THE RIGHT ATTITUDE FOR THE FERTILITY JOURNEY.
BY DR. UJU EZE.
When a person embarks on a journey, there are 3 major postulations that they have;
▪︎ Their destination
▪︎ The duration of the journey
▪︎ The best route/means of transportation to their destination.
These 3 facts must be somewhere at the back of their minds even before the journey begins.
In every aspect of life’s journeys, for a certain percentage, these postulations don’t work out as planned. Someone entering the university plans to spend 4 years (minus certain courses). If they don’t have the opportunity of a private university, they might plan for 5 or 6 years if they are in Nigeria. If on entering, there is a life altering event like loss of sponsor, they might drop out or have to take some time off to work and earn in order to continue. 5 years might become 8 or plans of becoming a graduate may end up in a blue collar job.
A person traveling from Lagos to Abuja, planning to go by road plans to spend maybe about 8 hours. If the vehicle breaks down, they might arrive the next day. If they find favour and somehow get the opportunity to fly, 8 hours becomes 1-2hours. If there is a disaster on the road, they might opt for the train.
That is life.
The same applies for the Fertility Journey. When one gets married, they probably plan to have all their kids within the 1st 5 years and be done, then go ahead to live their life. I know I did. Well roughly 20%-30% of all those who embark on that journey will meet up with the glitch called Infertility. At this point, the duration of the journey and possibly route to the destination is no longer in their hands or certainly not as they planned. What is worse, they don’t even know if they will arrive at their destination… That is what Infertility feels like.
You will agree that the approach or attitude they take towards the turn of events will go a long way to determine how they survive it.
For the Fertility Journey, once the glitch is encountered, there are certain things anyone involved must establish to have success.
They must ask these questions
▫️What does the Fertility Journey entail?
▫️How do we Manage our expectations?
▫️How do we deal with undesired outcomes?
▫️Do we Identify and understand our goals?.
▫️How do we achieve positive outcomes?
This is planning ahead of the journey.
1. What does the Fertility journey entail?:
It is essential to understand that once you are diagnosed with Infertility, things will not go as expected or previously planned. It’s just like the analogy of the person traveling who came upon unplanned circumstances. They must immediately understand that the journey will no longer go as planned. They will therefore need to plan their next steps to enable them continue on the journey and get to their destination. They will do an assessment of what they need to help them get there. They will identify the help they need and look for means of getting it. This is how it should be with the Fertility Journey. Once Infertility is identified, the one involved should understand that things will not be the same. They should identify that they would need help on the journey, and go about getting it.
2. How to manage Expectations:
Anyone who starts working towards a goal expects results. In the case of Infertility, those who commence treatments or who start working on it expects that soon they should conceive. For Infertility however, expectations are not guaranteed especially if the focus is on the route. Let’s go back to our analogy. The person enroute to Lagos. He starts out on road. The vehicle breaks down. He boards another vehicle and somewhere along the way, a crucial bridge is destroyed by earthquake. He can decide that the journey is over, or he can decide to go by ship if there’s a water front, or by rail if there are railways on his path. Such a person has their focus on the destination, not just the route. They won’t give up until they get there. So in managing expectations jn the Fertility journey, it becomes easier if the focus is on the destination; Parenthood is the destination for the Fertility Journey.
3. Dealing with undesired outcomes:
After putting in so much effort in achieving pregnancy, an unexpected outcome can never be pleasurable. Understanding that life is filled with variables which one may not be able to control. What you can control however is your reaction towards it. Again with our analogy, the person traveling. After meeting such difficulties, if they sit at the spot they are, crying, feeling sorry for themselves or being angry at co-passengers or the driver, may be distracted from planning towards continuing the journey. Others would be making plans and moving ahead while they vent and rant. Maybe others who immediately start working on moving forward would cover some distance before they can catch up. Again focusing on the destination helps to put things jn perspective.
4. Identifying and understanding the goal:
The only constant goal on the Fertility journey is going home with a baby. Any other thing is side attractions. Once you identify this goal, you will stay focused. The next question is to ask yourself the options available to you and what the best one is. This then leads to planning and execution which eventually gets us the results we desire. When going on a journey and the desired route is no longer available, if the destination is seen as the goal, all other routes will be explored and the most appropriate under all the circumstances, will be towed. If I’m going to Lagos and my flight gets cancelled, even if i feel disappointed, I will go either via road, rail or ship, whatever is available so long as I get to Lagos.
5. How do we achieve positive outcomes?:
For the Fertility journey, we have established that taking home a baby through proper and acceptable means is the goal. This is our positive outcome. To achieve it therefore we must have a plan. Now anyone who knows about plans knows that a good plabber has more than one plan. There must be room for contingencies. As a matter of fact, a good planner has plan A, plan B, plan C and maybe plan D just in case. If plan A fails, they as soon as is practical, review what possibly went wrong, pick few points on what to improve and move on to plan B. If there is need, they will keep going even on to plan D until the desired result is achieved. All the areas where help is needed should be identified, be it medical, psychological, social or economic and should be sought. This helps to keep you on track and towards the goal.
HAVE FAITH
I will not kid you, the Fertility Journey is one of the most complicated Journey in all the journeys of life. This is majorly because of the psychosocial component. It is not just about identifying and changing routes or plans. Usually you alone are not involved in the decision making. So many other factors are in play.
Anyone on the Fertility journey needs a great deal of faith. It is faith that strengthens you and keeps you on track without completely breaking down. It is faith that will help you stay consistent until you achieve your goal.
Having Faith is trusting God. Trusting God is having an open mind to follow His leading and doing HIS will. Sometimes we want to have faith, but we want to do our own will. It doesn’t work that way.
When you have faith in God and trust His will, you will have peace through the journey even in difficult moments. Psm 23: 2b-3 says “He leads me near still (or quiet or restful) waters, He restores my soul. He guides me on the right path….
So his leading brings peace, restores or strengthens and takes you on the right path to your destination.
Note that all our paths are different. Only He knows the right path for each of us because He himself is the way. John 14:6.
God might be leading one couple to adopt because he wants them to bless the life of a child of destiny, or because he knows that the children they would produce would have some genetic problems or the other that would be a bigger challenge to them. He may be leading another couple to IVF because there is a problem he is trying to solve for them via that route.
God may be leading another couple to wait for His timing, but because of impatience and their level of faith, they keep running around, doing aĺ sorts of treatments and procedures and getting disappointment after disappointment until they give up or eventually decide to follow His leading before their results come.
One thing is certain, once you start following God’s leading, you will have peace. If you don’t have peace on the path you are following on this Fertility journey, then stop and reassess the journey or seek God’s face again. It is in trusting God and following His leading that we gain peace and achieve our goals.
Beneath the face of success is a lot of challenges that want to keep you under, in this case, keep you childless. If you strive through them all and you keep at it, you will rise above them all with success.
Conclusion:
We must remember that every journey has a purpose. We may get to know the purpose, we may not. What is vital however is that no matter what our journey may be, we must put in the work, do our part, trust God and follow His leading and He will bring us to our expected end.
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