No Escape

I saw a book in a bookshop the other day that looked interesting. It was a compilation of people's real life accounts of their experience of infertility. They all ended up having children and I thought it seemed like a nice idea to read success stories to spur me on. I'm kicking myself for not buying it at the time because when I went back to find it, it was gone. I guess there's more than one couple in my area in the same boat.

It occurred to me that it's a cruel idea to put books about infertility right next to the books about pregnancy and child care. There I am looking for books to help me feel better about my situation and I get pictures of babies staring at me from the covers of books about what to name your baby and what to expect when you're pregnant and how to look after your baby.

I decided to leave the shop because it was making me feel sad, so I make a hasty retreat, but all around me were couples pushing babies around and toys for babies and clothes for babies. I walked around the supermarket looking for cotton buds and I had to walk past nappies and baby food. It's everywhere I go. I know it's always been there, but when it's playing on my mind, it's so hard to keep seeing it.

I've got to the stage where I cry when I see a baby now. A friend at work's sister had a baby. He showed me the picture of her holding her child in the hospital and I cried. I must have looked like a complete idiot, crying at a picture of his sister, who I don't know, holding a baby who I'm not related to or am ever likely to meet.

It's worse when I see a baby in real life. My niece recently had a daughter and I met her for the first time over Christmas and there I was trying to hide the fact that my eyes were filling with tears as she walked in the room holding this beautiful little girl. The thing is that I'm genuinely pleased for these people and I know how very happy they must be to have this little addition to their family and that's what makes me cry.

A couple of my friends have recently told me of their plans to have children and then apologised for themselves because they know it must be hard for me. Of course it will be hard for me to see them going through what I'm desperate to go through, but it doesn't make me any less happy for them. And anyway, what are they going to do, hide it from me? I'm so sick of putting my friends and family in the position of having to apologise for their own happiness.

I'm hoping this is the year that all that ends and I can be the one in the hospital, holding the baby and posing for the camera.