I often find myself feeling “stabby”. By Jodie Nicholson, Author of I(v)F ONLY!

Throughout my trying to conceive journey, I have often found myself feeling “stabby”

For those of you unfamiliar with the word, it can mean many things; annoyed, angry, frustrated, you get the drift… like you want to stab someone, hard, multiple times.

For me, it was usually my Husband!

Steve was absolutely amazing, always knew what to say, how to calm me down, and dealt with everything so perfectly, more of a reason to want to cave his perfect little head in. It made me so angry that I couldn’t cope as well as he did. Truth was, if he flapped, like I did, that wouldn’t have helped either, he couldn’t win, the poor man.

My rage didn’t stop there, oh no

Many of the ignorant (disguised as positive) comments also made me want to throw a punch.

You’ll get there

Try to be positive

It’s a means to an end

It will all be worth it

Your time will come

Don’t panic

Stop stressing

Maybe it’s not meant to be

Delightful, all of them…. In encouraging my demonic anger.

What I hadn’t realised is, this world (TTC) was new to everyone around me too, others didn’t know how to deal with this anymore than I did, people often didn’t know what to say….. Unless of course, you were perfect Steve (excuse the sarcasm).

I was so jealous of his loveliness, I mean, how bloody ridiculous…

He tried so hard to curb my “stabbyness”, often unsuccessfully. When it came to the stabbings themselves (the dreaded jabs) I was ready for divorce. We had agreed that Steve would perform the daily stabbing, I just couldn’t bring myself to do them.

All was going well until Steve had to take the head (sheath) off the mixing needles (which was substantially larger than the administration needles). Three stages into the mixing process and he stabbed himself!!!

Well that was it – I LOST IT!!!

I’d felt so confident in him, when I thought he knew what he was doing. Now I just wanted to strangle him. I think the lack of control frightened me and showed a vulnerability neither of us had experienced before. He assured me he had everything under control, but as he described how he would “put the needle in and then swap hands to plunge in the liquid” I wanted to head-butt him!

SWAP HANDS????

WITH A NEEDLE STICKING OUT OF MY LEG????

Great Idea!

Is he for real?

He could sense my frustration, but,  I realised that the anger I felt towards him was totally misdirected. He wasn’t doing this TO me, he was doing this FOR me

At the end of the day I had two choices: either do it myself or let Steve do it; if Steve was doing it then I had to trust him completely. I had to believe in him and trust that he’d be confident in completing his task, otherwise this just wouldn’t work.

You would think Steve’s mistakes would have brought me more ease, to know he wasn’t the perfect Steve I once wanted to strangle. The truth was, I didn’t want my beloved Steve to feel vulnerable. We had both become quite comfortable in the knowledge that at least one of us had it together. He was my rock and to see him falter, bothered me immensely.

Just like that, it suddenly hit me (not Steve, although I am certain he’s been tempted)…

It wasn’t PERFECT STEVE I loathed, it was IMPERFECT ME.

This journey is so difficult, it makes us doubt each other, it often makes us dislike each other but we cannot let it beat us. Regardless of the outcome of treatment, we have to stick together.

So, no matter how much they may annoy you, don’t stab your partner please, you may need them one day

Better yet, one day, you may remember you love them (a little bit) x

Insta: JodieNicholsonAuthor