Strength: Delays, Detours and Yawning Potholes on the Road to Reproduction
If you saw me walking down the street pushing my stroller-built-for-two bursting with my exuberant toddler daughters, you would think that I look like a nice 22-year-old who got knocked up, popped out a couple of adorable babies (if I do say so myself), and went on my merry way. (I’m 34 but I seem to have freakishly stopped aging about a dozen years ago.) But my road to motherhood was, and continues to be, a difficult one.
In the fall of 2007, my husband and I decided it was time for babies. I have a history of ovarian cysts and endometriosis, which gave me pause, but I felt optimistic that it would all go well. I went off the pill, read up on ovulation timing, and started having vast quantities of sex (okay, that’s how it felt; my husband might disagree with the “vast quantities” description). A few months later, I was getting frustrated so I stepped it up and bought an ovulation kit, which revealed that I was ovulating several days later than I thought. We got the timing just right and then, Poof! Voila! I was pregnant! It had felt like a long five months, but the average time it takes to get pregnant is six months so we felt comfortably within the normal range of things.
Our blastocysts
We were ecstatic. I stopped drinking. I avoided sushi, unpasteurized cheeses, and deli meats. I took my vitamins religiously. I did everything right. When we went for our first ultrasound, the doctor said the fetus was measuring small and she couldn’t quite detect a heartbeat, but she said it could just be too early and proceeded with the visit as if everything was going to be fine. At our follow-up visit a week later, there was no heartbeat; the doctor declared the pregnancy a “missed miscarriage,” which is when the fetus dies but you don’t experience the pregnancy miscarrying from your body. Needless to say, we were heartbroken.
After an unsuccessful attempt at inducing a miscarriage with misoprostol (an abortion pill), I eventually had a D&C (“dilation & curettage”—surgical removal of the fetus) and spent a few weeks in recovery mode. I moped around the house. I ate piles and piles of chocolate. I cried in the shower. It turned out that no matter how much I knew about the statistics (up to a quarter of pregnancies end in miscarriage, a fact of which I was well aware), I never really thought it would happen to me. It was a shock when it actually did.
While the loss of our first pregnancy was upsetting, we said to ourselves, “Hey! At least now we know we can get pregnant!” and moved on to trying again in June of 2008, fully expecting to be pregnant again shortly. We tried. And tried.
Nothing happened.
And nothing kept happening. Every single month, I got my hopes up that this would be the month: I imagined that every twinge and pang I felt was the little embryo setting inside me; I imagined that every whiff of nausea was the first sign of our future baby. Then every single negative test result hurt, almost physically, as my hopes gave way to disappointment. I had never known disappointment so deep and so relentless. As the months dragged on, the frustration and anxiety grew exponentially; sex became a carefully orchestrated chore; and my mind was entirely consumed with a single thought: MUST GET PREGNANT NOW.
Infertility Drugs
At some point we had to face the “I” word: Infertility. Infertility is lonely and isolating. Once it becomes clear that this is what you are in the middle of, getting through each monthly cycle, much less each day, feels like an enormous weight. Time was my enemy during this period. The longer it went on, the more I mourned the loss of that first pregnancy. The longer it went on, the harder it was to see other women and my friends around me getting pregnant like it was in the water. I went completely batsh*t crazy in my own head. I glared at pregnant women on the street. I skipped friends’ baby showers. I refused to acknowledge a co-worker’s new pregnancy. (Though I thoughtfully sent her an e-mail that said, “I’ll be happy for you later.”) I de-friended pregnant people on Facebook. (Probably some of you. Sorry.) I couldn’t take not being pregnant. One night over dinner, a very dear friend told me she was pregnant. Instead of congratulating her and sharing her joy, I made a sad face. It was my first gut reaction and I couldn’t stop it. (I still feel terrible about this.) I felt like the world was out to get me and like her pregnancy was personal affront to me. I felt completely surrounded by pregnant women—the world became a twisted, reversed “Where’s Waldo?” of pregnant women everywhere I looked—and I had a nagging fear in the back of my mind that it would never be me. It got to the point that I couldn’t even imagine it being me.
People have all sorts of “helpful” things they say to you during infertility and after a miscarriage, and I am here to tell you people that none of these things are helpful: "You just have to relax”; you have to stop ‘trying’"; "you have to stop thinking about it"; “God has another plan for you.” I was seriously about to give a swift kick to the shins to the next person who was “helpful.” My personal favorite was when my doctor, a female internist who also does acupuncture, said to me, "There's no point in worrying or being stressed out about getting pregnant because you will have a baby when God decides to give you one." Super. Duper. Helpful.
Finally we went to a fertility specialist in March 2009 and were informed that our first pregnancy had been a fluke, and that IVF was our best option to have children sooner rather than later. This was the news I was dreading. I hated, HATED the idea of IVF. I did not want to do it. For weeks, I was horrible and mean and grumpy to my husband about the whole thing. But we bit the bullet and dove in headfirst with the weeks of daily shots (sometimes multiple shots a day!), almost-daily visits to the clinic for bloodwork to test my hormone levels and ultrasounds to check on the progress of my ovarian follicles. I was stressed out and anxious every minute of every day during my IVF cycle. I cried at almost every doctor’s visit. I lost my mind entirely when the process was delayed mid-cycle by 4 days due to lab scheduling issues. My ovaries blew up into heavy water balloons and it hurt to sit down. Then, on Memorial Day weekend 2009, we had two embryos implanted in my uterus and held our breath for the next few weeks. Of course, both embryos took and on December 9, 2009, my two beautiful, wonderful, clever, hilarious and generally spectacular daughters were born, two months early.
