It only happens to other people

You know what it's like - you're young, thinking about your future, who you'll end up with, where you will live and what you'll be doing in 5, 10, 20 years' time.  I was never a child who envisaged every detail of her wedding day, I always just lived in the moment and kind of figured it would all work out the way it was meant to eventually.  The older I get, the more that idyllic picture becomes fuzzy, not as clear and definitely doesn't fit in with the timeline I had in my head.

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 amazing appalling bedside manner, that he didn't have the time to no doubt give me the sage advice that all of the others gave.  All of the rest of them have sent me away with 1 of 2 pieces of advice.  'Keep doing what you're doing' and, the more popular option, 'Come back and see me when you've lost some weight'.  Don't even get me started on the first piece of amazingly unhelpful advice but let me explain just one problem I have with the second.  Telling me to go away and lose weight immediately followed by a 'Nice to meet you' and absolutely nothing else that is of any use to me is like telling me to pack a bag and hike to the top of Mount Everest without ever having hiked, nor ever having had any snow training (is that a thing?).  When you have PCOS, losing even 1 pound and keeping it off, feels like an insurmountable challenge.  Is it really that much to ask for a little guidance from the specialists who have the medical knowledge to diagnose me?  I am not telling a word of a lie - with Dave as my witness - when I say that I was actually told, by a private specialist, to go and do the water/lemon/cayenne pepper drink thing in order to lose weight.  Oh... and these words actually came out of his mouth... 'Have you heard of the cabbage soup diet?'.  I actually had no idea what to say (although some choice words were going on in my head... mom, I promise I've never said them out loud *fingers crossed behind my back*), but I think my 'Cabbage is the devil's food' face told him what he needed to know about my opinion on the subject of all things cruciferous.  Which is unbelievable in itself, given that my hatred of cabbage was the least of my concerns with this really, really poorly advised plan of action.  I learnt way too late that 'go away and lose weight' is doctor code for 'prove to me how serious you are about having a baby'.  If a patient returns to them having duly lost weight, they take them on for assisted conception treatments.  The real problem I have with this is that I COULD go on the cabbage diet (my taste buds are dying just at the thought).  I could also go on the vomit-inducing lemon and cayenne pepper drink thing, but how are either of those diets going to give my body the energy and nutrients it needs to successfully carry a baby to term?  It is so irresponsible, I can't even begin to understand how it is given out so freely and with a straight face, but yet it happens.  All the time.

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.

Going through infertility treatment and being on this unexplained infertility journey in general has been confusing, frustrating and overwhelming and I am just so thankful that I am as grounded and naturally positive as I am, because I can't imagine going through this with the weight of the world on my shoulders and I genuinely feel for those kindred souls who are, perhaps, a little less resilient than I am.  Dave and I have had our bad patch, 3 years went by when things just went wrong in quick succession and there was very little to keep our chins up about, but we held onto each other through it, propping each other up and are now past that, through the tunnel and staring into the sunshine on the other side.  I never want to turn back, that's for sure!  For starters, that's not where the finish line is, but apart from anything, what we've been through has got us to where we are now - facing the next chapter together, stronger than we were, but also a little bit older and hopefully a little wiser.  With that, comes a sprinkle of realism that maybe kids are not in our future.  We've still not given up hope, but if that turns out to be the case, we'll be okay.  At least we have each other, right?  That's one 'at least' that I don't mind so much.