“When are you having another one?” “When is your daughter going to be a big sister?” “Ready for #2?” Or the best one of all, “Keep trying!”
These are all words and pointers no one going through pregnancy loss or infertility want to hear. Yet, people say these things out of curiosity or to generate conversation, and 99% of the time mean no harm by their questions or comments. I am not one to take things personally or get offended easily, but when you’re in the valley of IVF, those questions dig the hole deeper. My dear friend and fellow PMC contributor wrote an amazing article a few years back about the Club no one wants to be a part of. It was a powerful read that struck the cord of our infertility journey hard but carried so much truth and insight into what we go through in this silent fight.
So how did I become a member of this unpopular but ever-growing club? Here is our silent journey. A story I feel I have shared with many and yet held back from the masses.
We have a sweet and spunky eight-year-old daughter, born in 2013, which is when our IVF journey began.
I like to give the quick and less painful version because the details are tough, so down the list, I’ll go:
It all started with a cyst on my right fallopian tube at 20 weeks pregnant with our daughter.
- 2013 partial right tube removed
- 2016 ectopic pregnancy on my left tube, partial left tube removed
- Cue no more working tubes, and enter our next option to have biological children (IVF)
- 2017 egg retrieval and fresh embryo transfer
- 2017 failed fresh transfer, we froze our remaining three embryos
- 2018-2019 was a huge emotional and financial rollercoaster…
- 2019 frozen embryo transfer was canceled last minute due to fluid on my lining. Our embryos had already been thawed and were ready to be transferred. Because the transfer was canceled, they had to be refrozen immediately
- 2019 full tubal removal surgery
- End of 2019 frozen embryo transfer. We transferred the two embryos that had previously been frozen, thawed, refrozen, and now rethawed for a second transfer attempt.
- 2020 we received confirmation that 1 of the two embryos remained strong, and we had a DUE DATE!!!
- In September 2020, our sweet baby boy and the caboose to our family was born.
- 2021 we donated our remaining frozen embryo to our fertility clinic for someone who may need a healthy embryo to transfer in the future. Maybe someone who wasn’t able to retrieve embryos.
Take it all in. Reread that and know that not everyone has these results. Not everyone gets to experience IVF success.
And on top of everything, I also went through postpartum depression. I believe it was a combination of the past seven years of trying, surgeries, bills, and medications on top of a traumatic birthing experience. Ah – for another post, though.
Why share our story?
Because “infertility” is so much bigger than the actual word. It took a long time, over seven years, for me to accept that having another baby wasn’t just going to happen. It took a lot of time not to be offended by the frustrated mothers screaming at their children in stores. It took what seemed like forever to accept seeing a pregnant woman in public and not feel jealousy or sadness for what she was about to have, and we couldn’t again.
I played over and over in my head, “be grateful for what you already have.” It’s a club so many of us belong to. So many of us go through it silently. But so many of us know all too well this club that we are now members of makes us pretty darn strong!
It may be hard, painful, raw, and downright ugly.
Share your story and know that on the other side of the sadness, the silent journey can shed light and give hope to those in the valley of infertility.
