"Just Relax and It Will Happen"
“Just relax and it will happen “
Has there ever been a time when you’ve been in an argument or even involved in an altercation and there’s always that one martyr that tells you to calm down .
Whichever category you fall into in the scenario above : (1)the martyr (bless your heart) (2) the one being told to relax /calm down (me) , or (3) the person that stays out of it and keeps it moving, I just thought to let you know that the worse thing you can say to person (2) is ‘calm down’. In fact it actually exacerbates the feelings of rage within the person.
With it being mental health awareness day last week. I thought I would talk about how it felt when people who meant well ; would say ‘just relax and it will happen’ .
I’m a deep thinker , and so I like to research and read , and a majority of articles I read confirmed that stress is not actually a cause of infertility , yes it can trigger the unhappy hormones that don’t take well to a successful conception. However it isn’t an underlying factor that would have given me in particular an explanation to why I couldn’t get pregnant .
In fact it’s the other way round; dealing with infertility causes stress , depression guilt , shame ... to name the few. In other words it really messed with my head and it was only my faith that kept me going (next post).
Having being told that the likelihood of me getting pregnant naturally was near to none, I was completely crushed.
So back to the well wishers who really tried to give me hope it further messed me up when Aunt Josephine, or sis from
Church would tell me one of the following stories that every woman , and I mean every woman who has suffered a loss, Or needed a bit of help has heard some of these stories in many different versions:
Disclaimer: Every person referred to below is called ‘sis’ or something of the other because I couldn’t think of any other false names (LOL).
So here goes;
Story 1:
My ex-boyfriend’s sister’s friend was having a hard time so she also considered fertility treatment, and the day she was due to have her first fertility appointment she found out she was expecting.
Story 2:
‘Sis tried for so long and she eventually just gave up and decided to take a break and go on holiday to focus her energies on something else, and then she found out she was expecting. Despite the fact that she was drinking alcohol all throughout her holiday .
Story 3:
‘The I didn’t know I was pregnant story’.
(I continue to remain naive and in disbelief about about how someone can only find out about their pregnancy when they are so close to birth. I literally thought only Eastenders story lines could get away with that ish. This story whilst true for some really infuriated me, because at my peak of desperation, and many others may agree ; you start to become delusional - i.e believe that your test is positive even though they are imaginary lines. You believe that you are pregnant, and that your’e the one of a kind 1/10 million woman whose test never picked up the HCG hormone.
And so what that caused me to do is create a story in my mind that this would be the month for me.
One month of ‘just relaxing’ I would expect to see two pink lines on a pregnancy test. Meanwhile the irony was the expectations were doing the exact opposite.
Another month of going away and not thinking about anything fertility related further heightened those expectations.
Another month of expecting that miracle that sis had where she found out she was pregnant on Mother’s Day/Father’s day/ marriage anniversary/. Those days were .. hmmm let me not even go there .
And so these true (but not helpful for me) stories really challenged me mentally.
I was disappointed with God , embarrassed , blamed my self, hated the fact that body couldn’t do what it was made to do . But be fair I also learnt conception is a bit like Takeshi’s castle . I salute all you super sperm men and super fertile ladies :-). I can’t say I was ever depressed but I had, and sometimes still have some super dark moments as infertility and all that comes with it can leave some horrible scars.
The best thing for me after all of that was either just having a warm hug (for those that knew, or better still the choice words of the one minister lady who experienced a similar journey (now has triplets... yes call me a hipocrite, but I did say these stories are true).
Yes this minister lady would always say to me ‘if He (GOD) did it for me. He can do it for you.
The first time I heard her say that , whilst all those stories sparked a curiosity , they didn’t matter anymore , they served as reference point only. As a believer I made a decision that God had written my very own story, and so yes if he did it for ‘sis’ then he would certainly do it for me; and what that could mean is it may not necessarily be the way I thought it would be, and that I can’t preempt how things will fall into place. I just had to hold on to the belief that IT WILL happen, one way or another.
The idea of having assisted fertility treatment then suddenly started to become a more forthcoming as an option for me...
