Month after month after month of having the feeling of defeat can really cause a person to focus on the negative. On this particularly tough month, I decided to look for some positivity. I was strolling around on Pinterest looking at beautiful homes, envy worthy hair styles and wardrobes, and of course a plethora of booty building routines, when I decided to see what the most popular posts for Infertility quotes were. I’m not sure why I was surprised but as I scrolled down the feed, every single quote was about SUFFERING in SILENCE, and was oozing with negativity. One literally said:
“Sometimes the strongest among us are the ones who smile through the silent pain, cry behind closed doors, and fight battles nobody knows about”
Another said:
“Sometimes all you can do is smile. Move on with your day, hold back the tears and pretend you’re ok”
My personal favorite was a quote that was placed over the background of a beautiful flower…as if that would lessen the blow of what it was about to say:
“I’m afraid one day my husband won’t be ok with my infertility anymore and then he’ll leave me. I’ll then watch him have a family with someone else. The only thing I’ve ever wanted”.
WHAAAAAT?!!!! Is this really what we are going to focus on? First of all, let me address the very last quote, as it is the most jaw dropping. I can completely understand that this may be a fear among women with infertility issues. I am not going to put anyone down for their fears or having those moments where the mind wonders to the very worst case scenarios…because let’s be real, this has happened to us all at one point in our life. However, I don’t know that this is what I would expect to see as a quote to represent infertility. It makes me think of the most desperate, panicked moment that flashes through your mind for a second and then you do like in the cartoons and take off your white gloves and slap yourself across the face with them to snap out of it! Now to the first two quotes….The message of hiding your pain or suffering in silence was a very common theme throughout the thread of pictures and quotes. This idea is being touted as a sign of strength? I think that any woman that is going through this journey is STRONG. We all have to have the strength in us to hold out hope and to move forward with doctors visits, injections, hormone swings, loss, and the unknown. The last thing that we should have to be is SILENT.
I’ve said it before and I will say it over and over again, I by no means think that every woman that is going through an infertility journey HAS to share. With that being said, I don’t think that suffering in silence should be encouraged and praised. So many women have reached out to me who faced infertility issues DECADES ago. They now have children and have had wonderful lives, but they still hold on to the pain and loneliness that they felt while they were going through the times of not knowing if they would every carry a child. This tells me that there is a possibility that if they had reached out to someone or had an outlet for their feelings while they were going through it, that they may have had an easier time of coping with what they were experiencing.
Before I began writing about my experiences, I had NO IDEA how many women that I know personally that have gone through such similar struggles. Those quotes that I read this morning really made me think: Would I want my best friend to suffer in silence? NO! Would I want my sister to suffer in silence? NO! Would I want my future daughter (hopefully I’ll get to have one 😉 ) to suffer in silence? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
I am hoping to change the message of infertility from “We are strong because we suffer in silence” to something more like “We are strong.” Period, end of story! We are STRONG. Our infertility and the journey that we are on does not define us. We are STRONG because we choose everyday to pick ourselves up, we allow others to help hold us up, and we carry on!!
PippSqueak Chronicles 