Maybe he is not doing any of this. And maybe you feel like you are doing this on your own sometimes.
I used to wish that my DH* would be as enthusiastic as me; that he would be as concerned as me about whether my fiftieth ovulation stick of the day was positive or not; that he would scour the internet like I did, reading up on the best diets to help endometriosis and PCOS; that he would cry as much as I did when month after month my period arrived with gusto; that he would wake up thinking about babies and go to bed worrying about whether we'd done enough that month; that he would look at the calendar and count nine months forward and dream of the day that our baby would enter the world; that he would feel the pain of yet another pregnancy announcement at work and that he would quite simply share the same pain as me.
But I have come to realise that there are benefits to both types of husbands/partners.
On the one hand, there are the men who are involved every step of the way, who openly feel awful when another month passes and says things like 'I really want a baby' and 'maybe next month will be our lucky month' or 'of course I'll go for yet another Sperm Analysis test darling.' I miss this sometimes. I feel frustrated that my husband isn't like this.
However, on the other hand, you have men like my husband. Men who are laid-back. Men who adopt the 'what-will-be-will-be' attitude and men who quite frankly will do what you ask of them. Most of the time. Being with this type of man means that I haven't felt pressure from him and this is extremely helpful when I have all the pressure I need coming directly from myself.
But being with a quiet man, one who doesn't talk much about how they feel, can also have its problems.
It took my DH and I five years of a relationship, twenty months of TTC and two and a half years of marriage to learn how to communicate. And I mean properly communicate about important things like babies and the lack of babies and our future and infertility.
In hindsight the first 20 months of TTC were about me. I invested a lot of my time looking after myself, eating healthily, focusing on being mentally strong, going to yoga, starting Mindfulness, going to Acupuncture and the list goes on. While I don't regret any of this, one thing I do regret is taking for granted that my marriage would just pottle along at the same pace as before. I took it for granted that my DH was one the same page as me and that his quiet approach to TTC was just that. However, it wasn't.
We got some help and DH has learnt to tell me how he feels. He will never be one of those men whose face lights up whenever they pass the local Mothercare but he is a man who is honest.
And because of our honesty we are taking a break. After two years, we are taking a break from TTC to concentrate on life, to concentrate on our life together and to remember what we were before this all took over.
Of course, it's going to be hard, maybe more so for me, but I owe it to myself, to us and hopefully, to our future child, to ensure that we are in a strong place before we start trying again and before we start IVF.
If Mindfulness has taught me anything it is to try to appreciate the Now and to stop worrying about the future and events that haven't happened yet. If I am not careful more months will pass in a haze of TTC and I will have missed my life. I am looking forward to enjoying time with my DH, with my friends and family and with myself.
xx
*DH - Dear Husband
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