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Hello! Emma from BFN here. Each week, Gabby and I will take it in turns to share our thoughts, then add some bits we found around the internet that might keep us occupied when we’re waiting for appointments - literally or figuratively.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking about this week:
‘Dreams are great. When they disappear you may still be there but you will have ceased to live.’ That’s from Nancy Astor - one of the ‘inspiring’ quotes that clog up my Instagram scroll. Great stuff, if positivity is your jam - but if you’re like me and suffer from a hope deficit, it just makes you feel defective.
For me, hope was the first thing to go during my infertility ‘journey’ (urgh, sorry). After yet another BFN, I felt stupid for daring to hope, so I began to squash it down.
For a while, I felt my inability to think positively was a problem. Then I spoke to a fertility doctor about stress and changed my view. She said the only time stress affects your ability to conceive is when it interferes with your sex life. In other words, as long as you’re actually having sex, it doesn’t matter that you’re stressed.
I realised hope is similar: it’s absolutely fine to lose hope, as long as you’re showing up to those appointments. Whether or not you are feeling hopeful has absolutely no impact on what’s going on in your uterus.
Of course, it’s important to look after your mental health, but it’s a completely separate issue. Correlation is not causation. Losing hope is not preventing you from conceiving. Do what you need to to protect your heart.
Shaking fists at the ready: research by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas) has found 24 of the UK’s 135 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) require people to be in a ‘stable relationship’ in order to qualify for NHS-funded IVF.
What does a stable relationship look like? Shared bank accounts, according to Kernow CCG. Come on - half my friends don’t share bank accounts with their partners. Why should it be any different for people who need help getting knocked up? People being treated for infertility are already world-class at meeting arbitrary requirements around weight, negotiating waiting lists, and just being bloody patient. Don’t add another stupid game to the Infertility Olympics.
Little Fires Everywhere has been all over my Whatsapp groups this summer. My friends loved it, but they didn’t warn me that it’s essentially a meditation on motherhood and the pursuit thereof, and all the ways it can go horribly wrong. Reece Witherspoon is, of course, brilliant - and the soundtrack is banger after 90s banger - but the infertility storylines are very triggering, especially if you’re not ready for them. What it does beautifully, though, is show the nuance involved in creating and raising children. At a time when social media threatens to destroy ambiguity, that’s quite a refreshing thing.
Read, Listen, Watch, Do
We’ve explored childlessness not-by-choice on the podcast, but we’ve never really spoken to women who decide they just don’t want kids. They deal with a lot of the same boring comments as those of us going through infertility, though, and they’re tired of it, writes Charli Howard in this piece for British Vogue. ‘Women still aren’t free to make their own choices and decisions about their bodies or their reproductive organs,’ she says. No kidding.
God, I love Katherine Ryan. She’s smart and funny and just so no-nonsense about everything. If you haven’t listened to her podcast yet, do it now. It’s like talking to your best friend if your best friend merrily discussed her experiences of botox and colonics. Which I don’t think my best friend has done (Soph…?).
I’ll be honest: I’m a Marmite girl. I even take it on holiday. But this exploration of the history of Marmalade, and those who are obsessed with it, is just delightful.
In 1966, the world’s richest woman quarrelled with one of her employees. The next day he was dead. Compelling evidence suggests the death was not, as local police had it, ‘an unfortunate incident’. This story for Vanity Fair has everything: wealth, murder and intrigue. It’s enough to take your mind off the TWW…
A video of twins Tim and Fred Williams appreciating Phil Collins is doing the rounds on Twitter, but I’d argue this one of them listening to the Spice Girls’ Wannabe for the first time is better. ‘They went cray,’ they say at the end. Can’t argue with that.