Creating an IVF drive

One of the many costs of successive IVF failure is an undeniable loss of confidence. Such a loss is exacerbated when the subject arrived at infertility with existing issues to do with self worth. 

When hopes of having a baby – through whatever means – have all but died, it is a matter of coming to terms with learning something from an experience which remains all too raw. 

Something that helped Lifeslurper make it through a sometimes difficult childhood was art and crafts. This was by far the one area of my life in receipt of praise both inside and out of the home. Making and creating things was a great motivator. Not surprisingly, it was the main source of confidence. 

Like so many other things in my family, I slipped in unnoticed behind my many elder siblings. My mother still says the age differences resulted in my brothers and sisters having little patience for someone younger. I was expected to act ‘older’ and be more like them. My attending an evening ceramics class with my 19 year old sister, because she did not want to go alone, was typical of this. I was not yet 9. Having siblings interested in creative things meant I had full access to oil paints, fabrics, a sewing machine and more. My mother bought a copy of the Encyclopaedia Britannica so they could study art theory. I treasured those books. I could knit before I could read (Teddy might one day tell you of the bespoke jumpers worn over the years!) and my Barbie dolls wore ball gowns fashioned from old stockings and the remains of Glomesh handbags. Young Lifeslurper dreamed of becoming a fashion designer and artist. Various contests were won, and in my tiny one teacher rural school, creativity was my one claim to fame. 

The yearning to be creative is never far from me, but for many years its practice has remained dormant. I lost confidence, and actually had relationships where my pretence of creativity was met with envy. In my early years, making, designing, completing things was a source of intense pleasure, it brought inner peace, contentment, and self worth like nothing since. 

Looking back, I suspect I was actually in touch with my ‘higher’ self. That preoccupation with the creative process would also provide a safe haven to escape to during family strife and later high school bullying. Perhaps, because it was never nurtured, I never had true confidence in what ever abilities I may have had. Senior art teacher encouragement was probably too late by the close of high school. Possibly, the only school based indication of any academic merit meant I was encouraged to study the arts. In those days we did not have career counselling or guidance. None of my siblings had attended university. I was pretty much left to make the best decision I could, with a newly widowed mother who was prepared to support me in whatever way she could. A perfect score on a art recognition test pushed me into ticking the box for arts rather than fine arts. I would never have the pride and confidence needed to produce art works for assessment I reasoned. Writing essays privately would be far easier, or so I thought. 

Doing IVF cycles is kind of like what I imagined doing a fine arts degree would be like. With a performance closely monitored and the outputs scrutinized endlessly, my performance in my Diploma of Fertility Studies saw me fail and withdraw before the first year was over. I was the hard working student with little natural ability who probably in reality never had much chance. No amount of extra tutoring or study hours were going to improve my success rate.

So here I am with all the possibilities for my own baby seemingly exhausted. Apart from all the usual infertility baggage, there are some unexpected results; namely the burning desire to create and an overwhelming need for some tangible form of ‘success’ in life. 

These feelings have been brewing for a while and seem to have grown as my hope of nurturing a child has proportionally decreased. 

I may not want to be world famous, or incredibly wealthy, but I do want some minor achievements for my life – both internal and external. Does that make me a ‘bad’ person? Knowing I have spent a life buying in to other’s views of my worth. I acknowledge the search for wider acceptance is likely to be a quest fraught with difficulties. 

I don’t want or mean to sound like a malcontent. I have the love and unwaivering support of a very good man in Wobbles. This means I have so much more than many other women. Perhaps it is the fact that this very wonderous thing is still so new to my life, that I have had all too long to contemplate my own failure to make something of the natural advantages I may have had. Wobbles’ belief in me gives me strength on most days to see what it is I can do – outside of this whole baby business – that is. He wants me to try for me. That makes me want to try for him. Whatever the motivation, hopefully the results can be the same.

Still I want an epitaph that is a little bit more than: 

So she couldn’t make babies, but she sure made some nice jumpers for her Teddy