I recently read a Buzzfeed article titled “23 Women Share What They Wish People Understood About Infertility.” Many of the things these women shared resonated with me, so I wanted to share some of the points that stood out to me in a few separate posts.
Post No. 2
“If ‘being positive’ made babies, I’d have skipped some heavy rounds of Clomid, Letrozole, four IUIs, two surgeries, tears, a miscarriage, and 4+years of trying.”
I know most people mean well when they tell me to stay positive. I know that more often than not, they’re just trying to cheer me up.
But that’s just the thing: it doesn’t.
Rather, it sounds like they’re putting the responsibility of infertility on me - as if Jin and I do not have children yet because I’m just not quite positive enough. As a Christian, I am also often told that I just need to have faith. I just need to believe. I just need to pray more diligently. I’ve even had people chide me for those moments when I take the risk to share that hope seems like a far away dream.
And in these moments, I wonder if they would feel the same if they were the ones praying desperately for a miracle.
So for those of you who are tempted to tell me to keep up the positive thoughts, I want you to know that there is so much more than mere positivity that is required of me in these trying times. I wish I can breakdown the complicated, scrambled, and otherwise messy chaos that is my mind and heart going through this process, but I’m not sure I can…
Oh wait… was I not being positive enough again?