****Let me preface this with…this is just my thoughts…my words…my space. You may not understand, but it is my story.
Yesterday, I woke up at 6:30 am. I made pancakes and bacon. I cleaned the kitchen. I took a shower, and I went to swimming lessons with my daughter…and then I never stopped the rest of the day. I did laundry, cleaned, cooked and cooked and cooked, took my daughter to a pumpkin patch, bathed her, made a killer risotto (YES!! I finally perfected it!), and after a few glasses of wine, I fell asleep on the kitchen table…sheer exhaustion. (for those of you who have seen me quietly lie my head on the kitchen table—this was different). My husband moved me to the couch where I slept until almost 4am.
A year ago, I was about to have my baby. I was sleeping on that same couch almost every night because it was the only place I could get comfortable. Funny, I rarely even sat on the couch until I became pregnant. I spent many evenings after she was born feeding her on this couch…12am, 2am, 4am, 6am. I can remember sleeping on the couch at one end, with her asleep on the other …when she was still so little. …oh so little.
A year ago, she was almost here. I had no idea the joy she would bring my every day. All my days.
Before she was here, we spent 5 years waiting for her. One month…became 5 years.
I have shared the story on Facebook in the past, but I will include it again on the bottom of this entry for those who have not read it before. (see the bottom of this post)
Infertility is a beast. It is an untamed creature that no one tells you about. No one talks about it. No one really admits that it happens—well, except for the celebrities on a talk show couch. You know, the ones who make it sound like—yeah, we had trouble, but then poof, we got pregnant with a few shots. Um, no, that is not how it works. How it really works is undefinable because it is different for every person. There is no ONE prescription…no quick fix. Untamed…there is no “infertility whisperer.”
When we decided to finally have ONE baby, I really thought that after being so careful all those “single” years, I would be able to get pregnant. I had a friend tell me that it might not happen. I brushed her words away. I had a neighbor give me unsolicited advice years earlier telling me, “don’t wait much longer.” ….and my response was the same as I tell my friends now—having a baby is not something you just DO. It is not a car, a house, or a new pair of shoes…it is a forever decision. Yeah, I know, so is marriage. No, not the same. I knew that I had to be sure, really, really sure. And when we decided…I was sure.
When the pregnancy did not happen—I knew it was my fault. Like my neighbor had warned, I had waited too long. But, I knew waiting was the right decision—or so I thought. My eggs were old. But, the tests were inconclusive. They doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with either one of us. But, still, I knew…it was me.
Throughout the process—the pills, the shots, the ultrasounds, the blood draws, the travels up Bethel Road month after month …I still knew it was me.
The problem for me was that…I persevere. I like control. I know how to use perseverance to control what is happening in my world. I know how to organize a closet. I know how to raise my GPA to get into a program. I know how to count calories and lose weight. I can save money for a car. I can follow a recipe, write a great lesson, be brave enough to zipline. But, perseverance isn’t always enough with infertility. You can’t just study harder (and yes, I read a lot of stuff about it). And, you can’t just “buy” a pregnancy.
The pills made me feel crazy, sometimes sick, and I gained weight…or maybe I gained it from all the wine I was drinking. Maybe I gained it from the recipes I was trying week after week. Or maybe it was from the full fat dairy I started consuming because I “heard” it would help.
I had blood drawn so many times, and I still-to this day-cannot look at the needle. I remember one day, driving to work late after an ultrasound and blood draw. I had taken aspirin—and the blood was everywhere. I had to stop at Target to clean my arms before going into work. They had to try both arms for a vein because I had only had coffee-no water. I was shaking and yet, there I went—into teach my first graders. Why was I going through all of this… still, I knew it was my fault.
When we started doing the shots and inseminations…I cried. Sometimes, my legs would bleed and leave little spots on my pants from the shots. Sometimes, the fluid from the needle would seep out and run down my thigh. Sometimes, I would have to get several shots to get all of the dosage. Once, I had to do the shots myself when my husband was out of town. What if I messed up? We were spending thousands of dollars… and, it was my fault.
When we finally decided to do in vitro, our chance of a live birth was about 36-39% which goes back to what I was saying about how you cannot just “buy” a pregnancy. For the small price of $13,000, we could TRY to buy a pregnancy…with a less than 50% chance of success. No one tells you this. Month after month, my doctor would tell me that “next month” it would happen…then he started saying “next year.” Then he stopped saying anything… There were so many months that I heard “things look great, really great.” Thank goodness for my nurse, Kathy…she would always give me a tissue with my new prescription, as I would cry… why couldn’t I make this happen??? My fault, my fault.
