The double-arrow of infertility

Learning to love it all

I recently listened to Glennon Doyle interview the poet Andrea Gibson on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. I’d never heard of Andrea Gibson before then (although I’m now desperate to read all their books), and I was blown away by the intensity of the conversation, the clarity of their expression, and the raw and beautiful way they are approaching a terminal cancer diagnosis. 

There is so much gold to be mined from the talk, but what has been looping around my mind most is the part when Andrea spoke about “double suffering.” I was already familiar with this concept from my early forays into Buddhism, where it’s often called the “double arrow”: the idea that we can be injured (physically, mentally, or emotionally) by one arrow, but that our suffering is then compounded by a second. The second arrow is the one we turn upon ourselves, through self-criticism, self-blame, and self-judgment. It’s the ‘shoulds’ and the ‘musts.’ It’s when we feel like total shit about something, but then make ourselves feel one hundred times worse due to the bad feelings we have towards ourselves about the bad feelings. Crucially, in Buddhism, the first arrow represents things out of our control, while the second arrow is optional, and therefore avoidable.

As I explored in my previous post, awareness doesn’t equal integration. Although I have an intellectual knowledge of the concept, double arrowing myself is something I feel like I do on a daily basis. Yet, Andrea’s definition seemed to reach me on a whole different level and brought the process into sharp clarity. They said:

“I realised that the pain about my pain was worse than my pain.”

The words cracked my heart a little.  At this time in my life, I’m feeling probably the most accepting I ever have that I may not birth a biological child of my own (and that we may never have a family, full-stop). But Andrea’s words still hit a tender spot for me. As they spoke about their cancer diagnosis and the stories they had spun around it, I saw in an instant how much of my own personal pain (and how much of the pain of infertility more generally) relates directly to the pain about the pain; to the narrative I’ve created about what’s happening; and to the suffering that comes directly from that second arrow, as opposed to the pain itself. 

Of course, Andrea’s statement does not negate the actual pain I feel about the pretty real possibility that I won’t be a mother in this lifetime. Sometimes I look across at Karl and I feel the enormity of what we’re experiencing, and it’s like my heart is being cleaved in two. Sometimes I connect with the fact that I may never see his features looking back at me from our child and I cry instantly. This wish isn’t an egoic desire to propagate our genes, more just wonder at the everyday miracle of two people’s faces merging to create a new one. I sometimes look at my friends’ kids, and I’m completely fascinated by the perfect melding of features. It feels like magic and I want it for us. And I love Karl so much. What would a small version of him look like? Who would they be in the world? I want to know them.

Sometimes the ache I feel, that we may never experience the rollercoaster of parenthood together, may never get to hold our newly birthed child, feels like it might consume me. That we may never do this thing that almost everyone else in the world gets to do. Again, this statement isn’t about comparison and FOMO (that comes later!), but just the world we live in, where procreation is pretty much a given to most things. Sometimes when I look at the world: all the people, all the animals, all the birds, all the flowers and the trees: the giant cycle of life and death and rebirth that is constantly happening around me, and consider, like really consider that I may not get to take part in it… Well, it’s a real kicker.

These thoughts are big and existential and when they come, they knock me sideways, but they aren’t there all the time. In fact, they’re not there most of the time. Some days, I am completely fine about us not having kids. Some days, I’m glad that we don’t have kids. Some days I feel open and trusting to whatever life wants to throw at us. Some days, I’m just so grateful to be married to Karl that everything else feels incidental. I support my friends who have chosen not to be parents wholeheartedly, and I genuinely believe that it is possible to have an extraordinary, joyful, meaningful life without children.  I also know many people who have incredible step-parents and adopted parents, and family who aren’t related biologically, and that their relationships are just as important and individual and special. I know this.

And there are also some days where what screams loudest is my pain about the pain. Thoughts like:

• There is something wrong with me.

• I’m broken and need to be fixed.

• I’m missing out.

• I’m not a real woman.

• It’s so unfair.

• Why does x, y, z person get to be a parent and not me?

• I’m doing everything right.

• Everyone is pitying me.

• I hate the way everyone is pitying me.

• I’d rather stay in and never see anyone again than have people pity me.

• No one understands me.

• I’m such a failure.

• I’m so ashamed.

• I’m alone.

• Etc etc 

Yes, these thoughts stem from the pain of infertility, but they aren’t the existential grief I feel about infertility itself. Instead, these thoughts are jumbled up in the wider tapestry of my own self-worth, my patterns, my conditioning, and my negative thoughts and beliefs. They are related to what others think of me, and what culture expects of me. They are stories that I tell myself, and these stories create pain.

And yes, some of the thoughts are grounded in truth. Have some people pitied me in the past four years? I’m almost certain of it. Do I feel alone, being the only person I know who a) doesn’t have kids or b) has chosen not to have kids? Yes. But these statements are still stories. I’m equally sure that if I hadn’t been so ashamed of my infertility, and if I had chosen to talk about it more, I would have found myself to be less alone. If I had chosen to focus on the love and kindness and empathy shown to me by others, rather than the perceived pity I imagined, I’m pretty sure I could have turned down the volume on that thought too. 

