Infertility is not psychological
Hope does not heal what is physically broken. Changing one's thinking does not change a physical ailment. We can't mind game our way into the physically impossible. One of the troubling things about infertility is this underlying idea that infertility can be overcome with just a change in attitude.
But the inability to have children is a disorder just like an amputated leg or cancer. You can't think it away. You can think about it differently and learn how to accept the condition and make adjustments to your life, but that doesn't make it go away. It only changes how you respond to it.
And the grief is legitimate. It is saying good-bye to one future. It is the death of what could have been. I'm starting to think the realization of the loss or absence of fertility might be similar to the loss of a limb. It is life-changing. Your normal has to change and it won't ever be the same as what other's around you consider to be normal. Just as strangers look at a person limping along with one leg and constantly ask, "What happened?" the infertile are looked at and strangers ask, "What happened?"
And if you decide that part of your acceptance is fighting it, this to has its own sense of abnormality. People just get pregnant. Surprise! Yesterday you weren't a parent, today you are. But some people have to deliberately choose to spend money, time, energy, and medically strategize to have a chance of becoming biological or adoptive parents. These are people who no longer get to have the home pregnancy test, but instead know the moment they are expecting that a child is on the way and then only hope to carry the baby full term.
Infertility is not psychological. It is biological with a psychological impact. It is painful and hard, but it is not impossible.
But the inability to have children is a disorder just like an amputated leg or cancer. You can't think it away. You can think about it differently and learn how to accept the condition and make adjustments to your life, but that doesn't make it go away. It only changes how you respond to it.
And the grief is legitimate. It is saying good-bye to one future. It is the death of what could have been. I'm starting to think the realization of the loss or absence of fertility might be similar to the loss of a limb. It is life-changing. Your normal has to change and it won't ever be the same as what other's around you consider to be normal. Just as strangers look at a person limping along with one leg and constantly ask, "What happened?" the infertile are looked at and strangers ask, "What happened?"
And if you decide that part of your acceptance is fighting it, this to has its own sense of abnormality. People just get pregnant. Surprise! Yesterday you weren't a parent, today you are. But some people have to deliberately choose to spend money, time, energy, and medically strategize to have a chance of becoming biological or adoptive parents. These are people who no longer get to have the home pregnancy test, but instead know the moment they are expecting that a child is on the way and then only hope to carry the baby full term.
Infertility is not psychological. It is biological with a psychological impact. It is painful and hard, but it is not impossible.
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