My husband and I have been trying to expand our family for a while now. Obviously, we haven’t been successful as we don’t have kids yet. The road to motherhood can be so exhausting. Each and every month, you hope that you don’t get your period. You feel hopeful when you don’t get your period on time. But when it finally appears, as a woman, you feel like you’re a failure and you feel like you failed your husband.
That was exactly my life every single month for three and a half years until we finally started the IVF process. My life was already hard and I’ve already been through a lot. I thought at least the road to motherhood would be one thing that would be easy. But it was anything but easy. It was the exact opposite of easy – mentally, emotionally, and even physically.
They say that in life, timing is everything. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now that I’ve had time to sit back and reflect, I most certainly do. My husband and I started trying for a baby as soon as we got married. It was a fun experience at first, but then it became tiring. Having sex started feeling like a chore. All I could think about was my ovulation and when the right time was for me and my husband to have sex so that we’d successfully get pregnant. But nothing seemed to work, and I was on the verge of a breakdown and about to give up on the idea of ever having a family of my own with my husband.
After some time, my husband and I stopped trying. It wasn’t that we completely gave up. I was too ill to even think of having a baby. A woman who experiences 50 seizures, even the least serious seizures, a day everyday can’t even begin to think of conceiving. Once I got the proper treatment and my condition improved, I felt ready to start trying again, so we went back to what became our usual routine. We didn’t conceive, but my health was getting back on track… until it worsened again when I began experiencing grand-mal seizures every couple of months. That’s when you, a woman who has epilepsy, really can’t think of even starting to try to conceive – as per doctor’s orders. A woman experiencing a grand-mal seizure during pregnancy can put the baby and the woman herself in danger.
I had these grand-mal seizure for a period of at least a year. The more I had this type of seizure, I felt more and more like a failure. All I wanted was to become a mother, and I couldn’t do that because my health was standing in the way. It was a very dark and lonely place in my life. My friends at the time weren’t making things easier either. Each time I’d goto a party or a get together, I’d get comments and questions such as, ‘You’ve been married for so many years. When are you guys going to have a baby?’ These types of questions caused me more harm than good. They brought me more pain and more anxiety than I ever needed.
It’s so cliche. Everything we, as women, do in our lives has a timeline. First is when we get a boyfriend. When we get a boyfriend, it’s when we get engaged. When we get engaged, it’s when we’re getting married. When we get married, it’s when we’re having a baby. When we have a baby, it’s when we’re having a second baby. And then, once the kids are older, it’s when we’re having grandchildren.
It’s the same thing, no matter who, what, where, or when. It’s as though life has a timeline of some sort. But it shouldn’t be that way; not anymore. It’s 2022, not 1922, and it’s time for a change. People have their own lives and their own definitions of what happiness means to them. Some people are happy being single for the rest of their lives. Some people are happy being married and childless. Some people like animals more than they love children, and would much rather have animals in their homes rather than children. And some people, like me for instance, can’t have children because of ongoing health issues. No matter what the case is, people should stop being so judgemental on other people’s life choices, stop putting outdated timelines on other people’s lives, and they should mind their own businesses and start thinking of themselves more rather than other people and what other people do.
Throughout my years of infertility and health struggles that caused more infertility concerns, I learned to be more patient with myself. I learned to be kinder to myself. Because to my infertility struggles, I learned that I needed to take better care of myself than I already did. I needed to be more in control of my body and mind instead of the other way around, where my body and mind were in control of me. At the end of the day, without my health, there’s nothing I could ever do, and I waited and waited for the right time in my life to even begin thinking of starting to go through IVF treatments.
They say that everything happens for a reason. I didn’t believe it at first. To be honest, I thought it was complete bullsh*t. But now, I absolutely believe it’s true. I learned so much about my body thanks to my struggles with epilepsy. Thanks to my struggles with epilepsy, I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been in my life. I believe that my infertility struggles helped me develop an even greater understanding of my body, mind, and life as a whole. My struggle to get pregnant became the best thing that ever happened to me. I realized that when my husband and I started trying, we weren’t actually mentally ready to have kids. Life would’ve looked so different if everything went according to plan. My husband and I probably wouldn’t even be together. I could’ve put myself and my baby in danger if I were to get pregnant when I initially planned to.
I’ve been so fortunate in my life to have been able to achieve everything that I’ve achieved in my life. Even the smallest victories are the greatest blessings. Nothing in my life came easy. I always had to work ten times as hard as anyone else to get the same results. Having a baby is just another thing in my life that I have to work harder for. And I will. I will have a baby when the universe will tell me it’s time. I’m not giving up on my journey to motherhood, because I never give up on anything that I want and deserve. I want to be a mother. I deserve to be a mother. Therefore, I will be a mother.
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