2021
I’m nervous to say that 2021 was a difficult year. It was difficult, but it also wasn’t. I lead a very privileged life, so I hesitate to say that anything is difficult. I start to compare it to other people’s circumstances and think that my year sure wasn’t as hard as theirs. Then I start to feel like a huge jerk for even considering my year was difficult. We didn’t struggle to survive, we didn’t skip meals or sleep out in the cold. But the definition of difficult isn’t the person who had it the hardest right? So what was difficult about 2021 for me? Well I turned 30. I didn’t struggle with the idea of being 30, I struggled with being 30 and still not having a family. I remember having almost a panic attack one day just thinking about it. 30 might not seem old to all you fertile people out there. But when you’re dealing with infertility, every year counts. Late 30’s is considered a geriatric pregnancy. That’s probably the closest I’ve ever come to a panic attack. I was completely freaked out about the idea of getting too old to have kids, feeling like I’d wasted so much time in my 20’s where we could have been figuring out what is wrong and instead we just thought we didn’t want kids yet and as soon as we did we could just flip a switch and have them (oh the naivete of thinking unprotected sex = baby). I was pretty frantic about being 30 with no hope of a child in the near future. But…time goes on and I couldn’t sit around feeling sorry for myself the whole year.
In 2021 I also completed my first 70.3 Ironman. (You can read about that experience in a previous post, click here ) I have mixed feelings about that right now. One part of my brain is proud of myself for doing something super hard. The other part of my brain knows that the reason I got to do it is because I wasn’t pregnant and didn’t have a newborn to take care of, and I’m sad about that. So I see my finishers medal as a consolation prize. Still pretty awesome, but not really what I wanted. (ugh, I’m feeling very whiney about this).
2021 was the year I started to really feel the ugly feelings. In the previous 5 years of trying to conceive I hadn’t really experienced the jealousy, fear and anger of watching other people be able to do what I can’t. But this year I experienced all of those feelings, far more often then I’d like. I’d get flashes of jealousy when I saw birth announcements on facebook. White hot anger would boil inside when I saw people who I think don’t deserve kids, popping them out every f*cking year. For the first time ever I started to really consider that we might not ever be able to conceive. Man….those were some feelings to deal with. My husband is the only son in his family, there’s a lot of shame and sadness for his wife not being able to carry on the family name. (on a side note, people have asked if I’d start a podcast and the answer is no for now, because I always cry when I write and I need the time to process those emotions). I had to stop envisioning the future, because it’s really painful to think of being in my 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and having no kids to come over for Christmas, not because we didn’t want them but because fate dealt us a shitty hand.
Now, if you’re a logical empathetic person you’re probably thinking ‘But Emma you can adopt! It’s really not as dire a picture as your painting’. Not the point Karen! The point is that in the year I turned 30 I started actually grieving the loss of my biological lineage. And grieving is good. Grieving is progress. I started to let myself cry. I stopped myself from being embarrassed of those tears. But I was talking about the ugly feelings, right, back on track. I read a book one time that said that you should be happy and celebrate with the people who achieve what you want to achieve (like if someone gets the promotion that you wanted you should celebrate because then you welcome that thing into your life too). When I saw someone who got pregnant, or had a healthy baby and I’d have that flash of jealousy or anger, I then felt so guilty because I had in my head that I should be happy for them. So I’d stuff that anger down and muster up a congratulations comment on their post. After listening to many hours of podcasts on infertility and reading lots of books, I’ve changed my tune about this. I know think that those ugly feelings are very natural. They are normal. I’m not a bad person for feeling them (just because I have bad feelings doesn’t mean I am a bad person, hello Brene Brown!). It’s better for me to acknowledge that I feel that way, do something to work out that feeling and move on.
2021 feels like a lot to process. There were a LOT of emotions in 2021. It’s time to stop dwelling on 2021 and be present for 2022.
