About four years ago my mother-in-law gave me a fertility doll that was supposed to give me good luck in efforts to conceive. Either I have unrealistic expectations on how fast that doll was supposed to work, or my particular fertility doll was faulty. Either way I don’t think I can give credit to the doll for working four years later! The fertility “aid” got me thinking though, about the pressure from other people when we were having trouble conceiving, and my motivations behind so desperately wanting to have a baby.
I sometimes had to take a step back and make sure that the main reason I wanted a child was for me and my husband, not to make our parents grandparents, not to “keep up” with my friends, and not because I thought it was what I was supposed to be doing at my age and time in life. Realistically, all of those things come in to play when you are trying to conceive. The main reason you can get so obsessed with baby-making efforts is obviously because you want a family, but I do believe that what makes it that much harder is the outside pressures. The feeling that everyone is pregnant but you, the desire to give your parents the gift of grandchildren, and the fear that you are running out of time are all very powerful motivators. Nevertheless, I do think it is important to keep your personal thoughts and motivations at the forefront and to not let other factors put even more burden on an already difficult situation.
When I was able to let go of everyone else’s wishes and desires for me and our family and just make our fertility treatments a very selfish endeavor, it really did make the whole process just a little bit easier. To truly know in your heart that this would be your path regardless of other people’s opinions is very empowering. Where this is most evident is in the whole debate between even attempting fertility treatments rather than “just” adopting or becoming a foster parent. For a long time I worried that I was not pursuing that avenue because I was afraid of what others would think or worried that I could not handle the unique challenges of adoption. It is surprisingly reassuring to know that I analyzed those thoughts and fears and truly did what was best for me and my husband. We decided that it was important enough to us to have the pregnancy experience, to welcome a newborn into our home, and to attempt to have a biological child that we ultimately knew that we had to give fertility treatments a shot.
Whatever decisions you make in your journey to building your family I hope that you are confident that you are doing what is best for you and your partner. In all honesty I think most people can point to a number of reasons and outside pressures that contribute to the desire to have a child. But, I think that if at the heart of it all your primary motivation is that you want to be a parent and build a family then you have the healthiest and most sincere approach to the infertility roller coaster and you have already helped set yourself up for success.
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