Almost a year ago, our miracle came. She came from a pure miracle. We did not end up doing the in vitro because I somehow, someway became pregnant… How, why, what…we will never know. We have an amazing gift. Actually…there is no word to describe what a gift she truly is…no word. None.
But this is where people think infertility ends. Yes, I did have a baby. But the guilt—all of those years of painful feelings that it was somehow me all those years, hasn’t left me. I still feel as though it was my fault. I wish I could say that they vanished when I became pregnant…when I had our daughter, but they simply didn’t. I kept thinking …If I hadn’t taken the time to be sure…to wait…to get my career going…then, maybe we would never have traveled such a painful road. That guilt has stayed deep inside me…but now it manifests itself in other ways… We have what so many long for…and I do know what that longing feels like. So, I try to spend as much time as I can with her, but it is never enough. I feel guilty for that. I try to write in her journal all of the things she is doing, but it is never enough. I haven’t scrapbooked!! I am trying to give her a wonderful party …to show all of my gratitude to all of those who have stood by her this past year. I try to organize the pictures, but there are so many. I want to cook with her, roll in the grass with her, take a bubble bath together, take her shopping, on walks, to see the holiday lights. I want to show her the world-to teach her to be strong and confident-, and there is never enough of me to go around. What if I had her 7 or 8 years ago…maybe I wouldn’t be so tired. Should I have gone back to work? Should I keep working…? It is as if all of the “infertility fault”…has reappeared, but in a new way…For all the joy she brings to my world…there is this feeling that didn’t just disappear when I got pregnant like I thought it would. I thought all of those tears would just go, but the thought of messing up the most amazing blessing ….well, let’s just say, I still cry …a lot. What if I mess this up?? I will have thousands of days like the one I described at the beginning...but what if I mess up?
What I am saying is that infertility-for those who have never experienced it—is excruciating. And when you hurt for that long…that pain lingers. Mine has lingered…but, like I said, it lingers in a different way. No one tells you that you might feel this way. No one tells you what it feels like to finally have what you have wanted for so long…yet to have to say goodbye to things, too. I will never be pregnant again. I miss it sometimes. I waited so long to feel that…it was hard to let it go. No one tells you what it feels like after the pregnancy is over….especially when you waited so long to be pregnant. No one tells you that.
I still believe that we have our miracle…and that it is someone else’s turn. I believe that with my whole heart. I pray that someone else’s prayers are answered like ours were.
But, I needed to be honest with myself…to ask the question no one asks or explains…
How can the most incredible … have clouds? And how do you make them go away…? No one tells you. I thought maybe I could start…
***the previously posted story from FB is below: (I posted this on FB last Christmas, 2011)
Over the last five years, it would have been comforting to hear this story…from someone I actually *knew*…so, this story is for those of you who might be dealing with the difficult issue of infertility…and for those of you who never ever let us stop believing.
Deciding to expand our family…
It was a cold January night. We went to (the now closed) Butches for dinner in Whitehall. I knew I wanted to talk to Tim about a family, but I was nervous. It had been on the back burner since I began my 2nd career as a first grade teacher at age 32. Would Tim even want a family anymore? When we got home, we opened some wine, and I took a deep breath. “Do you think you would like to have a baby?”
The answer was yes.
What lay before us from this point is a journey of trial, failure, and what I believe is a small miracle.
Are we sure…
That January conversation was the first of many conversations. After much discussion, we decided that one child was what we wanted…just one. In May of that same year, we plotted out when we should start trying…August. It would be perfect. I would be pregnant in September and deliver in May. Even typing this now really highlights how foolish we were to think it could all be this simple. It was not.
Why isn’t this happening?
After trying for over a year with no luck, I reluctantly made an appointment with the Ohio Reproductive Clinic. I explained to the doctor…I did not want to do this, but I needed help. I also explained to the doctor that we wanted just one child. And…so began the fertility treatments.
The fertility tunnel…
Dealing with infertility is like being stuck in a tunnel, and you can’t see the other side. If you have been through this…then you know. The pills, the shots, the timing, the pills, the shots, the timing. The visits to Bethel Road over and over and over… The negative tests, the fallen hope, the tears. This went on for a long, long time. Not one month did we even have a moment of hope…not one time. Every month felt like a failure.
