were telling us to prepare ourselves. He recovered, but due to his health concerns, he had to come and live with us. At the time, we lived in a small 3-bedroom cottage in a tiny village in Hampshire. Had all gone to plan, we'd have had a 2-year old, us and my disabled father-in-law in a cottage with 1 bathroom. Then, 9 months later, my mother-in-law collapsed with a brain aneurysm, which keeps her incapacitated to this day. At the time, Dave was working in Reading, I was working where I am now in Hampshire and my mother-in-law was in hospital in South London. Dave and I used to make a 4-hour round-trip to visit his mother for about 20 minutes at a time, often getting home after 9pm, then still needing to prepare dinner and wind down for the day, ready to do it all again the next. Our child would have been nearly 3. 20 months ago, Dave lost his job in an industry he loved, but that was declining drastically and continues to flail. Despite desperate efforts to find something else, he wasn't successful. During the same year, our child would have needed to start school, with all the costs associated with it. Life has a funny old way of saying 'I told you so' in retrospect.
