We’re pregnant.

It’s been a while since I last wrote anything on this blog. I felt like I had said all I wanted to say about my journey up to our last transfer. However, I’ve had an urge to write something over the last week or so. As many of you who follow me on Instagram will know, my wife and I are pregnant. Our last embryo, the lowest grade we had stuck and we are in dreamland. I know that this will be difficult for some of you to read and that’s exactly why I wanted to write it! I have been overwhelmed by all of the congratulations and the messages of support from my followers on Instagram, every message has been so appreciated and meant the world to me.

It was a strange feeling announcing that our transfer has worked and we were pregnant. I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of guilt. Especially when I put it on my Instagram page. I remembered all of the feelings that I had felt when I had read pregnancy announcements in the past. I won’t apologise for being over the moon about being pregnant. My wife and I sacrificed so much and worked so hard to get here. However, it does feel strange. Especially now as it is still really early on. I have found myself wondering where I fit now. Am I still part of this community? Or like an animal in the wild am i supposed to leave this family now and fend for myself? The strange thing is, I don’t feel part of the ‘pregnant’ community either, I feel, probably irrationally that I am somewhere in between. I know that this is not the case and that every single person who has been there for me within this community will still be there for me but it is a feeling that I never anticipated and one that I felt like I needed to write down. I don’t want to discuss our pregnancy on my social media because I don’t want to cause pain to those who have not been as lucky as I am but I also don’t feel ready to discuss it with people outside this community because I feel that it is too soon. I realise that to even be thinking these things means that I am in a situation most people pray every day to be in.

I am so incredibly thankful to be where I am now and I am so proud of my wife. I owe her everything. The worrying doesn’t stop though. I blame the infertility for that. In our case it is unexplained and because of that every bit of excitement also has an undertone of worry and anxiety and I don’t think that will go away until we hold our baby in our arms.

I think that that’s ok though. I am so inexperienced at this stage and I want to write this for people who feel the same as me. I don’t know, but I think it’s ok to feel anxiety and worry as long as it doesn’t consume me or ruin this amazing time for me. I think because we tried for so long and so hard that I feel guilty for feeling anything other than happiness when thinking about or speaking of our pregnancy. I wanted to write something to document these feelings because if I am being totally truthful I didn’t think about it when we were trying to conceive, I couldn’t think about it. I didn’t want to think about how somebody felt after becoming pregnant through fertility treatment and I am sorry for that now. I suppose that I just thought that you became pregnant and everything was fantastic! It really is and I am not for one second trying to make out that my life is currently as hard as those who haven’t got their two lines yet because at the moment it isn’t. I am one of the lucky ones. I know that.

I asked myself the question, would I change a thing now that we are pregnant. The answer is yes, of course I would. If I had a magic wand I’d go back and my wife and I would get pregnant first time naturally. None of the sadness, anger, depression. None of the medication or needles that effected my wife so irreparably, none of the late nights crying or arguing or struggling to hold on. Then I asked myself another question, would you do it all again? The answer to that question. YES! A thousand times over to get to this point. Because it is worth it. It may not seem like it to you now if you haven’t had those two lines yet but it really is, I promise you.

It is still early days for us. We are still praying like we did before we became pregnant, we are still nervous and anxious like we were before we became pregnant. This doesn’t let up. It is another way infertility has forced its way into our lives and branded us with its awful mark. Even when announcing our pregnancy, there will always be that fear and anxiety.

But please whatever you take from this scrawl of thoughts that have made it from my brain to this page please take this. It is worth it. Stick together, love each other and keep going. Your ship will come in. And it will be so worth it when it does.