Once upon a time there was a prince and princess. They fell in love and married in a wedding that would have made cinders jealous. Soon after they decided they wanted a baby, soon after that the test turned positive and so began the fairytale. Or maybe the next part that Disney doesn’t tell, the part about sleepless nights and dirty nappies but most of all the unconditional love felt by those parents.

In this version of family. All the parents had to do was fall in love, the rest happened naturally, quickly and without one single test or hick up.

For couples dealing with infertility this is pretty much the furthest version of their story. Sure it starts with falling in love, maybe even marriage and then waiting and waiting and fear and worry until we get to tests and more tests and heart break. It still doesn’t end.

For me to be deemed good enough to be a mother and for my husband to be a father we have to jump through hoops. First of all it’s a intrusive line of questioning about how often we have sex, how we have sex and if there are any issues when we do.

We had to fight to get an appointment to even be tested because of our age. 13 years later this makes me chuckle, ironically. How many doctors said we were young and it would happen in time.

We were able to receive one line of treatment that in the doctors words

“Wasn’t too expensive to try”

But then came the list of things that we had to not be doing or be doing in order to get further treatment.

My weight. I was six stone over the bmi they would accept. If we had smoked. It would have been no. If we had drank too frequently it would have been no. If we had sex less than a couple of times a week we would have been turned away until we had done that for a period of time even though it was proven that my ovulation wasn’t fully functional.

I am still so angry at these hoops. I am loosing the weight now, have never smoked and don’t drink. Boring huh? But it’s taken me so much time to loose this weight the longer it takes the angrier I get.

I know the collation between a healthy pregnancy and being within the healthy weight range. I understand that of cause. But it still pisses me off that we have to be judged by these standards as to if we would be good parents or not when simply having the natural function to do so qualifies everyone else to have a child no problem. To be forced into these tick boxes for someone to decide this huge thing for us based on a one size fits all approach. One size doesn’t fit all.

I know many women that would be over the bmi to have treatment. They have gone on to have healthy beautiful children and here’s the shocker. They are good parents 😱😱😱. Imagine that.

I don’t let the rage out very often now. Believe it or not I am in a good place but at the moment I am fighting to stay on track with my weight loss. Again I am battling my demons, demons we all have in various forms. But I wonder sometimes….. why is it fair I am judged on mine. Why does this get to be the deciding factor for me being a mother? That thought. That truth allows the rage to seep out.

If I had a penny for every time someone has basically asked;

“Well if you wanted a child you wouldn’t you just loose the weight?”

To have to go into how PCOS effects my body and it end up sounding like an excuse. For people to understand just how hard I have to fight as many others like me, to loose even one pound on those scales. If they knew that, they would never say such things to me.

I know a question we all ask while on this journey is “Why us?” Why do we have to be the one couple in eight? Why can we not have just had the Disney version of marriage and family.

It’s cruel to give a couple the instinct to want to have a family, a yearning that’s deep within you. To not allow it to happen. It’s even crueller to dangle the treatment and help but to make it difficult to achieve it. Making one of the hoops something that’s a symptom of the illness you have.

One woman’s rage wont change it. The criteria is what it is and I am getting there, I have three stone left to go. It doesn’t stop me from feeling that anger. Anger as those hoops we must jump through to get our baby.

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