National Infertility Awareness Week

Suzy Stanton - 30 Apr 19

Last week was National Infertility Awareness Week. There’s a bit of an overload of national somethingorother weeks so it can be difficult to identify the good ones in among them. This is definitely one of the good ones.

Infertility affects around 1 in 6 couples in the UK. That’s a lot of people, but it’s a topic that isn’t widely discussed. It’s a lonely and isolating road to be on. When you’re on it you think you’re the only one and that you’re going the wrong way down a one way street. All you can see around you are pregnant ladies or people pushing babies around in pushchairs. Each one you pass is like a slap across the face. They got pregnant so why can’t I?

As with a lot of things in the social media focused, image conscious world we live in, appearances can be deceptive. The pregnant lady may have suffered many losses before she got to where she is today. The baby in the pram may be adopted. To anyone who doesn’t know me, if they saw me out with my baby they would probably think I grew her in my tummy.

Everyone who is touched by infertility deals with it differently. Some will be open with friends and family about what they’re going through. Others won’t because they don’t feel that they can.

When you’re going through it, insensitive comments from people cut like a knife. I’ll never forget going back to work after a holiday and a colleague said I looked different. She then asked if I was pregnant. When I said I wasn’t, for some reason she wouldn’t let it go and said she was sure I was but understood if I didn’t want to tell anyone. I wanted to scream at her. By then we’d been trying for a while and nothing was happening. I couldn’t believe how insensitive she was.

I learned to grow a thick skin and ignore comments like that and “you’d better get a move on, time isn’t on your side.” So please, think before you speak. If you want to ask someone when they’re planning on starting a family, don’t. If they wanted to tell you, they would. You just don’t know what heartache there might be behind the smiling face.

The human race exists because women get pregnant and procreate. I felt like a complete and utter failure when I didn’t get pregnant. My body had let me down and it took a long time to forgive it. In the time that we’d been trying, my sister had 2 children and 6 of my best friends had 10 kids between them. There were 3 heartbreaking miscarriages in among that, but 12 babies were born to the people I love the most. I was over the moon for them and loved being involved with their babies, but my heart broke a little bit each time too.

My husband and I knew treatment wasn’t for us and our reason for not getting pregnant meant it was our only realistic chance of it happening. I truly take my hat off to anyone who has IVF. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to deal with the crushing devastation I’d feel if we weren’t successful. Or worse still, if I’d got pregnant and then miscarried. Lots of woman deal with that every day. I knew I couldn’t.

We are very, very lucky because there was a happy ending for us. Adoption had been on our radar for a long time so when we decided it was time to move on, it was very much a positive way forward, not a last resort. Adoption is never a last resort. It’s a roller coaster but it’s a road I’m very grateful we chose. Our girls are a complete blessing to us and our family. I know now that I was never meant to get pregnant because I was always meant to be their mum. We had to go through what we did so that we were ready for them at the right time.

Suzy Stanton

Suzy works as a legal adviser and tries to fit her passion for words around winging it being mum to a her 2 adopted daughters who are 5 and 1. She self published her first novel "Running Scared" through Amazon and blogs as We Made a Wish, sharing the rollercoaster that is adoption

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