Feelings of Unworthiness
Over the Easter weekend some things came up for me about IVF, pregnancy and motherhood that I think need some processing. What I should really say is that some things bubbled into consciousness. These are things that I had been feeling for a while but hadn’t really been able to put words to yet.
The first is a feeling of unworthiness when I think about myself being pregnant or being a mother. I kind of shudder away from even thinking about myself as a mother. I think this feeling is a result of 8 years of infertility. Part of it is my brain protecting myself from the desire to be a mother. It hasn’t happened in 8 years and at some point my brain has to believe it won’t ever happen. It starts to protect me from the desire. Logical right? I think the other part is that a small part of me believes that the Universe has deemed me unworthy thus infertility. If I was truly worthy of motherhood I wouldn’t be experiencing infertility. Now I know there are a lot of people who would argue against this with lots of logical explanations. I agree with all of them! But I still feel this way. I still feel like I’ve been cursed by God/the Universe/whatever. Part of what makes me feel this way is that I grew up in a very bible believing household. A common phrase in that community is that “God has a plan, give it to God.” There are people in the religious community who believe that IVF is an abomination and that if you’re meant to have kids God will give them to you. Well the unspoken part of that is that if you AREN’T meant to have kids (IE God doesn’t think you should have them), then you won’t. And well…that’s where we are at. I don’t believe that stuff in my head but something in my heart is still feeling that if God actually wanted us to have kids we wouldn’t have experienced infertility for 8 years. I can recognize that this is a story I’m telling myself and I’m in control of that story and can change it. But it’s still there. I feel unworthy. Maybe everyone feels unworthy of parenthood and my feelings of unworthiness stem from a different place but it’s normal to feel that way? I don’t know.
Another interesting feeling that came up is that I feel weird/off/guilty/shameful about the DESIRE to be a mother. I’ve only recognized this recently so I’m not sure if it’s always been there or if I’m just now acknowledging it. Something about telling people we’re going through IVF and have experienced infertility for a long time makes me feel….some kind of way. I don’t really know what the feeling is. Maybe it’s exposed? Vulnerable? Maybe (and I’m brainstorming here), it’s that acknowledging we’re doing IVF is like saying to the world “we’re going to be such awesome parents we’re going to manipulate science in order to make it happen”. Or maybe that doing IVF is such a massive endeavor that it puts on blast to the world that we’re not the kindhearted souls who would adopt or do foster care before spending thousands of dollars to reproduce our own genes. Maybe some of it is guilt over that?
Perhaps some of it is fear about the future. When things are hard are people going to say horrid things like “I told you it wouldn’t be easy” or other “I told you so” type comments. In reality it’s not the fear of the comments, it’s the fear of losing the ability to share my daily frustrations with people. I am announcing to the world that I want a baby so badly I’m willing to go through lots of money and pain to make it happen. This is very different than the person who accidentally got pregnant, and then for the rest of time they can say when things are hard that they didn’t ask for this. Well…I can’t say that. I am asking for that. When things get hard I’m afraid I can’t say anything, that people will say I’m getting what I asked for.
I think there’s more here to process over the next few months but for now that’s all.
