When I was waiting for my wayward period to come back after a medical treatment I had as a child, I was told (being in eighth grade) that it would probably come back if I just wasn't so stressed out.
This was told to me in the confines of a hospital where I had been part of an experimental treatment for several years. After I had undergone daily injections for several years. After countless tests could not explain why I was not "normal." Sure. No stress there.
In the end it was discovered that I had premature ovarian failure. Again, inexplicable. But no one hypothesized after that that if I had cut my stress back, there would have been a different outcome.
Why is it that infertility has to be someone's fault? There is a study posted over on Twitter that infertility could be related somehow to being overweight. Well no pressure there, right? If a couple can't get pregnant it's because they're trying to hard. You're not eating the right kind of foods. You're too high-strung. You're too overweight.
Being diagnosed with infertility is tough enough. Do we really need to lay blame? Where is the care in the medical profession for the power of this kind of diagnosis? I have yet to see it, sadly. I'd be happy to hear about different kinds of experiences.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Caring about you
When you are diagnosed with infertility, there is a world of concerns that don't really get addressed, first and foremost being your psychological well-being. But there are other things too. Will you go on hormone replacement therapy? Will you start getting bone density exams to protect your bones if the problem is ovarian failure?
One thing that certainly never gets covered, so far as I can tell, is the complete lack of desire to take care of yourself. As a woman, I was generally trained by society to think that I needed to be healthy so that I could be a good mommy. What's the point of being healthy if you can't fulfill this primal urge?
Well, this is something that should be covered in a brochure as soon as you are diagnosed. You are worth all of the care that you would have put into any child. You are worth all of the care you put into trying to become pregnant.
For many years, I did not exercise. I did not eat well. I was completely unmotivated, to the point that it didn't even occur to me to go take a walk on a beautiful day.
Take care of yourself. Love yourself. I know that this can be a difficult journey, but you cannot carry a big backpack if you malnourished. You can't shed this big bag of things you have to deal with if you are unhealthy. Don't give in to despair. There is reason to hope. There is reason to love yourself. It will pay dividends for you in ways you cannot even imagine.
One thing that certainly never gets covered, so far as I can tell, is the complete lack of desire to take care of yourself. As a woman, I was generally trained by society to think that I needed to be healthy so that I could be a good mommy. What's the point of being healthy if you can't fulfill this primal urge?
Well, this is something that should be covered in a brochure as soon as you are diagnosed. You are worth all of the care that you would have put into any child. You are worth all of the care you put into trying to become pregnant.
For many years, I did not exercise. I did not eat well. I was completely unmotivated, to the point that it didn't even occur to me to go take a walk on a beautiful day.
Take care of yourself. Love yourself. I know that this can be a difficult journey, but you cannot carry a big backpack if you malnourished. You can't shed this big bag of things you have to deal with if you are unhealthy. Don't give in to despair. There is reason to hope. There is reason to love yourself. It will pay dividends for you in ways you cannot even imagine.
Friday, October 30, 2009
First and foremost, remember that you are a real person.
It's so easy these days to think that we are owed certain things by life. If you play the Sims, if you watch movies, even if you just simply interact with other people, it is assumed, for some reason, that your life will be like the "norm." You WILL get married. You WILL have babies.
But what happens when this choice is taken away from you? For me, it made me feel like I was not a "real" human being. This was not something real people, regular people, had to deal with. They thought about babies and babies appeared, like magic.
The fact of the matter is that life is not "supposed" to do anything. I always thought that if I got married, both of my parents would be there, but I've known several people who have gotten married, sadly, and one or both of their parents had passed. I thought that part of getting pregnant would be going through it with my mom, but life is not obligated to you.
Ironically, it was a scene from a movie that helped crystallize this for me at first. There is a scene in A Beautiful Mind where Russell Crowe's character proposes in a very abstract way. Jennifer Connelly's character says pauses and says that she has to deal with the present and sort of scoot away from her childhood fantasies of what a proposal would be like. She was given a prism, not a ring. Did that make it any less worthwhile?
Having children is not necessarily something we dream about. Or at least I didn't. I just assumed. But a diagnosis of infertility does not make you less of a person, no more so than a person who is blind or deaf. Despite what I thought for many years, people who struggle with infertility are not among the most cursed either. It is just dealing with life as it is, not as we think it should be. There are people who assumed they would always have a home. There are people who assumed they'd always be able to put food on the table. Life keeps us guessing, and whether or not you have kids is just another example. Just because it's easy in the movies doesn't mean you're less of a person if it's not easy for you.
But what happens when this choice is taken away from you? For me, it made me feel like I was not a "real" human being. This was not something real people, regular people, had to deal with. They thought about babies and babies appeared, like magic.
The fact of the matter is that life is not "supposed" to do anything. I always thought that if I got married, both of my parents would be there, but I've known several people who have gotten married, sadly, and one or both of their parents had passed. I thought that part of getting pregnant would be going through it with my mom, but life is not obligated to you.
Ironically, it was a scene from a movie that helped crystallize this for me at first. There is a scene in A Beautiful Mind where Russell Crowe's character proposes in a very abstract way. Jennifer Connelly's character says pauses and says that she has to deal with the present and sort of scoot away from her childhood fantasies of what a proposal would be like. She was given a prism, not a ring. Did that make it any less worthwhile?
Having children is not necessarily something we dream about. Or at least I didn't. I just assumed. But a diagnosis of infertility does not make you less of a person, no more so than a person who is blind or deaf. Despite what I thought for many years, people who struggle with infertility are not among the most cursed either. It is just dealing with life as it is, not as we think it should be. There are people who assumed they would always have a home. There are people who assumed they'd always be able to put food on the table. Life keeps us guessing, and whether or not you have kids is just another example. Just because it's easy in the movies doesn't mean you're less of a person if it's not easy for you.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
A post a day
Hello.
When I was 14 I was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure. About 10 years later, after basically avoiding the truth of my diagnosis for a decade, I was rediagnosed. I fell into a major depression. I felt like I was not really a woman anymore. I felt like my insides had shriveled up and died. I felt like I had experienced miscarriages beyond count. My dreams had been stolen. Not even dreams. What I thought we all were promised was denied to me. I was so depressed that I didn't even realize how depressed I was.
But this Blog is not about that. This blog is about how I pulled myself up, and how I am still working on doing so. I am hoping that by sharing this information through a post a day, along with my accompanying Twitter account, maybe I can reach out to people and make a difference. It's a battle you have to fight, in the end, on your own. But you don't have to do it alone.
When I was 14 I was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure. About 10 years later, after basically avoiding the truth of my diagnosis for a decade, I was rediagnosed. I fell into a major depression. I felt like I was not really a woman anymore. I felt like my insides had shriveled up and died. I felt like I had experienced miscarriages beyond count. My dreams had been stolen. Not even dreams. What I thought we all were promised was denied to me. I was so depressed that I didn't even realize how depressed I was.
But this Blog is not about that. This blog is about how I pulled myself up, and how I am still working on doing so. I am hoping that by sharing this information through a post a day, along with my accompanying Twitter account, maybe I can reach out to people and make a difference. It's a battle you have to fight, in the end, on your own. But you don't have to do it alone.
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