Dealing with the dark side…
We coped by going out more, entertaining more, opening more bottles of wine…and slowly, after several years (yes, years), we stopped talking about “someday….” It seemed that “someday” would not happen for us.
Whyy???
We questioned everything about ourselves…and we could not find a reason. The doctors could only tell us…”everything looks textbook, so you fall in the unexplained category.” There is NO comfort in having that said to you. I started to think it was karma…maybe I should have been nicer in my 20’s or something…We simply had no explanation.
We tried it all…almost.
We prayed, wished on stars, made vision boards, tried different foods, different timing, vacations, exercise, and we took little breaks. Still, nothing… At first we told no one of our plans…slowly…we began to reach out to friends…We got great support…but what do you really say? No one really understood what we were going through. It wasn’t their fault, but some of the comments were actually more hurtful than helpful…We were simply beginning to crack.
We thought…maybe…
At the beginning of 2010, Tim’s mother passed from cancer. We hadn’t told our parents we were trying, but we did tell Sammie…in hopes it might help her fight… After she passed, we truly believed that she would send us a baby. We waited and waited…no baby came. Well, not yet.
2010-false hope …or maybe hope that wasn’t ready yet?
By the end of 2010, the cracks were becoming little breaks…I wasn’t myself anymore. I was becoming a person I didn’t even know. Then I had a moment of clarity. I had this feeling that December 14th would be the day. I just knew it! I wrote it down in my journal (the one piece of sanity that I had maintained). December 14th is my parents’ anniversary and a dear friend’s birthday. Perfect! My parents still had NO idea that we had been trying…but I channeled all the energy I could for this day.
We headed to Chicago for New Year’s Eve…if we didn’t have a baby, we should live it up, right? It was there on a cold December morning that I woke to find I was NOT pregnant….AGAIN. We couldn’t take it anymore…what was wrong? Some families we knew had 2 babies while we were trying to have one…
I wrote in my journal: January 2011: give up alcohol for one month, exercise, clean my closets, lose some weight. I had been working with my endocrinologist trying to regulate my thyroid, and in December, it was NOT right. I had gained weight very quickly, and I felt horrible. It was actually a Facebook friend who suggested I check my thyroid. So, as I headed into January, we adjusted my dosage, I began kickboxing, I lost 7 pounds, I gave up alcohol, I withdrew from all my friends except for a visit to Georgia to see my best friend, and I cleaned…and cleaned. It was during this time that Tim and I decided as a couple that in vitro was our last option…and we told NO ONE.
The last step…and we decided to do it alone.
We met with our fertility doctor, we waved the flag…the white flag of surrender. We would do the in vitro…the one procedure I was really not willing to do…We had no other options to become pregnant and have a baby. We had already done every test, every procedure…taken so many medications—in vitro, the doctor said, was the last thing to try.
February 2011
February 2011 came…I had lost some weight, I let my friends back in, I started to enjoy life and feel like myself. The doctors explained that at first they would put me on birth control to shut down my system, and then we begin the in vitro with new fertility medications. At age 38 (almost 39), the doctor told me the success rate was about 39 to 40 percent of a live birth…drastically different than several years before. But, with prayers and good blessings, we would be pregnant by April. We put it out of our mind. We had made a decision…one that was only between the two of us. So, we waited for my cycle so we could have the birth control prescription filled. I was perplexed. It was late…but the doctor explained that I was getting older-my eggs were getting older-the calendar was no longer reliable. I went to work on a Tuesday, and I was sent home with a fever. I had too many glasses of wine with a friend on Wednesday…and then on Thursday morning, I took a test. I knew it would be negative. I just wanted to stop stressing about it…
But then…there were two lines.
No fertility drugs were in my system…nothing had been done since November of 2010. How could this be? I yelled for Tim, and there it was…2 lines. We were pregnant.
We will never know what changed or how it changed. Belief? Hope? Prayer? Surrender? We will never know…
And now, we have this beautiful child…with big eyes who looks at both of us like she has known us forever… How do you pay that forward…a miracle?
Our amazing Maris Leigh…
Dreams come true…miracles are real…a higher power is there in our life… Faith Hope and Love…and the power of believing.
