After many years of trying to have children, which finally ended with a baby, I often heard one sentence.
All's well that ends well.
This sentence also exists in other variations, for example: "The main thing is that it was successful", or "Now you have a baby" or "In the end, it was worth it".
Many other people affected are also familiar with this phrase, which is often uttered with the intention of giving the person concerned a good shout, along the lines that they have now made it.
But it's not quite that simple. With infertility, you never know exactly how long this phase will last, what you will have to sacrifice for it and whether there will be a baby at all in the end. I deliberately don't write a happy ending, because even a baby is not simply the end of such a phase.
If you have to study for an exam, this also involves sacrifice or effort, but you can estimate pretty accurately what it will take to pass the exam, training, etc. If I want to lose five kilos, it is also up to me alone how quickly or how well I can achieve this goal. This process can also be easy or difficult, but in the end I have the reins in my hands. Then I can definitely say at the end that the sport was worth it, because I have achieved the goal. Or I have learnt enough to pass the exam. It's a necessary, predetermined way to get there and I chose the goal myself.
Having a baby is something that usually happens naturally. You can't be good or bad at it, nor can you influence it in any way. The path to this goal is therefore not the same for everyone.
Going through years of wanting children is not comparable to something you actively choose, such as pursuing a career and putting up with stressful working hours. Infertility comes on top of normal everyday life, with all its consequences - which, as mentioned at the beginning, cannot be estimated at the start. During this time, you can't make any important decisions such as changing jobs, buying a house, continuing your education, etc. without the issue of the desire to have children always being a question mark in the back of your mind.
Many treatments are also associated with enormous costs over the years. It's easy to say that you could have bought a Porsche instead, after all that's a free decision. However, the costs always come at inconvenient times and you often get nothing in return. These are costs that others who are not affected by this problem do not have to bear.
If you don't want to have children, friendships break up, perhaps relationships, you experience other events with less joy because you are constantly travelling with the handbrake on. You might miss out on a visit to the theme park with friends because a) you don't want to talk about your current treatment in detail and b) you might be pregnant after all. These are all lost memories, joys, etc. that nobody can give you back.
In the end, there may be a baby that you love more than anything and for whom you would go the long way again. Presumably no mother would want to give her child back, even if it had worked out quite simply. But that doesn't mean that the moment the baby is born, all your efforts are forgotten. Often - when it finally works out - you are already extremely tired physically and mentally once the pregnancy begins and it is characterised by constant anxiety. This cannot be compared to a pregnancy surrounded by ease that just happened. You may have already had to say goodbye to a pregnancy - without a baby being born. Something like that cannot be "worth it", even if a healthy baby is born in the end.
I like to draw a comparison with other diagnoses here to show how absurdly some people trivialise the "success" of a baby in the end. You don't say to someone with a bad hip that the new hip joint was worth it in the end - if it was urgently needed.
The phrase "all's well that ends well" often also implies that those around you are overwhelmed. They are happy that the tiresome issue has finally come to an end and as they are not affected themselves, the birth of a baby is the end of it for them.
A difficult time trying to conceive always leaves traces that continue to have an effect long after. Many of those affected report that they have lost a basic sense of trust, or that they still have to deal with fears and losses later on. It is therefore wrong to say that something was "worth it" because at that moment you don't even know what price you are paying. Let's also think about those for whom there may not be a baby at all. There is no answer as to whether it might have worked out later, how and why. Nor can you tell anyone how far they have to or can go to make something worthwhile. Some prospective parents try everything they can and it still doesn't work out, which is unfair.
That is why I am committed to ensuring that the efforts and consequences of infertility are taken just as seriously as other physical or mental issues that accompany you during a period of time, even if, in the best-case scenario, you recover. They all leave wounds that may eventually become scars, but they remain forever.
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