We had an overwhelmingly challenging first year in the life of our preemie twins but when the dust had settled, we were ready for one more. This past March, when my girls were 15 months old, I decided to try again the old fashioned way for the next few months, just to see what would happen, and then head back to the clinic for another round of IVF towards the end of the year. A couple of weeks later... Poof! Voila! I was pregnant! ON THE FIRST SHOT! It was crazy. We were in shock. Unbelievable. I could not have been happier.
Me and my girls
During April and May, we went to the doctor twice and saw an undeniably strong heartbeat. I stared at the ultrasound screen for a very long time, watching the whirring of the heartbeat and feeling increasingly confident that this one would make it. We let ourselves get comfortable with the idea that this was going to happen. We started planning for #3: looking to move to a house in the suburbs, reorganizing the baby clothes and gear, thinking about how to handle the holidays with toddler twins and a newborn. Then, at another doctor’s visit at the end of May, we heard those words again: “It’s a miscarriage.” There was no more heartbeat and the fetus had stopped growing. Again, I had a D&C.
This loss has been harder. At first I thought that the miscarriage would be easier this time around because we already have children and so we’re not so desperate to be pregnant this time. But that’s not how it’s working out. I really wanted this baby. This was our miracle. We had been so excited for this one. While I was pregnant this spring, part of my excitement was the extreme relief I felt that we were done with infertility, we were done with IVF and the needles and doctors, and our family would be completed without any more trauma than we’ve already been through. But that is not to be. In June, our fertility specialist told us that this pregnancy had been “a blessing” (read: completely medically inexplicable) and walked us through the next steps for another IVF cycle. The prospect of facing IVF again, after having been convinced it was behind me, has added a big weight back on my shoulders.
Infertility has permanently changed my relationship to pregnancy, babies and my friends. Despite my own joy over the two babies I ended up with, and despite the fact that I would never wish all of this on anyone, I still have a hard time with my friends who have gotten, and stayed, pregnant easily. I know this sounds terrible but I’m never quite fully happy for them. I feel resentful that they just decided to get pregnant, had some sex for a month or two, then, easy-peasy, went on to have one healthy, full-term baby. I still feel traumatized by and hate the unfairness of everything we went through, from the first miscarriage to the infertility and IVF to the preemie babies to the second miscarriage. It feels horrible and cruelly unfair. That pretty much sums it all up: It’s not fair.
I don’t know how this is going to end up. I can’t believe that we have been on this path for almost 4 years now and, even though we have two wonderful children, we are still struggling daily with becoming parents. I am extremely grateful that I already have my twins and I never forget it for one second, but I feel very strongly that there is one more baby out there for us and we need to figure out how to get it here.
To those of you in the middle of infertility and loss, I have only empathy. I am lucky to have found a fantastic group of women with whom I have regular dinners (“Lawyer Moms with Twins”), most of whom have been on a similar journey. Of the other moms, I have had one of the shortest journeys to parenthood in that it took us under 2 years to get successfully pregnant. Many of the women have been through years of fertility treatments and multiple pregnancy losses. Some had half a dozen rounds of IVF. One had 5 miscarriages And obviously we all made it to the end game: Motherhood. Not one of these women would say that she regrets having gone through all of that to have the children she has now. It is worth it. When you are in the middle of it, it sucks and seems endless. But you will never, ever regret that you kept trying and did everything you could to get your children here.
~ Allison Harris
Salt & Nectar thanks Allison for guest blogging today. Allison is a Lawyer Mom with Twins (“LMWT”) in New York City and spends an inordinate amount of time corresponding with other twin moms. She recently managed to find the elusive job that offers actual work-life balance, enabling her to put her expensive law school education to good use while also enjoying plenty of time at home with The Ladies, weekend yoga classes, and regular dinners out with other LMWT.
3 Comments
Reader Comments (3)
I have a good friend who finally "gave up" (a term I use INCREDIBLY loosely-at some point money runs out) after her 3rd unsuccessful round of IVF, and I found myself walking on eggshells around her after I got pregnant so easily. I just felt (and feel) so incredibly guilty that I had no trouble doing the same thing she has been desperate to do for nearly a decade. She's been incredibly supportive, pestering me for regular "belly shots," etc., but I still can't help but wonder if she resents me a little bit. Because I know I would. It's just really, really not fair. And so I'm so glad to see you with your two little beauties. Thanks for the honesty, and good luck with everything in the future!
Thanks for your honest words. I felt the same way after our miscarriage...like all these happy pregnant people were just salt in the wound. It helps to know that others have felt the same.
Blessings and perseverance to you as you continue the journey.
Thank you for this post. I am smack in the middle of my own infertility treatments, and my first IUI is being planned for next cycle. Clomid, injectables, trigger shots, ultrasounds, and crying when they didn't work... And we have been doing this for just over four years now.
It's hard and painful, and your post summed this up for me perfectly. Especially when friends give you SUPER HELPFUL ADVICE like "Relax!!!" Ugh.