“Never give up hope”
On the thing about hope that troubles me about hope in the world of loss and infertility
There are a few things that make me bristle when I hear them uttered in relation to loss and infertility. Some fall into those frustrating themes of being grateful (“at least”), unsolicited advice (“why don’t you..”) or unwelcome anecdotes (“I had a friend who..”). Many of these are shared by people who are well intentioned but often inexperienced in this particular heartache. Yet one of the things that I have found irritating me more lately is something I actually hear a lot within the loss and infertility communities:
“Never give up hope”.
Which really translates to “never give up hope of getting what you want” - i.e. a(nother) baby.
Never give up hope. I wince even typing that statement. I wonder if I have used these words myself in the past to help someone else navigate a difficult time. Innocently, naively uttering them to hold some kind of beacon of light. An enticing path forward. A statement that suggests that if you just keep hoping, what you want will eventually come.
But what if what you want doesn’t actually materialise? What if you tried and you hoped harder than you ever have in your whole life and still nothing. Does that mean you didn’t hope enough? That the outcome was directly correlated to your inability to keep on hoping?
That you failed?