Right, I’m going to admit something now…
All of those years praying, yearning, pining, desperately obsessing, stressing, struggling, fighting for a baby….. finally stopped when I was blessed with not one, but two, perfect little miracles….Right?
Wrong.
I think I’ve just realised that the weight of infertility was just so heavy, it’s left a hole in my heart… and I can’t seem to shake off the feeling of wanting a baby….. even after everything we’ve been through and what we were blessed with.
I spent years begging my maker for a baby, telling myself that its all i ever wanted and that i wouldn’t ask for anything else, ever….now I have two perfectly perfect, little boys…. and although they complete our perfect family, I still want more.
But then I wonder if in fact I really do…….or is my mind still just programmed to think that way after all this time? Maybe I’d feel the same even after baby number 3, 4, 5 gosh… even after 10!
Then there’s the little problem of…. would we conceive naturally? I wouldn’t go down the road of IVF again, but what if i didn’t catch after months of trying and slip into the familiar territory of peeing on sticks, getting hopes up for them to be beaten down again month after month and the obsession of two lines come creeping back into my head, even if we did ‘just see what happens’
We recently talked about ‘just seeing what happens’. Which was all well and good until Keith started giving me mixed messages. I dont blame him…. i dont know if its what i really want or if my tired, battered and bruised mind is playing trick….but because of all that we’ve been through, having to be so sure that it was what we both wanted, I’m just not prepared to even step foot down that road again if he’s only half arsed.
But he’s right… tonight it hit me.
Before, we would have given right arms, moved the earth and sold our souls to be pregnant. But now we’re parents, Keith thinks of just the ‘normal’ pro’s and cons to having a baby that people without infertility debate about….. like money, whether it’s fair on the boys, whether we’d cope with another, logistics of car seats and bedrooms, along with childcare and risks involved.
Problem is, I thought all of the above is bollocks. If we were to naturally fall pregnant after everything we’ve been though it would be nothing but a true miracle….. and we’d cope because we’d have to. Things like money, logistics and the fact certain people aren’t in our lives to give us the support most families get are all hurdles we can overcome, and like many out there who do it, we’d struggle by for a short time, spending a few years investing in our future as a family.
Truth is……. I just don’t know how to switch that feeling off. I’ve got people telling me “you need another” as well as the natural born feeling of wanting babies that runs through my veins. The thought of really not wanting to have another baby, I simply can’t relate to… but I know I will always, even when I’m old and wrinkly have this need for a baby.
For now we’ve parked it…. padlocked it and then barricaded it in after a bit of a heated debate about it (since had a cuddle and a kiss after reading this to him and we threw away the key).
Good news is….. the house is spotless. Because as you know, when we argue, we clean. And while I cleaned (cleaned = baby wiped) the downstairs loo with a face like a smacked arse, Keiths been ‘doing jobs’ in the garden with his head torch talking to himself.
Bad news is…. We’ve let the third wheel (infertility) rear it’s ugly little shit head again, years later.
So to the people who think “get over it” when I still ramble on about what we’ve been through…. THIS is why. Infertility doesn’t just scratch the surface of a marriage…. it burrows in deep.