Confessions of a Semi-Fertile Woman

So, I'm in kind of a weird place.  I don't fit the category of infertile but I am far from being one of those women who have a conversation with their husbands about how it might be nice to have another child & the next thing they know the other child is on its way.  Part of the trouble with me getting pregnant is related to the extreme demand Ernst & Young puts on David's time.  But the other part is just that getting pregnant is not simple for me.  I often marvel at teenagers who accidentally make babies. There is such a small window of opportunity.  Anyway, that's why I put myself in the semi-fertile category.  I'm neither here nor there.

The women who are truly infertile, who have never had the experience of being pregnant & giving birth, don't really want to hear me whining when I have been blessed twice with a child of my own.  The super-fertile women don't get it.  Once I complained that I wished Michael had a sibling to play with & a woman said, "Well, just have another baby," as if it were as simple as going to the baby store & picking out one that looked good & ripe.  I want to tell my story because I know there are other women out there who can relate to this sort of in-between state of being & would probably like to hear that someone else can relate.

What we feel....

THE GUILT

Oh, the guilt.  Women can feel guilt about anything, so I know guilt is not something we semi-fertile women have exclusive rights to.  We just have different guilt.  That's all.

We feel guilty because we know we should be happy that we have any children at all & not long for another one.  But when I tuck my children in & see their sweet sleeping faces I think to myself, "This feels good.  I want to feel more of this.  I want another one of these to love."  And loss is loss.  Every month when you think you might be pregnant and you get that clear sign you are, in fact, definitely NOT pregnant--  that is a moment of loss.  When you've been imagining this could-be baby, wondering if it would be a he or a she, what would he or she look like.... and then he or she is no more... it's as if you've lost that child that never was.

We feel guilty if we complain about our children.  Ever.  We should be eternally grateful for the children we have & never complain about them or underappreciate them or feel frustrated by them.  We should, somehow, be perfect parents to the children we feel we don't deserve, in order to earn the right to have them.  And, maybe, if we're perfect, we'll be worthy of another such blessing.  Maybe.

Our friends feel guilty when they get pregnant & wonder should they tell us or not.  And we feel guilty that we caused such a conundrum for our friends on their special occasion.  (Of course they should tell us & of course we should feel happy for them; it's not as if they got the baby we were meant to have.  It doesn't work that way).

THE LONELINESS

We don't fit into the ranks of the infertile.  We have been blessed too much to understand their pain.  And, besides, even if we find the infertile woman who understands we have suffered the same feelings, WE will feel guilty trying to pass ourselves off as one of them.

Spending time with the super-fertile can be painful.  They just don't get it.  This is, I understand, the same problem the infertile women have with the super-fertile. They are on another end of the spectrum, trying to figure out how to STOP getting pregnant while we would like them to teach us their secret.

And then when it takes us many years to get pregnant we will find ourselves in a weird place.  People our age will have kids much older than our kids & they will not consider us their peers.  We have small children, they have older children. So we find ourselves trying to hang out with women much younger & find that they just don't have the same life experiences we do.  We try to force friendships that just don't always work out.  We struggle to know where we fit in.

THE INCONVENIENCE

For those of you who have ever decided to try to get pregnant, imagine the changes you make in your life & imagine making those changes permanent.  Because that's basically what it's like for us.  We are forever afraid to stand near the microwave, just in case.  We have taken enough prenatal vitamins to supply a small city.  We worry about medicines & whether they could be harmful, whether or not we should be in the room when our kids have x-rays, avoiding caffeine.... the list goes on. We don't like birth control, because we might be missing our one opportunity.  We go along from month to month thinking this could be IT & we'd better be extra careful & extra diligent.

THE PARANOIA

If we stock up on feminine hygiene products, are we jinxing ourselves?  Are we not pregnant because we're not trying hard enough?  Are we not pregnant because we need to lose weight?  Are we not pregnant because we don't love our current children enough?  What's the problem?  What did we do wrong?  Surely it's our fault, because that's what the comments from other people lead us to believe.  Even people who are just trying to be helpful are just telling us there is something we're not doing that we should.  "Hold a baby," "Try to adopt," "Try bellydancing classes".... they all have a magical cure for us.  These "helpful" suggestions just tell us we're the problem in the equation. It's not just a fact of life or something we can't control, but something in our power to change & that we need to figure out what that one thing is so we can fulfill our duty as future mothers.

THE ACCEPTANCE

After all these years I have finally, personally reached a place of acceptance.  I accept that I am not destined to have piles of children.  And part of me understands that is probably the thing that is best for me.  There's still a little part of me that feels a bit of a loss for those piles of children I won't have.  But then I remember how hard motherhood is, how hard life is, and understand that Heavenly Father has given me exactly what I can handle & nothing more.

There are some women in this world who I know personally & love dearly who have not been blessed in the same way I have & they would wonder if I'm saying Heavenly Father does not think they can handle even one child.  That's obviously not true.  I don't know why they've had to deal with that particular struggle in their lives & it is certainly not because they're undeserving.  I only have to hope, for them, that they will be compensated in some way in this life or the next.