What Failing To Conceive Taught Me About My Creative Spark
I’ve always been a sucker for fairy tales.
Some of my favorite tales begin with the story of a king and queen who are unable to conceive. In their desperation, they turn to magical means to get a child.
(Spoiler alert: never, ever involve the realm of Faerie in your fertility treatments. Side effects for the baby include: uncontrollable shapeshifting during daylight hours, clumsy spinning skills, and narcolepsy.)
It wasn’t until I tried to get pregnant myself that I began to understand the desperation of the king and queen.
While my friends were posting ultrasound pictures and cute baby announcements, I spent several years in a monthly cycle of expectation and disappointment as my body regularly released unfertilized eggs.
Seeing so many people around me rejoice in new parenthood really stung. I genuinely felt happy for my friends but I still struggled to keep a smile on my face as I faced questions at baby showers about my own fertility.
Comparing my journey to theirs made me feel inadequate as a woman.
We went through all the things: blood tests, invasive scans, sperm count, etc. It became clear that having children was not possible for us.
