No big deal people. *my inner voice is screaming and going crazy*
I was a guest on ITV news anchor Andrea Byrne’s podcast ‘Making babies’.
I’m feeling so grateful and overwhelmed (in a good way) that I had this amazing opportunity to be apart of Andrea’s podcast and share my experiences with living with Endometriosis and infertility and also to be able to share my experiences with my upcoming IVF treatment.
I even got the privilege to talk and ask questions to a trained, in the field, gynaecologist (Phil Banfield) whom himself has been through IVF with his wife.
I don’t know about many other illnesses or conditions that effect fertility and the reproductive organs so it was also an amazing learning opportunity for me to sit and listen to a woman (Kelly Hall) talk about her condition and who is also going through a similar situation to me but suffers with PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome).
I’m very thankful to Andrea for letting me be part of her podcast and letting me share my bit with the world. It was also lovely to listen to her experiences with IVF and fertility. She is very influential and is now someone I look up to and is routing for in the background. *cheerleader Pom Pom shake*
If you are interested in listening to her podcast and episodes on it, I have put the link below.
Suffering from infertility and knowing you will have to go through IVF strings along a hell of a lot of emotions like the old fashioned tins clanging along the road on the back of a ‘just married’ car.
More often then not, the emotions associated with infertility and IVF are not just one feeling but a hell of a lot of emotions that intertwine and tangle into one another.
Identifying and coming to terms with these emotions take hell of a lot of time whilst going through it and a while after you’ve been through it.
Talking from experience and currently going through it and I’m sure I speak for a lot of women and couples, it’s f**king hard (excuse my french) to deal with infertility. No one can ever prepare you or your body (emotionally and physically) for the burden that you must carry whilst longing and wanting that one thing that you know you can’t have. And then to know what’s ahead of you with IVF and what you have to put your body through mentally and physically, is absolutely terrifying and overwhelming to the point that it starts to effect your life without you even realising it.
Whether you have started your journey with IVF or are still waiting to under go treatment, the entire process from beginning, middle and end can be highly stressful and very emotional and I’m here to lay some of them emotions and feelings bare.
Grief
Grief, it’s a funny thing right? How you are grieving for someone who doesn’t even exist. Yet you constantly think about who they will look like or what type of personality they will have or even down to those tiny little hairs that they will have on top of their head. Grief, I feel, for me any way, is the worst of all the emotions to feel whilst struggling with infertility due to not even being able to explain to someone how or why you are missing something/someone that isn’t even real yet.
Jealously
Facebook, out of all social media is the anti christ for me at the moment – seeing pregnancy announcements, gender reveals, baby showers and people posting pictures of bringing their newborn babies home every time I log on. It’s a type of pain that I can’t even explain, not even the deepest and hardest of cries that cause your chest and throat to burn gets rid of it. Seeing these people post them baby pictures or complain about the horrendous night sleep they had. Why would they even complain? How dare they? I want that so badly, to be woken up 3-4 times a night and have no sleep to be able to do a feed or change a nappy, I yearn for it.
Selfishness
But then of course, what follows jealousy.. Feeling selfish. I feel selfish and terrible for being jealous about them and their perfect little babies because they are allowed to post millions of pictures of their babies and complain about not having enough sleep. They are only human and it is their own personal experience. And if I was them, I’d be showing off my baby to the whole word. I am so happy for them but yet so so sad for myself.
Emptiness and loneliness
From my own personal experience I can only say this.. I wake up in the middle of the night randomly in sheer panic and then just feeling pure emptiness and numbness that there is a huge hole in your heart that you desperately want to fill with love for your baby and knowing that something is constantly missing. Your whole body aches and the loneliness that strings along with it, I know that I am not the only woman struggling from this but in that split moment, I feel like the only woman in the world who doesn’t have a baby.
“The crippling loneliness and heart break hits me in every conversation brought up about children or pregnancy, pregnancy announcements, gender reveals, first day school photos, baby showers, ‘baby talk’, even to the point I dread the thought of going shopping and seeing babies in trollies or walking past the baby clothes section. It kills me, my heart feels like it’s crumbling and I have to force myself to hold back from the floods of tears every time someone mentions anything baby related.” – https://dionnetyler.wordpress.com/2020/05/18/the-infertility-club-in-limbo/
Resentment
This one is a hard one for me to talk about as I have always had a love/hate relationship with my body since being diagnosed with stage 4 Endometriosis, I struggled before my diagnosis but I thought having a diagnosis would make it easier, but it didn’t. At the age of 23, I nearly lost both my tubes and ovaries and told the chances of me conceiving naturally was probably never going to be possible for me, you can imagine, it killed me. Then the resentment really started – every time I look in the mirror, every time I look at or feel my stomach, I hate it, it breaks me. There should be a baby growing inside of me but there isn’t.
