Infertility Awareness Week: Britt’s Story
This week is National Infertility Awareness Week and as The First Hello Project we stand in solidarity with the 1 in 6 Aussies who are fighting this quiet battle.
Here are some words from a friend who is still waiting to fall pregnant:
"It’s the strangest thing, craving this little human that you haven’t even met. Spending so much of your early twenties trying not to get pregnant as you set up your life and then the day comes when you actually want to get pregnant — and don’t. Months turn into a year and then suddenly two which rolls into three.
It's hard seeing friends, who started trying when you did, mothering their second baby many of them telling you to ‘just trust God’ and ‘maybe if you went on a holiday’ it too would happen for you.
For me, the ache doesn’t happen when I see strangers hold their babies for the first time, its more in the comments that people say. They tell you to drink this and don’t drink that, turn off your wifi when you can, exercise more, do yoga, be gluten free, have sex in the morning, don’t think about getting pregnant, go to acupuncture, go on a holiday, go on a holiday & have sex & get acupuncture, read this book or this blog. Almost like we haven’t done all of that and more.
It’s been a tough month this month. On six consecutive days, friends and family of mine announced that they are pregnant. One per day, it was like I was in emotional fight club and social media was the ring.
It was a hard week, watching everyone else get their babies and still we are asking why couldn’t we even have just one?
My heart aches over having a child and at times I have felt so angry questioning my body and even God.
Long story short, there’s no answer to this. It’s a hard journey to walk down and it’s even harder when people don’t want to share their joyous news with you because they know it hurts — but you want them to because that’s their baby.
I love your First Hello feed, it inspires me and spurs me on to keep imagining myself having that special moment for myself one day."
— Brittany Snow-Withers
—
Thank you Brittany for being so open and honest with your story.
Our sincere hope for everyone who is struggling with infertility is that the images we capture would be a source of hope for your journey. And that one day soon we might get a happy email from you with the news... "we're pregnant"!
Keep your head up.
Keep your heart strong.