Well, this was validating
Thanks to Janice (who one day shall have a blog) for sending it my way:
Fertility Clinics Begin to Address Mental Health
Studies show that women with infertility tend to have higher levels of distress and anxiety than the general population. One study from Harvard Medical School found that women with infertility had levels of emotional distress equal to patients with cancer or heart disease.
Our clinic did have a psychologist on staff but I never saw her (and the doctors never offered her services to me). I think that she was there primarily to help people make decisions about treatment, especially the ones that force you to confront your personal ethical values (IVF, donor egg/sperm, etc.). We never got that far, by choice mostly.
The treatment sucks but it’s not just the treatment, it’s the loss of faith. When someone announces their pregnancy to me, my first thought is a prayer that they actually succeed carrying to term. I am amazed by people who get pregnant and actually make plans for the baby because it all seems so treacherous to me.
This was not my first life crisis (my parent’s divorce, my mom’s breakdown, my dad’s abandonment, my cheating boyfriend who gave me VD, my own breakdown, have all been kinda major) but it’s certainly been huge.
One thing though, I was telling my friend last night that I’ve experienced is a kind of centering that I can’t describe. It’s almost separate from my suffering. But I have a center of compassion that wasn’t there before. It’s got something to do with seeing past the moment. It’s really difficult to explain and it’s in tandem with my pain. It doesn’t erase it or even mitigate it but it’s there, in my heart. Now that I have the beginnings of that compassion, I can see more clearly that this is what we all have to work towards; it gave me a spiritual goal, I guess.
But my friend and I were joking about it. We said, “To hell with compassion, just give me a baby!” Ok, we were kidding but it’s not something I would have necessarily chosen. I’d like to think that as I grow older and move on that I’ll be much more grateful for these experiences even if I’m sometimes too sad to appreciate it now.
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