It was only after we "beat" infertility that I began to reflect on just how much infertility steals from you. It is often not viewed as a "real" medical issue. I recently watched a story on the news about how a couple has been trying to get pregnant for years, has spent over $100K on fertility treatments (including using donor eggs to increase the success rate) and was now crowd funding $15K for adoption. The comments on the article's Facebook listing were downright mean. "Why not just adopt at the beginning?" "Why use fertility treatment? You should just pray more and rely on God's timing." "Just relax."
What I realized when we were going through fertility treatment was that nobody could measure how badly we wanted a child except us. And that the vast majority of fertility problems were caused by legitimate medical reasons. And that insurance companies (with the exceptions of some states that require fertility coverage) do not care about those issues unless you have good insurance. And that OB/Gyn physicians typically know very little about getting you pregnant. They are VERY good at keeping you pregnant, monitoring typical gynecological health issues, and delivering babies, but their expertise does not touch getting pregnant when nature doesn't take it's course. That's why there is a specialized field just for Reproductive Endocrinologists.
I didn't realize how beat down I was until the first trip to the doctor. Calling and scheduling the appointment was very scary. Going was even worse. After our consult with our amazing doctor, he ordered about a thousand vials of blood to be taken. The nurse put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Don't worry honey, when we get you pregnant, we'll transfer all these results to your OB so you should hopefully have less bloodwork to do." My eyes teared up. She said when they get me pregnant.
It was hard to do the treatments month after month and still have no results. I had huge hopes once we finally got through all the testing and started actually doing the treatments. I hoped that it would only take one cycle of treatments and everything would be okay. When I saw the negative pregnancy test that month, it hurt. Badly. It is a hopeless feeling. And I felt like a failure. I felt like less than a woman. It's supposed to be easy. You're supposed to be able to get pregnant and carry a baby. And I was broken. I cried so many times to my husband about my broken body and remember him holding me and telling me I wasn't broken.
I know it was hard on him too. Especially because his numbers came back so amazing. Nothing was wrong with him, nothing. And I know he wished he could take the pain away from me. I remember him telling me that he was hoping against hope that when the tests came back it was him. Something would be wrong with him. Because I'm too hard on myself and I'm too perfection driven. He knew I would tear myself apart if it was something wrong with me.
It's even harder with secondary infertility because people understand you seeking treatment even less. And it's harder to realize you need help. I didn't need help the first time. It took longer than I thought but we did it on our own. It was bizarre to me that we would need help with something we had already done. And society at large along with the infertility community both look down on you. The comments are the same - "at least you already have one" "how selfish, just love the one you have" "you don't want to lose all your money in fertility treatments when you have another one to care for."
Even after getting pregnant, it was hard to actually accept that it happened. I kept the positive pregnancy test but I only ever took one. I thought I would take a million just to keep proving to myself that I was actually pregnant, but the truth was that I was terrified that I would take a test and it would be negative and I would have to start all over again. I just worried every time a symptom diminished or disappeared. I worried about waiting until 7 weeks to search for a heartbeat. I analyzed everything my body was doing to "prove" to myself that I was pregnant. I sought out the advice of my friend who had suggested fertility treatments in the first place and her response was "I would expect no less from someone with a previous loss and infertility in her history. It's normal and I understand." She and my husband kept me sane until the ultrasound where we saw the heartbeats.
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