Breaking Up

Have you ever realized that you needed to end a relationship, but there was a part of you that didn’t want to? Maybe it was with a boyfriend who you had been with for a long time, and even though you knew things were over and it was time to move on, you didn’t want to leave the comfort of familiar relationship. I have decided that is how things are with my relationship with infertility. It is time to cut the ties and move forward. I know it will be hard now, but it will mean that there are better things to come in the future. This is my break-up letter with infertility.

Dear Infertility,

You and I have been together for quite some time, but it is time for us to move our separate ways. Although I have learned a lot from you, you are hazardous to my emotional well being. I can’t keep waiting for you to change. You are holding me back, and it is time for me to start moving forward again.

You have given me so many empty promises. You strung me along, month to month – each time making me believe that maybe “this could be the month”, but you never came through. Instead, you broke my heart each time, but made me believe that things could change in the future. I can’t be involved with something that is so unreliable and so inconsiderate. I can’t keep being strung along, when I know that you will never change. You aren’t good for me anymore.

I know that it will be hard to leave you. There will be days when I miss the structure of testing and charting and the brief hope that I get when I wonder if there is a new life inside of me. I will grieve over what I have lost and the unfulfilled hopes and dreams that I carry with me. There will be times when I will wonder if I made the right decision to move forward with my life, and if I had stuck around, if you would have changed and things would have been different. But, I need to do this for me. I can’t keep waiting. I know that like any break-up, this will be hard, but things will get easier. In time, I will look back at this part of my life and be grateful for what I learned. I believe that someday in the future, I will be so grateful that I had the courage to move on, because I believe that there are better things in store for me.

I know that we have many mutual friends and acquaintances, so I expect that we will run into each other, and that is okay. Be kind to my friends – they don’t deserve the same treatment that you have given me. All I ask is that you try to respect where I am at in my life and the decision that I have made to move forward. Please don’t try and convince me to come back, because coming back is not what is best for me.

Love,
Browniris