All I Want for Christmas…

/ Grief / 1 Comment

…is you!

While I’m singing this song and thinking of the son I lost, so many other women are singing it about the baby they are aching to have.  While one of us is a mother and one is a “mother” in her heart, the one thing that we have in common is the aching to hold a child in our arms. 
This season is about the children, in fact, I think many of us would agree that we celebrate the holidays in such a different way, now that we are parents.  We make the effort to decorate our homes, create new traditions, teach our kids about the meaning of Christmas and share our own childhood memories with them.  We see the wonder in our children’s eyes.  We answer their questions about the magic in the season and we celebrate the magic of miracles, glistening stars and an incredible birth.


I couldn’t imagine this holiday without my boys.  While I’m aching to have Zack back with me, I can gather the strength to find some holiday spirit for our other two sons.  I also know that there were Decembers when the inability to have a child grew to be too much for me and the sadness overwhelmed me.  It was the Christmas before we tried IVF for the first time, and I remember wrapping up a onesie and a baby carrier for Paul, as a symbol of my hope for our dreams to come true.  I was holding out for a Christmas miracle and months later, we would be blessed with our own good news after our first IVF.

This Christmas we are going through our own struggles trying to feel the Christmas spirit, but I can only imagine what our friends who have tried and failed their first round of IVF are feeling this season.  This lovely couple, have decided to wait a couple of months before starting up again (they have no frozen embryos) before starting the emotional, financial and physical stress of another round of IVF.  They just can’t afford to be unsuccessful again and need some time to refocus in the new year and find a way to finance their infertility.  While they gather with their family and friends over the next week, buy presents for their young nieces, and find the strength to put up a tree and attend holiday parties, I know they will be at a loss to find the spirit of the season.  My heart aches for them and for so many others like them.

On the flipside of this sadness are the joys that will be experienced by two other couples we love, who struggled with infertility and are now about to welcome their miracle children into the world.  While they didn’t go through IVF, their rounds of IUI proved to be so expensive that they would not have been able to move to IVF without serious financial burden.  For them, this Christmas will be the start of something amazing in their lives.

It is thought that infertility affects 8.5-15% of reproductive age couples in Ontario. Infertility is not a choice. Infertility is a devastating medical condition. Medical technology exists to help many infertile families to conceive the children they so desperately desire. Sadly, IVF (in-vitro fertilization) and other assisted reproduction technologies (ART) remain beyond the financial means of most people.

Conceivable Dreams is intent on getting the Ontario government’s attention in hopes for funding IVF treatments. Could you imagine the impact of couples who are desperate to become parents, yet can’t afford to be?  It has been proven in Quebec to be instrumental in reducing both, the overall costs related to IVF as well as the number of multiple births, birth defects and illness. Let’s hope that the Ontario politicians start to take notice of the impact infertility is having on so many lives. 

My Christmas wish is to make infertility financially accessible so that these amazing women can become mothers.

If you know someone struggling with infertility join the facebook group for support and solutions. Also join the conversation on twitter and follow the hashtags #ohip4ivf #onpoli.

I am honoured to tell our IVF story as a member of the Conceivable Dreams blog team, and I have been compensated for this post.

1 Comment on All I Want for Christmas…

  1. Paula Schuck
    December 19, 2012 at 6:42 pm (12 years ago)

    That was beautiful. Wishing you and your wonderful family a great holiday season. I thank you for your amazing posts this year Heather. They are so important and poignant.

    Paula

    Reply

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