Imagining and preparing for a life beyond infertility, whether it includes children or not.
Infertility is expensive. Not only does it cost financially, but emotionally, mentally and physically. You “spend” a lot of time thinking about how it will impact your life, your family and your bank account. And if it’s one thing we can never get back, it’s time.
As I think about my fertility journey, I spent a long time rejecting the idea of saying I was “infertile”. When I finally took the time to look up the definition of infertility, I was surprised to see that it simply referred to a condition where one has not been successful after one year of trying to conceive. The weight of the word felt like it carried so much more than a time sensitive assessment of getting pregnant. Either way, I hated the term and chose to never use it to self describe my situation.
Four years into the journey, I realized how important that language really mattered for me. I believe that life and death lives in the power of the tongue, and although my husband and I were on paper not successful, I finally changed my language and outlook. For us “life after infertility” included exploring multiple options of becoming parents (adoption, donor eggs, etc.) and we also decided that if we should find that this path would not be for us, we would fly first class EVERYWHERE from here on out.
For me, the little wins of engaging and enjoying my husband allowed me to remember that one year of trying to conceive is still one year of life. I didn’t want to forget that I needed to still cherish life daily and experience joy. Children or not, preparing and imagining a life full of joy allowed me to get creative and explore opportunities for travel, great eating and fabulous, strong, cocktails. At the end of the day, I refused to ever let a diagnosis define me.