What IF Has Also Taught Me: Self-Control

During my IF journey, especially during the toughest and darkest moments, IF has taught me a lot about self-control. It isn't always easy to watch my words and my tone whenever someone asks me about whether or not we have kids and then they go on to either joke about it or say the "wrong" words. It wasn't always easy to watch my words and my tone to my spouse when I felt "wronged" by other people.

It wasn't easy either not to lash out to my spouse or my friends or strangers just because I was warring so much inside and I was hating myself because of all the churning emotions I felt inside. It wasn't easy not to rely on my spouse because he was also grieving - but at the same time I wanted him to know my feelings to a certain degree, but I didn't want to overwhelm him by making him feel helpless when he was also struggling with his own grief. Most of all, I didn't want infertility to separate us. I wanted to let us grieve in our own ways, but I wanted us to also let each other know where we stood in our IF journey and I wanted us to be able walk hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart in making decisions during our IF journey. 

A few times in the beginning of my IF journey, I had to take time to fume and let it all out (in my head) before responding to some online messages that stung me to the core. It took a long time to "cool down" and it took lots and lots of repetition of "They don't really mean to hurt you, they just don't know what to say" before I could finally regain most of my self-control. The more time passes since our decision to let go of having children, the more it helps, but there are tender moments every now and then. That's for sure, but at least it's getting less and less "problematic" for my inner self, because I've learnt to love myself again during the process...

IF has taught me a lot of precious lessons of life, so for that, I'm bowing in respect.