Hi everyone,
I'm struggling quite a bit this week which is partly not being helped by hormones, but it's also just a creeping feeling at this stage of things.
We're almost five years into this fertility journey, and the ups and downs and losses and failed attempts and pain and arguements and processing of it all feel like they're really adding up right now. I've had really difficult stages before, especially after losses and bad hospital experiences, worrying tests, wondering if it will ever happen etc, but then, with work, I've always come to a place of more acceptance and positivity. This feels different and harder in a way as it's more about the toll it's all taken on me and us and whether we're just too beaten up by it all to even be good parents any more.
I think covid is a part, and the way it closes everything down, it's not helped with the isolation, but to be honest we've never really had people around us who understand or are willing to let us talk, so I think it's only exacerbating a feeling that was already there.
The vaccine news in the past week has been brilliant, and I'm obviously really pleased about what it will mean for vulnerable people and the world in the coming months, but somehow it's also made me feel even more alone in knowing that whatever happens, as long as we are still TTC/pregnant/breastfeeding, then we will still be apart from the rest of the world in this - and possibly the world will also be less set up to be accommodating/understanding of the fact that we and our baby would still be vulnerable to covid and need to take precautions.
I guess I'm not really sure why it suddenly feels different. I just feel like this whole journey has changed me and put me more in touch with harder, 'negative' feelings. Not that that's necessarily unhealthy or a bad thing, but I feel like I used to be nicer, more tolerant, less resentful, and less selfish... I don't think those changes are inappropriate as such, but maybe they have changed me in ways that mean I wouldn't even be a good mum any more.
It used to be all I dreamt of and all I wanted, but now I just have such mixed feelings about the whole process. I've had so much time and space to think over so many aspects of it and I've seen more of these darker feelings and parts of myself... I can't help but wonder if it's just not something that's meant for me after all.
But on the flip side there is still that longing and that huge hole, grief, and sadness at the idea of never being a mum. I just know it will never be innocent and pure joy like it was at the beginning and I wonder if that makes it not meant for me.
Thanks for reading... I think I needed to get that out. Do you/have you ever felt this way? Did it pass?