{"id":375,"date":"2017-03-28T11:42:42","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T17:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/?p=375"},"modified":"2025-12-11T22:28:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T05:28:02","slug":"disappointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/03\/28\/disappointment\/","title":{"rendered":"Disappointment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Infertility is constant disappointment\u2026 to the point where you\u2019d think I\u2019d have so much practice being disappointed that it wouldn\u2019t hurt anymore, but it does. As it turns out, no amount of practice makes a failed treatment easier to accept; no amount of living with infertility makes the disappointment of being infertile easier to live with; no amount of time passing makes it okay that I lost a pregnancy or that I don\u2019t have children.<\/span><\/p>\n

My infertility is repeated disappointment. It\u2019s the disappointment every day that we don\u2019t have a child yet; it\u2019s the disappointment every month when I fail to become pregnant; it\u2019s the disappointment every year when we make the same goal as the last year: have a baby. We\u2019ve been trying to conceive for nearly three years now, and in that time I have been disappointed month after month after month; over and over. I have tried unsuccessfully for years to achieve one, seemingly simple goal.<\/p>\n

My infertility is the disappointment and heartache of losing a pregnancy. It\u2019s the overwhelming disappointment of not being able to carry my pregnancy to term, to meet my child, and to watch her grow up. It\u2019s the disappointment of having the innocence and miracle of pregnancy taken away from me with the awful diagnosis of an ectopic pregnancy.<\/p>\n

My infertility is disappointment in never having a satisfying explanation for our infertility. There are some suspicions about what might be causing us to be infertile, but overall there are no good answers for what is happening. We\u2019ve endured all kinds of testing and tried all kinds of treatments, yet we still don\u2019t know. An explanation certainly doesn\u2019t make infertility okay, but not knowing what is causing our infertility is very frustrating and disappointing.<\/p>\n

My infertility is disappointment in natural conception and multiple treatments. I have been let down by natural conception, by ovulation medications, by intrauterine insemination (IUI), by in-vitro fertilization (IVF). I\u2019ve nearly collected them all at this point, and I can say that the disappointment never gets easier… if anything, as the stakes get higher with each treatment, the disappointment, disillusionment, and despair grow more and more.<\/p>\n

Our disappointing, unsuccessful transfer after IVF has been very painful. I hear in my mind all the \u201cyou can always do IVF\u201d comments I\u2019ve heard in the past, and those words sting — they did then, and they do now. IVF is commonly thought to be a grand cure-all for infertility, and it\u2019s just not. It provides some couples with a wonderful chance to have a baby, but it\u2019s not a guarantee. Sometimes IVF is a disappointment too, just like everything else that\u2019s been tried. And even though I knew going into IVF that it wasn\u2019t a sure thing, it didn\u2019t stop our failure from disappointing us and hurting immensely.<\/p>\n

Remember my post on the roller coaster of infertility<\/a>? I wrote about how I try to stay cautiously optimistic in an attempt to guard my heart a bit. It\u2019s important for me to be optimistic and have hope for any particular treatment, but I also try to stay realistic in the event of another failure. This is a tough balance to maintain though\u2026 and even though I have tried to guard my heart, in the end I have been let down after every single treatment and each time I end up crushed and heartbroken. Infertility is disappointing, even when I try to prepare myself for it\u2026 there just seems to be no way to prevent it.<\/p>\n

Infertility has also made me feel very disappointed in and betrayed by my body. For most of my life I\u2019ve had a good relationship with my body\u2026 Aside from a ski injury that has screwed up my knee a bit, my body has been strong, dependable, and trustworthy. But infertility has disrupted this good relationship with my body\u2026 instead of doing what it is \u201csupposed to\u201d do, my body has disappointed me — it has failed me in making babies. It is terrible to feel like my own body is letting me down month after month. And it has been a work in progress to restore and maintain a good relationship with my body despite constant disappointment.<\/span><\/p>\n

It has been, and continues to be, very heartbreaking and disappointing to realize that my hopes, dreams, and expectations regarding becoming a mother are so very, very different from my reality. Like most people, I think, I spent my whole life assuming I\u2019d be able to conceive naturally, without delay, treatment, or expense — I never expected to struggle with infertility. So this whole experience of infertility is a giant disappointment on every level. From the let down each month to treatment failures and my body\u2019s limitations, to our pregnancy loss and the the overall situation: infertility is constant disappointment.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Infertility is constant disappointment\u2026 to the point where you\u2019d think I\u2019d have so much practice being disappointed that it wouldn\u2019t hurt anymore, but it does. As it turns out, no amount of practice makes a failed treatment easier to accept; no amount of living with infertility makes the disappointment of being infertile easier to live […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[65,62],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-disappointment","tag-infertility-is"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7UmuL-63","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":365,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/03\/22\/infertility-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":0},"title":"Infertility is…","author":"Jenna","date":"March 22, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It was hard to first admit to myself that we were experiencing infertility... By the time I did, we\u2019d already found out I wasn\u2019t ovulating on my own, and as a result I\u2019d been through three cycles of clomid. Even though I had already started fertility treatments, I didn\u2019t consider\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/infertility_is-1-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":31,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/09\/17\/toasting-our-survival\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":1},"title":"Toasting Our Survival","author":"Jenna","date":"September 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Months ago when we sat down and planned out our first few weeks of date nights I included \u201cbubble bath & champagne\u201d in our list. During that first bubble bath while drinking champagne, it occurred to me how much I really liked champagne\u2026 and by champagne I mean a sparkling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Coping"","block_context":{"text":"Coping","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/coping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"toasting_our_survival","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/toasting_our_survival-241x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":193,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2016\/10\/18\/strength\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":2},"title":"Strength","author":"Jenna","date":"October 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"We\u2019ve probably all been told at some point, \u201cWhat doesn\u2019t kill you makes you stronger.\u201d And we\u2019ve seen the motivational posters. We\u2019ve maybe even said it to someone else or told it to ourselves. It seems like such a nice encouragement, and I\u2019ve heard variations of it a number of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"strength","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/strength-300x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":404,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/04\/24\/isolation\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":3},"title":"Isolation","author":"Jenna","date":"April 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I was looking for an infertility book at my local big box bookstore the other day and came up empty handed... again. \u00a0Over the course of my infertility journey, I have repeatedly visited this store in person or looked online for local availability searching for specific books and I have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/infertility_is_isolation-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":394,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/04\/13\/jealousy\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":4},"title":"Jealousy","author":"Jenna","date":"April 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Infertility has made me feel like *everyone else has kids* and I don\u2019t. (This isn\u2019t even all in my head either... most people do have children) Families with children are all over the place: nearly every book or article I read mentions families with children; everywhere I go -- from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Coping"","block_context":{"text":"Coping","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/coping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/infertility_is_jealousy-1-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/2017\/03\/30\/uncertainty\/","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":5},"title":"Uncertainty","author":"Jenna","date":"March 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I am one of those people who likes to plan things\u2026 and I\u2019m not just talking about planning a party or a vacation, although I enjoy organizing those things too; I\u2019m talking about planning my life -- I\u2019ve always had my next move figured out. In high school I always\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Reflections","link":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/category\/reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/infertility_is_uncertainty-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iamhalfhope.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}