Learning to accept my imperfect body

For me the grief and pain of secondary infertility has been two-fold. Firstly, there was the heartbreaking and unbelievable reality to face that I could not bear any more children. Believe me, it was a long hard road to find acceptance in what often felt like my worst nightmare. I only just got there recently and am so glad to be out of what was the darkest period of my life.

Now I have the acceptance that I cannot conceive again; it seems the second part of my SIF tragedy is rearing it's ugly-head - making peace with a body I feel very cheated by. I have touched on finding body-acceptance before - but it feels right up there right now as I cannot hide behind the grief of not being able to have any more children.

I have to accept that I am in perimenopause and although I've had to accept that partly to get my head around the fact I cannot have another biological child - I am still a big work-in-progress. With losing my fertility my femininity, my sexuality and my self-esteem has been greatly affected. The fact that there is something biologically wrong with me causes me to feel less-than the average fertile woman. The way I view myself affects my relationships with fertile women - and with my husband. Until I make peace with my imperfect biological-self; my relationships will suffer, even if it is in a very subtle way.

It makes me mad when former secondary infertiles, who managed to conceive, tell me to look for the blessings in my life. Have they forgotten what it was like to long for a child? The bottom-line is secondary infertility was a bloody awful thing to go through - especially when the fear that is part of SIF comes to be the truth - that another biological child isn't on the cards. The women who end up in this category - the ones who truly cannot have another child - have to deal with two personal tragedies, I believe - the fact they cannot conceive and the fact there is something wrong with them. It's not like oh well, I cannot have another child - I'll just carry on with my life then. It's more like Oh my God I can't have another child and now I have to live with this body of mine that didn't do what I desperately wanted it to do.

I am actually overall a positive person in life. I find the good out of a bad situation. But sometimes it takes me a while to get there. I have always considered SIF to be a huge personal tragedy and have just lived it one day at a time. Trust me, there were many times when I wanted to jump ship - but I couldn't. I couldn't just not want another child - it is just something that has been in me for what has felt like forever. So I ended up fighting myself in mind, body and soul when what I hoped for didn't match what I could have.

It took me a good couple of years of SIF to accept I couldn't have another child so I am going to give myself some time to reconcile my mind with my body - to work out who I am post-SIF. There are some changes I made while trying to conceive a second child that are still part of who I am now. But I don't need to be doing them, now that the quest to have another child is over. These are little things like not drinking caffeine for over three years (for fear it caused my miscarriage at six weeks) and not eating a lot of sweet food or barely drinking any alcohol. I am not saying I should turn into a compulsive eater or drinker (!) - just that I am trying to figure out what I want to do even dietary-wise now that I'm free, you could say, to do as I please. I do have cravings for an earl-grey tea every now and then which was my daily caffeine fix before I had a miscarriage. Perhaps I will give up the herbal teas and become a regular tea drinker again! I don't know what I want to do just yet - I just feel remnants of my SIF-life around and want to make some changes.

I just phoned the infertility specialist - reception - for some blood results. They have revealed, not surprisingly that my ovarian reserve is very low which is apparently not unusual "for a woman your age." The infertility specialist has written me a letter which I haven't received yet in regards to my last appointment which will determine whether or not I see him again in May. All I wanted was closure - and some answers and don't really want to hear about DE (donor eggs) as that isn't an option for us in a doesn't-feel-like-the-right-road-for-us kind of a way.

Sigh. I just want to feel like me again - in mind, body and soul. Well, maybe the problem is I don't feel like me as far as my body goes - so my mind and soul are still reeling somewhat from SIF. Hmmm.

SIF is such a complicated issue. It just pisses me off when people see you as coping, as having some acceptance around things that they assume things are okay - especially when carrying on with life as best as you can and choosing to add to your family through alternate means. Sure, adoption is a great alternate way to add to our family if it works. But, my body is broken and I am still trying to find a way to live with the fact that there was nothing I or anybody could do about that. I feel like a fifty year old woman and I am forty-one. I feel as though I have lost my inner-zing and I wasn't ready for that. I have always been young for my age and cannot accept at this point that I feel so much older than I am.