How to Manage the Timeline of Your Infertility Journey
Do you ever look back on your past self and wish you could give yourself a hug?
Do you ever get flashbacks or think about your past and feel distressed, sad, or scared?
Time plays a huge role in an infertility journey. Reliving your past is common when you have been waiting to conceive or learn that your percentage for success is low. These past experiences can be traumatizing and almost haunt you as you try to move forward in your journey.
The truth is: Ruminating and dwelling on the past is only going to fester your wounds and daydreaming of the future can make you feel scared or depressed. When it comes to fertility, grief, and loss, the best kind of healing you can do is try to be present.
The most popular coping strategies you’ve probably heard of are mindfulness and meditation. While I agree that the practice of mind and body is wonderful, most people need more to work with if they are not ready to sit still with their thoughts and emotions.
If this is the case, here are some suggestions to help you keep moving forward:
5 Tips for Making Peace with Your Infertility Journey
Be kind to past yourself
Catch yourself if you are judging your past decisions. Our past decisions are usually made from the resources and skills we had at the time. Give yourself grace. Plus, life happens, and we do our best to get through it and prioritize our needs the best we can.
2. Grieve the loss.
If you wish you had more time to build your family, please consider grieving that loss. Make room for feelings of sadness, regret, emptiness, and lost hope. You are not going to sabotage your pregnancy outcomes if you make space for your grief. For many, it will help get them back to the present once they allow themselves to acknowledge their raw, deep, and often hidden feelings.
3. Acknowledge societal unrealistic pressures
Society has a way of pressuring us to be at a certain “life stage,” including placing unrealistic reproduction ideals and assumptions on us. Be aware of society’s expectations of you. Make a list. Ask yourself if you prescribe to these expectations. Are they fair expectations? If you do prescribe to any of them, ask yourself how it is helping you now and work on letting them go.
4. Know there are alternatives.
Time may not be on your side, but if being child-free is not the best match for you, begin to explore alternative family building. This can help you feel like your timeline just got a little longer and they have more room to potentially parent.
5. Explore being child-free.
Although it is extremely scary to consider what you would like to do with your time if you do not parent, take a close look at your life and explore other interests and opportunities. Explore your identity. Does it currently only surround being a parent? Ask yourself if there is more to who you are than your reproductive abilities.
All in all, your journey is unique to you –– offer grace and forgiveness for your past, allow yourself to grieve your experiences, acknowledge society’s unrealistic expectations, and explore alternative methods to family-building or identity outside of motherhood.
You are capable and have so much ahead of you. Keep going and keep healing.
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