Hopes of having a biological child are strong in women fighting the uphill battle of infertility. My fertility battle lasted less than one year and I was a nervous wreck. I cannot imagine how it must feel to do everything you are medically supposed to do and try every medical treatment on earth only to find pregnancy escapes you every time. With age, chances of getting pregnant through natural or assisted methods grow smaller, so when is it time to let go of fertility hopes?
The Personal Battle Only You Can Fight
My battle with infertility was extremely personal. I blamed myself, my partner, even my parents. I was young, so the doctors involved were bright-eyed and filled with hope. That hope bled into my soul and despite denying advanced assistance (Clomid) I managed to conceive four children, including a set of fraternal twins, naturally. But, my story is just that – MINE. There are women out there who’ve been fighting the fertility battle for more than a decade and despite that spark of hope every month, inevitably, for some women, there comes a time when hope for a natural child is replaced with hope for parenthood – no matter the biological status of the child. There is no definitive timeline for every woman.
Leaving One Hope Behind for Another Kind of Hope
Probably the worst scenario for women trying to conceive is unexplained infertility. Though infertility of any kind is heartbreaking, a medical diagnosis or idea about what is causing the fertility provides an answer to the inevitable WHY that came to mind when I couldn’t conceive. Though hopes of natural or assisted conception may wane with time, new hope may rest in alternative means of parenting a biological child.
Some women have great luck with surrogate mothers who carry children conceived with eggs and sperm harvested from parents who just can’t seem to conceive together. Somehow the human body cannot put these two things together in one body, but another body works perfectly well and a biological child is born.
If you are asking yourself if the time has come to let your fertility hopes die, maybe it’s time to look beyond traditional fertility help and seek out alternative methods of parenting, even if that means rethinking your idea of parenthood.