My situation

[c737]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share my story and get a bit of advice as I'm starting to feel like I can't cope anymore.

It feels like everything has conspired on my TTC journey against me since a fateful, stupid day in Feb 2012 when I had an abortion due to panicking that my relationship would not survive a child at the time. We were going through a rough patch and, consequently, we are much stronger for going through that together but now I find myself in such a horrid place.

Amongst all the shame and guilt from the abortion, I cannot now conceive. I have been told I have poycystic ovaries and mild endometriosis, which the doc cleared up in a Lap procedure this month. But I still have the polycystic ovaries, really light periods and judging from OPKs I don't think I'm ovulating. We've been trying again since March/April 2012 when we both realised we'd made a stupid decision.

Doc has put me on 50mg of Clomid but I just feel hopeless about it all. I know a lot of people would say I deserve this but I live with the regret and remorse every day and it is so painful.

Any words of comfort or wisdom would be much appreciated.

It isn't hopeless at all. If it were, the dr wouldn't be treating you at all. The difficulty conceiving and the abortion are two different things and you got pregnant before with PCO didn't you?

Oh you poor thing, wouldn't it be great if we could wind back the clock. Having an abortion is a massive decision and at that time, you can't have taken that lightly. It must have been right at that time and you cannot change that and shouldn't give yourself such a hard time about it.

Sod's law will always throw things like this to try us but you have been pregnant before and you will get pregnant again!

I think there are a lot of food suggestions on the NHS website that can help lessen the side effects of PCOS.

Does DH know how you feel?

Give yourself a break, you cannot change what has happened and just image if things had been different and you had had a baby at a sad time!

Good luck with everything

x

Hi

Stop being so hard on yourself! Have you had any counselling about your termination? There is support available, even by telephone which might help you work through your feelings of guilt, shame, regret, etc. Everyone makes difficult choices sometimes, and it can be extremely helpful to work through the (unresolved) issues associated with those decisions. Marie Stopes provides confidential telephone counselling for £35 a session.

The doctor is treating you now and hopefully you can get pregnant again. TTC can be stressful - don't let it do any damage to your newly stronger relationship. Talk to your DH about your feelings, plan nice things to keep the focus on you two as a couple growing stronger together. You thought in Feb 2012 you wouldn't survive a baby, that was only 15 months ago which in the big picture is not that long for things to have turned around completely. Keep building your relationship together and hopefully with the Clomid etc, the BFP will come.

I can relate as I am in a similar-ish situation. Long-term TTC has taken a major toll on our relationship to the extent that we were not sure we could survive as a couple, with or without a baby. We are now focused on growing together and rebuilding ourselves as a strong couple, rather than simply on the BFP.

Good luck!

Thank you everyone for your really kind words. I am having support/counselling for the termination when I can but still finding it really hard. Everything reminds me that I once had the chance, had the gift given to me, and I just threw it away. I feel angry at myself but also angry that I now have the benefit of hindsight to know that we would probably have made it, and I didn't need to panic and get a termination.
My partner is really supportive and I try not to let it affect things too much if I can help it.
My body seems to have changed so much in terms of cycles, getting PCO, Endo, spotting etc that I just can't believe conception will ever happen naturally again. It's almost like the trauma, physical and mental, of the termination, has caused it to shut down.

You poor old stick. The thing about regretting things is that it is so easy to forget that right now you have the benefit of hindsight (the relationship worked, ttc has later proved difficult) but back then you didn't.

You thought hard and made a difficult decision based on trying to wait to have a child in the right circumstances and do the right thing for your life. It is easy now to talk about being panicked, but being in what was at that time a bad relationship is a perfectly understandable reason to choose to have a termination. If the relationship was so rocky at that time, who's to say having a baby wouldn't have been a pressure that ended it? I think you need to make peace with yourself for trying to do the right thing at the time.

I also very much hope for you that you have your chance to have a baby soon and that you get the fertility help to do so. When you do, remember that you'll be doing it in much better circumstances for your family. xxx

Thank you x

C737 I read your post and felt for you so much. Last February you made the decision that felt right at that moment in time. Please don't beat yourself up anymore. One thing we can't do is rewind time but there is an awful lot of hope for you on the road ahead. You can conceive and I'm sure you will conceive again. Maybe your cycles have been knocked a bit off kilter but actually whilst it must feel like forever, in ttc world a year and a bit is not really that long. Medical assistance may well just tip that balance and actually you may well find that very soon you get a natural bfp. I don't want to sound cliched but there are positives here; your relationship sounds so much stronger and this time you will know that it is the right time. If you want company whilst you sit it out come and chat on the 10 months plus thread.

Rabbitonthemoon, thank you so much for your reply. It has really lifted me. I kind of thought that if I posted my situation on here I might get an onslaught of responses saying 'well, what did you expect? You had the chance and you blew it and you only have yourself to blame!'

The process of leaving the guilt and shame behind seems to be long and never-ending. Each time some new health problems crops up for me it seems like another reminder that my body will NOT play ball after what I did to it.

I think I made the situation a lot worse for myself as I was awake when I had the termination (only sedated, no general anaesthetic) which was horrific. I can't get the images out of my head, even though it was only a 5 minute procedure. It is all such a nightmare and I can't believe I got in to the situation in the first place, particularly as I'm not a teenage girl anymore - I'm a grown woman who should have known better.

Anyway, I know the pity party has to stop as I'm not getting anywhere with it but it has really helped to get the comments and feedback from people and not to feel judged for what I did. Only one close friend of mine knows what happened so I don't have much of an outlet to talk to people, and my partner kind of wants to move on (understandable) and not dwell on the past/things we can't change.

Thank you again x