Fat Fight

I recently emailed @definingmum to be part of #fertilitysupportsaturday which if you don’t know about, then make sure you check out the hashtag on instagram. The bio I wrote for that was too long, but I really wanted to share it and put it out there for people to read. I hope that it supports and encourages people in their quest for a child and I hope more than anything my honesty is comforting for people to know they are not alone. I will never forget the relief and peace I found when I started reading inspiring blogs and comments from people who were feeling just as alone in their walk as I was. There really is power in sharing, this is so deeply personal and I ask that you read the following words with kindness.

When we got married in 2012, Matthew and I knew pretty quickly we wanted to start a family. We decided to embark on trying straight away, I never thought 6 years on we would be still struggling to conceive our first child. I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and for the first 5 years of going to the Dr about my periods, the lack of them and the length, I truly believe I wasn’t listened to or taken seriously because I am overweight. So many GPs told me to simply lose weight and it would change. So I did, I tried and it didn’t change. My cycles remained ever irregular and just as difficult to understand.

📸 : Unsplash

In 2017 I FINALLY found a GP who took me seriously, she sent me for the right tests at the right time and did NOT give up. At the end of 2017 I was finally diagnosed 5 years after first banging on the door of my GP. We were offered an appointment in January 2018 at our local NHS Fertility clinic and I was so hopeful. Matthew and I talked about what we wanted from the appointment and how we wanted to handle it. We went to the clinic with big dreams and expectant hearts. In one foul swoop our dream was over, in our postcode at 35 I was deemed too old for IVF and I also didn’t have the right numbers on the BMI chart.

Although many women who are overweight conceive naturally and many women who are supposedly the 'perfect weight' don’t, our system in this country still continually fat shames people. Many physicians don’t believe us ‘fat people’ when we tell them what we eat or how regularly we move our bodies. I am left wounded by the words of the consultant and his lack of insight to see me as a woman who deserves to me a mum as much as the next person. I tell myself this is my fault and I somehow deserve this stuff. As a result, it has left me to scared and frightened to try other options privately, be that egg donation or IVF, for fear of being told I’m too fat and having our hopes dashed again. Society can often make people feel like fat is the worse thing they can be, and I am so determined to change this mindset. With regards to what we do next, for now, we wait, we hold on to hope and each other and we see where this crazy, emotional, tiring journey takes us.

Big love

Ruth x

PS. Be sure to hit subscribe!

#pregnancy #fatpositivity #infertility #IVF #relationshipwithfood #fertility #fertility #Periods