Guilt
Ahh this one sucks and probably annoys the shit out of my boyfriend and I’m sure he’ll agree. I’m a horror for saying ‘but you could go find someone who could give you a family faster than what I can’.. I know when he reads this he’ll tell me off as he always says “I do not want a child with anyone else, you are my one and I love you”. I can’t help feel guilty for this, I don’t want to feel like I’m ‘holding’ him back. But in hindsight I know this is nonsense in my head and fight this emotion the hardest as his love and our bond is so strong.
Fear
This is always in the back of our mind. I think for most of us it’s the fear of the unknown. I know I’m always petrified of the IVF not working, then what? What next? I’m so scared of the stress that my body will go through physically and mentally. I’m fearful of absolutely everything to do with the IVF.
Hope
There is something so very special about these feelings as although we feel all the scary feelings and emotions I’ve mentioned above, we NEVER ever give up hope. There is a fire burning in all of us that will never stop us from fighting until we get our perfect little miracle in our arms. And I am so lucky to be part of many groups with other women and couples who are in the same scenery as me and we are little community that keep each other going and there is constant support that keeps me bloody sane and gives me a sense of belonging.
To all you women and couples out there that are going through a similar situation, whether you have not started your IVF journey, you are going through it or whether you’re on another round, I just want to say, I see you, I feel you and you’ve got this. Keep fighting for your little miracle. Your happiness is just around the corner, I promise.
Well, I’m going to keep this one short and sweet my lovelies.
Fertility and Infertility awareness week 2020 was a few weeks ago and I’m still feeling overwhelmed with the opportunity I was given.
As you all know already that fertility week means so much to me and I will always do my upmost best to raise awareness and support other women/couples in a similar situation so you can imagine how incredibly lucky I felt to be given the amazing opportunity to give my little piece about my personal experiences with infertility and Endometriosis on ITV Wales news.
It is true when I said that I am grieving but it is so hard to explain that who you are grieving for does not exist, yet he/she already has a full name and in your head you can imagine all of the tiny fine hairs on top of their head and what you think the colour of their eyes would be or if they will take after you or your partner and every time you think about them you have the air knocked right out of your lungs. My whole heart aches of the idea of thinking of this little person that I do not even have.
But just like millions out there, I will never, ever give up the fight until I have my own little baby in my arms and I will do absolutely anything and everything in my power to get that 💪🏼
I may need a little science to kick start my process to becoming a mother but a few little injections in my stomach is nothing compared to what my end goal is going to be.
To everyone out there who is struggling with infertility, keep fighting, you got this and you are stronger than you think.. my inbox is ALWAYS open.. 💖✨
I have a love/mostly hate relationship with my reproductive organs, especially more now that I have been diagnosed with stage 4 Endometriosis and it’s literally destroying every chance I could ever have of being a mum and now, I’m constantly grieving.
Grief is such a funny thing right?
How you can mourn for someone who doesn’t even exist?
Compassion, sympathy and empathy are the natural emotions that someone gives to and for you whilst you have lost someone you love whether they left or died but how can you explain to someone that you didn’t loose someone, you didn’t attend a funeral or a wake, you didn’t receive sympathy cards or any flowers but yet your whole heart aches for this idea of someone you wish you had.
How do you explain that who you are grieving for does not exist, yet he/she already has a full name and in your head you can imagine all of the tiny fine hairs on top of their head and what you think the colour of their eyes would be or if they will take after you or your partner and every time you think about them you have the air knocked right out of your lungs.
I-N-F-E-R-T-I-L-I-T-Y
Noun; inability to conceive children or young.
Infertility, doesn’t seem like bad word right? Not really an important word that you’d seem to take any notice of, a word that I never thought would ever have any playing part or association with my life yet it’s taken over the whole being of it. I feel like I have that word stamped with a boiling hot iron across my chest.
There is always a stigma around talking about infertility and no one really asks couples who are struggling to conceive questions like “What does infertility feel like?”. When it is brought up, people tend to try and change the subject quite fast.
