Woman’s candid post on the heartbreaking struggle to conceive goes viral
In the social media age, not many think twice before updating their status after receiving good news with pregnancy announcements and baby scans often dominating our Facebook feed.
But one woman has gone viral after raising awareness of the personal struggle we rarely open up about online – the difficulty to conceive.
According to the NHS, approximately one in seven couples experience difficulty falling pregnant which equates to around 3.5 million people across the UK.
But it’s still a largely hush-hush topic with social media users often only documenting the highs of their journey.
In a bid to raise awareness on the heartbreak that comes hand-in-hand with trying to conceive, Megan Lynne Ferrero, from the US, took to Facebook.
In the now-viral post which has amassed over 43,000 likes, she wrote: “Everyone talks about the positive results, but we rarely hear about the struggles of the negatives.”
She continued, “We rarely talk about waiting for the screen to fill up and noticing it skipped right over the first line that should’ve been there and goes right to that solo second ‘not pregnant’ line. Or about how we check the test three minutes later, and then 10 minutes later, and then just for s***s and giggles 30 minutes later to see if that magic second line made an appearance.”
“Or how we take a picture of the test with the flash off. Then with it on. Then upside down in a handstand. Then editing the picture to make it lighter or darker or crisper or blurrier, trying to see if any angle or any edit can make those two pink lines visible.”
Later in the post, Ferrero explains how time can only make the process more difficult to cope with.
“We rarely talk about how before we take the test, in our minds we count out to see what month the baby would be born in and think about all the cute ways you can announce,” she wrote. “It starts with picturing that you’ll be able to announce with something like ‘red, white and due’ on the 4th of July. Then August and September pass and you decide it’s ok because announcing at Halloween is just as exciting. And then Halloween passes and you still haven’t gotten a positive…”
She then opens up about how social media pregnancy announcements can leave those hoping to conceive feeling even more alone.
“We don’t talk about how sh***y we feel about ourselves when we see another pregnancy announcement on our timeline and for a split second, we’re jealous. How you can be so happy for someone at the same time that you’re envious of them?”
But Ferrero wants to help others understand that they’re not alone and that she can “see you” and “feel you”.
Fellow women promptly took to Facebook to share their own personal experiences.
One social media user commented, “Good on you for addressing this! This is absolutely one of the hardest struggles to deal with in a life time i think. It really is so heart breaking when trying and all you get is one line that drags you to the bottom of the ocean over and over again.”
While another wrote: “Thank you for posting. There are many of us who continue to put on a smile and pretend it doesn’t bother us. Our time will come, just need to be patient and trust it will happen in due time. Baby dust to all.”
One woman opened up about the struggle to deal with the pressure from other members of the family, as she commented: “My life! I’ve been trying for four years, haven’t even been pregnant once. I can’t stand the constant questions and comments from other people.”
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