National Infertility Awareness Week

So, I know it's Monday, but I have been trying to figure out how to go about writing this blog entry, but I figured I would just express myself and hope that I do not hurt anyone with my words. 

Infertility is something that I still hold on to, but over this past year it has affected me in a different way. I once explained to a friend (who had a child) who would not stop telling me to relax and it would happen. I told him imagine never knowing what his child looked like, never being able to hold her, and never being able to interact with her. His life would be incomplete. That is what someone struggling with infertility goes through on a daily basis. 

Someone who wants nothing more than to meet their child feels that absence every single day of their life. Every holiday is spent with a quiet sadness in their hearts, every time they pass a playground they feel that sting, the void in their heart where their child should fill. On top of the pain of not being able to have their child is the pain of not being able to celebrate fully with their friends and family  on the occasions that celebrates children. 

The nervous sadness is ever present. At every baby shower is a longing for the day they get to sit in front of people rubbing their belly. Every birthday party is a calculation of how old their child might be if they could get pregnant without medical intervention or at all. Every Mother's Day and Father's Day is a dark hole of people celebrating what they long to be. 

The questions from people asking when they are going to have children have been answered time after time. The feeling of disappointing their parents and siblings because they aren't yet grandparents or aunts and uncles yet is always hovering over them. 

Each failed test, each stark white result breaks them more and more cycle after cycle, but they pick themselves up and do it all over again the next month. They go through uncomfortable testing, invite doctors into their intimate life, into their relationship, they get poked and prodded and go through painful procedures and treatments just for a chance. A chance that 7 out of 8 couples get for free. A chance that 87.5% of couples experience with no pain. These people experiencing this pain are your friends, your family, your children, your coworkers, they are the people you see every day and don't give a second thought to. Yet many of them suffer in silence. They carry this weight around all. The. Time. 

If someone in your life is experiencing infertility just knowing you are there for them to open up to can help immensely. Don't offer advice, just be there. Love them, be there, help them. Infertility breaks people. You can help pick up some of the pieces.