The best club you never wanted to join!

I'm not a brilliant writer, I make grammatical errors, I use too many brackets and I struggle to not ramble! 

I write for a number of reasons; selfishly because it's cathartic - emptying my brain out on to the paper/screen is so much more therapy for me than I can pay for. Of course there is always a bit of me that daydreams someone will come along and beg me to write for their column and I'll actually do this for a living... alas we can dream!

Joking aside, I hope that one day someone will read something I've written on here or on my blog and it will help them with their problems or make them feel better or at least less alone because the infertility journey that we find ourselves on can be bloody lonely. 

I'm lucky that I have a brilliant support network however I wouldn't burden my besties with my 2am ramblings, and the crazy crap I ramble about they wouldn't know anyway, because unless you are as needle deep as we are why would you?! 

But - the infertility community never sleeps. There are members from all over the world so any time is an appropriate time to ask the completely bizarre questions that pop in to our heads and knowing that they've probably been on the drug you're on or know the side effects or the best rain dance to do at what point in your cycle or just to tell you that your batshit crazy thinking is OK and they did it too is as ideal as it is tragic. 

There is quite a common phrase in this community - "The best club you never wanted to join" because it is so apt! None of us wanted this, we wanted to be the couple that fell pregnant their wedding night and what a relief everything's ok because the new Bride had a few too many cocktails in the Seychelles. We want to be the women that plan exactly how we will tell our partner we are pregnant and him have no idea that it is coming so he ugly cries on camera or screams not again! We want to be the men that don't know the intimate details of our partners cycles and that there are different types of discharge let alone what they mean! And we want to be the same sex couple that don't get discarded from the already shite NHS postcode lottery just because we are a same sex couple and have to face a already isolating journey even more isolated.

All of the above is shit! No beating around the bush it is just shit! But - if we weren't on this journey, I wouldn't know my partner as totally and intimately as I do today, I wouldn't know just how badly he wants this beautiful not yet conceived baby of our future and the lengths he will go to for us to get there. 

I wouldn't know the amazing IG/Twitter community I am now a part of; the biggest of disney fans, the cleaning Mrs Hinch addicts, the egg/sperm/embryo donor recipient families being bold and sharing their stories shamelessly exactly as they should, the beautiful brave widow newly pregnant, the male car racer trying to raise infertility awareness in a totally male dominated environment and hundreds of other endowarriors, PCOS warriors, MFI warriors, Unexplained warriors and every other type of infertility warrior - you know who you are!

And one day, Please God, when your bundle is finally in your arms, however that happens! You will cherish, love and appreciate them in a way that you wouldn't had you not taken the path you had to take to get there and it will all be worth it.