What listening to Andrea reminded me of is this: if I’m able to separate the raw pain of potential childlessness from all second arrows and their stories, I’m better able to cope with it. If I can soften; if I can loosen my grip on the stories that spin around in my mind, just a bit, then things become easier. If I can accept that I may never get over the grief of what I’ve experienced and that the huge awfulness of some of those existential thoughts will always be there, then I will feel more peace.

In contrast, the voice that tells me that I’m alone, that I’m worthless, that I’m less of a woman, that people are avoiding me because they don’t know what to say - this voice causes anxiety, stress, rumination, and depression. I don’t want to shut that voice down because the pain of these second arrows feels real, and I can’t pretend it’s not there. But there is a distinction to be made between these thoughts and the energy behind them. Grief swamps and overwhelms, but has the ability to clarify and release. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a low-grade hum of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. And it almost always relates to a story of inadequacy or comparison that I have about myself. I would take the sucker punch of grief over the rumination of anxiety any day of the week.

I want to become more aware of the difference between these voices: between the voice that stems from what others think and my own self-worth, and the voice that is trying to navigate a world where something that once was there is now missing. Would it serve me better to focus less on what others are thinking about my life, and more on my actual life? I’m pretty sure it would. Like, what does my life look like without this thing that I want so desperately? How do I grieve my two lost babies in a way that feels right to me? How can I normalise this part of my life without feeling shame? How do I stop my fear of what others think of me, dictating who I am in the world?

As I ponder these questions, I’m reminded again about what a dear friend has coined: ‘the power of and’: the practice of holding two opposing things at the same time. How in this situation, I can be both gutted and grieving and furious and sad about what we have been through, and about the child-shaped gap in our future landscape, and I can accept it and be grateful for all we’ve gained and what we’ve learned, and how much meaning and joy we’ve been able to find, not in spite of, but because of infertility. It is both. I can want nothing more than for us to be parenting those children who didn’t make it, and know on some level that it’s ok that they didn’t. 

During the podcast, Andrea, Glennon and Abby spoke about some recent breath work experiences they’d all had, and it inspired me to dig out an online programme I purchased last year. Although I love my daily 10-minute Wim Hof breathing practice, this 30-minute class is much more intense, and I never really enjoy it while it’s happening. Still, inspired by the stories I’d heard on the pod, I decided to give it a try.

I quickly realised that things have not changed much in a year, and I found it as hard as I always do. I struggled to get the rhythm, and I could feel my body tensing and spasming and cramping. I spent the whole time willing it to be over as quickly as possible, but also refusing to stop, because it’s always worth it when you reach the ten-minute zone out at the end. During this time, I often feel a strange mix of really high and really grounded. This time was no different, but as time ticked on, I started to feel an itch of resentment kick in. I felt my brain turn on, doing its usual hypervigilant thing: scanning, assessing, looking for what might happen and what I might feel, and being pissed off that I wasn’t having some wild out-of-body experience.

As I felt myself wrestling with these thoughts, I heard a very soft voice telling me to let go. “Yeah, yeah,” I thought, “I know that.” But before my know-it-all inner critic could continue its tirade, the soft voice continued “but love her too.” It sounds too saccharine to be true, but it hit the spot. In a split second, I saw how pissed off I get with myself all the time. How much I nag and criticise and push and pull myself around, trying to be the most effective and efficient version of myself; trying constantly to ‘do the right thing.’ Here, the invitation was to simply let all the parts of me be there - to do my best to let go of the overthinking but to also cut myself a break if I wasn't able to. Both/and again - I can be hypervigilant and anxious, and I can treat myself kindly for being this way.

In the same moment, I had a memory of something else that Andrea had said about their cancer during the podcast. They realised that through all the thinking and feeling and processing they had done around their illness, they had never loved it, never engaged with it, never got to know it. They had never loved their cancer. In a world where cancer bodies are seen as a metaphorical battleground, this felt like a radical statement of intent to me.

As I lay there with Karl beneath the big ash tree in my mums garden where we said our wedding vows 12 years ago, and thought about the message I’d just received - to love the anxious parts of myself - I wondered whether it might also be possible for me to love my infertility. To send compassion to the uterus that wasn’t able to hold my babies, to the body that had to process the loss - both physically and mentally - to appreciate all the things it has given me; to love all of the messy, awful parts of it anyway. I know if I could do this, those pervasive, painful stories that all too often run the show, would stand much less of a chance.

Maybe instead of becoming consumed with our pain about the pain, we should try to redirect this energy towards feeling love for the things that causes us pain: whether it’s cancer or infertility or illness or anxiety or depression. Really try and love it. Really try to understand it, like we would a friend or partner. 

Such an intention seems almost impossible, yet as if it could be the easiest thing in the world. There’s the both/and again. The black and the gold. I’m going to try.