Endometriosis

My Story: Baby Envy

It’s been a while since I’ve done my Friday installment of “My Story” and I’ve been thinking about this one for weeks.  

My name is Ali, and I have baby envy.  Whew.  It feels so much better to put that out there.  I don’t know what it is about babies these days, but the sight of them puts me in a crazy jealous mood.  Don’t even get me started on the rollercoaster of emotions that pregnant people have been putting me in.  Perhaps it’s knowing that getting pregnant and staying pregnant might be the biggest struggle for me yet.  Perhaps it’s that everyone (and I  literally mean practically everyone) around me has a baby.  But mostly, I think that now it’s that a lot of people around me are onto their second or third children.

It’s not that I don’t love these babies.  I love them all and their parents.  It’s that pang of jealousy way down deep inside.  It’s the anger that it’s so easy for some and yet so hard for others.  It’s reading stories about women with endo who have tried for years and it’s never happened or those more heartbreaking stories of the women with endo who have lost their children along the way.  It’s these feelings that I’m finding it so hard to deal with because in a way, I know I shouldn’t feel this way at all.

Sometimes I’m truly angry that I’ve been dealt this hand of cards.  I know that I would be a great mom and my husband a truly amazing father and yet I see people out there in the world who weren’t ready or didn’t really want it in the first place somehow getting there first - as if there is some limited supply of children and they are cutting the line with some VIP pass I was not allowed to get.  So to you, the parents of beautiful children everywhere, do me a favour (and all the rest of the women with endo who might not get to experience this): hug your children a little tighter tonight and pause for a second to think about how truly lucky you are.  There just might be someone out there, like me, who would do anything to be in your shoes.

My Story: Nightmares

Last night I had a terrible dream.  Everyone in my family had children, multiple children, and I was sitting around playing with my new niece and nephew telling everyone how I was never going to have my own children.  I woke up feeling like my heart was broken.

I don’t know what it is.  Likely the fact that honestly, just about every women on my father’s side of the family is pregnant - except me.  All of my cousins - older, same age, younger - except me.  I’m not trying to have a baby but I worry that it is never going to happen when we do try and the emptiness I will feel as a result.  The emptiness that my husband will feel….  it’s too much sometimes.

Especially on days like today where the pain has me doubled over, in tears, ready to vomit from the strength of the pain, I think that being pregnant would be the most glorious thing in the world because for 9 whole months I wouldn’t feel this.  I also wonder if perhaps I would reset my body through pregnancy as you hear sometimes and not feel any pain ever again but I know that the likelihood of that is remote and it puts a ridiculous amount of pressure on my future unborn child.  Fix mommy little one…  yeah right!

I just hope that when we are ready, it won’t be a hard fight.  Please, please, PLEASE don’t take away this dream of ours!