Infertility: Surviving the Season of Joy

It took a few yuletides for me to get it right - here’s what I figured out over those years.

Image by Annie Spratt/Unsplash

I originally shared this piece in 2022 on my personal social media. I was three festive holidays deep into working out what helped or hindered me to survive the season of joy whilst struggling to conceive.

This year, the fact I am finally able to engage with and enjoy Christmas, has only made me think of others who will find this time of year challenging. The following words give an insight into what December is really like for those of us with our noses pressed up to the glass of family life, and some suggestions to make it easier to navigate.

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The season of joy which is geared, let’s face it, primarily towards children, is here. For those of us who long to bring a baby home, ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ is anything but. Personally, I feel like I’m stretching at the start of a marathon, limbering up to run a gauntlet of trauma triggers. I wonder if I’ve done enough training this year to make it to the end, exhausted yet hopefully smiling.

I realise, the past two Decembers have given me a lot of knowledge as to what to expect and how I can best look after myself. So here are my findings on navigating this, somewhat, garish time of year when dealing with grief and infertility.

Be honest about your mental health during December

As much as I’d love to think that I’m feeling good in the lead up to Christmas I now know, categorically that my mental health will suddenly slide, and usually hit it’s nadir on New Year’s Eve. Christmas week was the due date of my first pregnancy and this year would of been ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ if my second pregnancy had continued.

It’s a lot.

I’m mindful of the significance of these inescapable facts now. How the weight of them will resurface like a diver, slowly inching up from the deep. Now, I accept it will happen, I have a plan to allow it plenty of space this year. In the past I’ve tried to force frivolity to maintain my usual celebratory energy throughout the holiday season—which for Joe and I—is a socialising endurance test, with two family birthdays also sandwiched between Christmas and New Year. I’ve learnt I basically end up in a catatonic state by the 31st, crying in bed listening to fireworks and other people’s fun as the clock strikes midnight, and that is not where I want to be again.

Being honest with myself and others about the difficulty of maintaining my mental health in December is very much the way forward for me.

Don’t underestimate the amount of rest required

Luckily, I don’t have any pregnant people or very young children in my immediate family, so I don’t have to prepare myself for what can only be described as the A-List of confronting and draining social interactions — but the B-List is also pretty hard to escape too. Things like shopping centres full of excited families, pictures of other’s children meeting Father Christmas on social media, friend’s children doing yuletide activities together, friends discussing what they are getting their children with each other, the festive baby outfits in Marks & Spencer and adverts on TV depicting extremely fertile dinner tables, are a few examples of all I’ve lost, don’t have and possibly won’t ever have suddenly being omnipresent.

For the majority of the year I am able to manage my exposure to such things, but at Christmas it’s nigh on impossible. The amount of energy it takes to constantly level out the panic from these triggers is enormous. It’s like putting out a fire only for another to start behind you on repeat, over and over. I now know that just existing through December will definitely drain me of the energy I have left after a year of IVF and fertility treatments, so I’m making sure I prioritise rest into my plans.

This has meant saying “No” and doing exactly what I want to do. Being a bit selfish is a saviour in this respect.

Create your own Christmas traditions

It’s hard to shake the sense of not really ‘qualifying’ as a family at all during Christmas. So this year I want to focus on building our own Christmas traditions as the little family we find ourselves, and lessen the sense of being ‘a bit pathetic’ because we don’t have children to share them with (which I often do). Unchecked, these kind of thoughts can morph into crippling unworthiness and at the extreme a pervasive sense that I don’t deserve to be a Mum. That I’m not good enough.

I’m a naturally confident person but I know, without building my sense of belonging at this time of year, I am susceptible to these negative thought patterns. So I want to make sure that this year we stick to the traditions we already have and add a few others because it’s really tempting to just not bother when it kind of feels like you’re pretending. Currently this involves an internet search for the best matching pyjama set for two adults and a French Bulldog. Extremely obvious, I know but something I’ve held back for when we have a baby. Allowing myself this tiny, cheesy indulgence helps me to feel that we can celebrate just like everyone else.

In short, make the damn gingerbread house and nurture your inner child whilst you have no child of your own to share these things with. They most definitely need it.

Reflecting on the year can be empowering (despite no outward fertility success)

Naturally, as we roll towards the New Year it becomes a time for reflection. What was achieved over the last 12 months? How has life changed? It’s so easy to feel like an utter failure when your one goal was to get pregnant, or in my case to freeze just one normal embryo, and it hasn’t been achieved. When these wishes don’t happen —despite maximum effort to achieve them — the sense of nothing in life progressing forward can be utterly overwhelming. An analysis of my 2022 could surmise it as a particular type of purgatory. Instead, I try look at what I now know but didn’t a year ago. As much as I’ve seemingly got further away from being pregnant by not actively trying all year, I discovered so much more information that I feel, is imperative to me staying pregnant next time. It’s like all of the knowledge we’ve gathered is getting ready in a group huddle on the sidelines of our conception game, ready to take on the 2023 season.

I’ve learnt to not measure our success this year by a positive line, a packed hospital bag or a baby seat fixture in the car. This year wasn’t about that and I have achieved more than enough by just showing up for it day after day, because it’s been bloody hard, expensive not to mention physically invasive.

The two things I have done differently this year (that have really helped)

One

Deciding to go away for Christmas has released me from the pressure of so many days in a row of socialising. I also know that exploring somewhere new helps me to feel expansive and lessen the feelings of being stuck or stagnant. It also gives me much more control around exposure to triggers.

Decide what your version of this is if you don’t have the luxury of a full escape. Can you reduce the amount of socialising or have an exit strategy to leave after a certain amount of time? Maybe you want to ring fence one whole day, just at home with your significant other/pets, pj’s and a box set? Can you escape to new views on a day trip?

Two

I picked one late night event to attend instead of spreading myself thin trying to see everyone and do everything. It just so happened that no one in the group of people I did this with were parents. This is something I’ve now realised was a rare and special treat. The freedom of a night out, where no discussion of children occurred was a huge relief for my nervous system. I had no need for my ‘mask’. It was a revelation.

What social events will best serve you and allow you to not have to put on your ‘mask’? Are there certain people that are better to be around to achieve this? Place your energy into events where you will get the most boost of energy back.

Written in December 2022

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