Most of us grow up with the more than normal belief that we’ll be able to have a baby and conceive whenever we are ready. It’s taught in schools across the globe; ‘sex education‘ they call it, but infertility is not taught. So the extreme disappointment and sorrow that comes with trying to get pregnant without success is a huge blow to the majority of couples. Most of us are too afraid and let’s be fair, too polite to ask a struggling couple “What is infertility like?,” but it’s something we should all learn a lot more about.
I can only speak from my personal experience but I’m pretty sure it’s goes something a little like this…
Have you ever wanted to be a mum so badly that it aches? Like every inch of your body hurts from the pain and exhaustion over why you’re not yet a parent. It’s both physically and mentally draining.
I have Pinterest pages full of baby related things. I’ve taken every ovulation test possible. I’ve put a pillow under myself after sex for 30 minutes just to help the sperm get to the egg. I’ve looked at every, single web page about tips on how to get pregnant. I’ve given myself weird fertility massages. I’ve taken every prenatal vitamin possible. I constantly track my ovulation and when is the best time for us to try. I pray to anyone I feel that could possibly help me have a baby and I’d give my soul (literally) for a child of my own.
My mind is doing constant over time.. What if the IVF doesn’t work? What if I run out of free rounds on the NHS? How am I going to afford it all? What if my body fights off the embryo? And the list goes on and on.
Every night when I lay down in bed, my head fills with all of these thoughts tormenting me. I start to loose my breath and the room feels like it is closing in around me.
The crippling loneliness and heart break hits me in every conversation brought up about children or pregnancy, pregnancy announcements, gender reveals, first day school photos, baby showers, ‘baby talk’, even to the point I dread the thought of going shopping and seeing babies in trollies or walking past the baby clothes section. It kills me, my heart feels like it’s crumbling and I have to force myself to hold back from the floods of tears every time someone mentions anything baby related.
I’m jealous, so so jealous of every mum in the world, every mum to be, every picture of someone posting of their child. I don’t want to be this way, to have this feeling of resentment towards mothers who have abortions or pass their child around or want to go back to work weeks after having a baby; it’s none of my business. Yet here I am gritting my teeth and getting angry and filled with rage.
It’s sad really because for all of my family and friends that are getting pregnant and that have had babies, I’m so, so genuinely happy for, I really am and I can not wait to be able to hold their little babies in my arms and show them love as ‘aunty di’. I love their babies, a lot actually. It just breaks my heart that I’m not them, I’m not the one waking up in the middle of nights for feeds or changing smelly nappies, I’d do anything for them experiences. I would not sleep for a thousand days if it meant I could be sleepy and tired with my baby in my arms.
Every time I’m a day or two late on my period I get over excited thinking ‘oh is this it? Could it be my time?’ and then boom, Mother Nature and the shitty endometriosis demon hits me like a ton of bricks. And so the pattern continues. Month by month, year by year.
Sometimes I sit in bed at night imagining what it would feel like to have a baby in my tummy. What it would feel like for them to move around and kick. I think about what my boyfriend would be like as a dad and how amazing he would be with our little miracle; like walking into a room and seeing him with the baby laying across his chest.
I’m constantly torturing myself, thinking what have I done so badly? Is this some sort of karma? Do I deserve this? Am I not fit enough to be a parent? Why is my body torturing me?
Every time I promise myself that this is going to be a good month of healthy thoughts, fighting to just look at life in a different perspective and to have hope, that promise is broken within a day or two.
I have so many people telling me ‘it will be ok’, ‘everything will work out’, ‘you never know, you could be pregnant soon’ and I get so infuriated. Why would these people say that to me? They know this illness has ruined my body and chances, why are they giving me false hope?! And then I realise something, these people have the hope that I struggle to find. It’s me, it’s always me that’s so negative. I can’t help it – every time I think about being pregnant or having a child, I think about my infertility and how it takes over my whole existence and being…
I’m very lucky that I have such a supportive boyfriend who I can never thank enough for keeping me sane through this tough time that we are both going through. Greg is my rock and I physically can not wait for the day that I will be able to see him become the most amazing dad to our little miracle.
And with that – every word that you have just read that I have wrote, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, ever. I just want you to understand that the word infertility isn’t just a word, it’s a thousand emotions and feelings, it’s heart break, it’s desperation, it’s loneliness, it’s a woman yearning to be a mother.
Dionne Tyler 