….which is a fantastic, wonderful thing and I am so delighted for her, especially because she had a miscarriage earlier this year (her first pregnancy). But, I also feel so guilty for having cried my eyes out after she told me on the phone too. It was like a double-edged sword….one side full of happiness and delight for her and her husband…..and the other side full of sadness, grief and longing for the child my husband and I can’t have.
We’ve just come back from a fabulous holiday in Spain which was so needed after a full-on few weeks at work for both of us. But we stayed in a very family-orientated village and area, so we were constantly surrounded by pregnant women, babies and children….and when you don’t have the distraction of work, you tend to over-think the more personal aspects of your life….like ‘why can’t we have children?’ etc etc. Also, Sod’s law, on the last full day of the holiday, I was stung by a jelly-fish and then half an hour later, I started my period (not that the two things were in any way related (!) but I was 2 days late, so I was holding out a teeny bit of hope, but the timing was pretty bad in that 30 mins!!). However, overall, we did have the most amazing, stress-free time and came back feeling very refreshed on Monday.
I wasn’t entirely shocked by the phone call from my sister last night, because I knew they were going to start trying again quite quickly after their miscarriage….but somehow the news of someone else’s pregnancy always seems to open a fresh wound again. I cried and cried last night until I was exhausted….and I guess that was somehow cathartic too because I haven’t been upset about it all for a while. It also forced my husband and I to discuss the ‘elephant in the room’ again and we talked about going for some more blood tests to see where ‘my hormone levels are at now’ as well as options such as surrogacy.
I guess the hardest thing is not having a close friend who is going through the same thing. I literally don’t know anyone who I can talk to and who can empathise with me about this. I know ‘of’ people (friends tell me “oh yeah, my friend _________ has gone through IVF/is infertile” etc), but I don’t actually know these people myself to talk to in person.
I just have to be thankful that I have the most wonderful, loving, kind husband (as well as Tilly our dog!) and I know there are lots of people in the world who are not as fortunate as I am.

View from our balcony