Women Aren’t Failures When Fertility Treatment Fails
I remember vividly the day that I disclosed my multiple failed fertility treatments to a colleague and how tough I was finding the whole process. To be fair, I was fairly detached as I spoke at my sadness and the rollercoaster of emotions, and she was most familiar with me in my work mode, where I was capably continuing to go about my day job with few noticeable outward displays of the distress and turmoil I felt inside. Nonetheless, her words hit me like a sucker punch in the gut. “You’re not used to failure are you?”. Until that moment, I hadn’t ever considered that I had been failing, more that I was in the middle of a process that was excruciatingly painful at times, yet also one that offered the greatest hope of conception. Whether she was trying to help by pointing out these failures and my unfamiliarity with them, I can’t honestly say, but her directness forced me to identify with a deeply buried feeling of failure.
She was right that on the surface, I was very driven to achieve excellent results for my students, that I set myself high standards and enjoyed making and seeing progress in my work, but the thing about fertility treatment is that there is so much that can go wrong at each step of the process. Of course, a woman can improve her chances by making good lifestyle and health choices, but the truth of the matter is that we are more at the mercy of our biology and health technologies than we realise and despite placing our faith and often great expectations on the incredible teams who work in reproductive healthcare, the reality is that treatment is tough on the mind, body and soul, failed cycles of treatment hurt like hell, and the odds, sadly, aren’t promising for two thirds of us from the get-go.
But as women we have been encouraged to believe that we can empower ourselves enough to overcome anything, that if we dream it real, think positively enough, drink enough raspberry tea, then we too can have the much desired child we deserve to have. But life and its creation doesn’t work like that. As Ellie’s character in this week’s episode of River City showed, biological clocks tick on, eggs or sperm may not be of good enough quality, even where they do exist in high number, and the emotional toll can be so great, I certainly asked myself more than once if I had the strength to carry on.
My main message though is this. If you are trying to conceive, are mid treatment or have even exhausted the treatment process, whether you have a child or don’t, you, my brave, beautiful friend, are the furthest thing from failure it is possible to be. Please try not to beat yourself up, you don’t deserve that. You need as much self-care and compassion as you can muster from yourself and your inner circle. We cannot control these outcomes anymore than we can the weather and while that won’t stop us trying to do everything we can, I beg of you not to hurt yourself more in the process by identifying with the label of failure. Women are so much more than (in)fertility can make us feel and although we’ve moved many strides forward in our place in the world, old expectations about child rearing are not only influenced by those around us, by societal expectations, but so too, do we face the double-bind of wanting our place in the world free of the limitations of our biology, while desperately wanting to do what comes naturally to may women and couples; to create life.
Take good care of yourself and find support wherever you can.
With a warm hug.
