MBA Mom

What pregnancy after infertility feels like

By MBA Mom, today at 12:07 pm

What happened when a nurse from the fertility clinic called to tell me I was finally pregnant?

First things first, I did the happy dance of all happy dances. This is Exactly what my husband and I had hoped and dreamed of before and during infertility treatment including 3 IUIs, 4 IVF cycles and the last-ditch frozen transfer cycle in which we cleaned out the embryo freezer in the hopes that one would certainly finally take. It did. Our faith was restored in medicine and the science that allowed conception to happen outside my broken body.

That happy dance was as good as it got.

We all know it takes 9 months to have actually a baby and for the fertile population that is true. In my case though it took 18: 9 months of infertility treatment then 9 months of pregnancy.

During the Initial 9 months in treatment I became accustomed to the cycle of hope, anxiety then heartbreak. Naturally I expected those months of expecting to be more of the same, living in the same endless loop of hoping for the very best while expecting the worst.

I feared my pregnancy would certainly end in failure just like all the cycles before, either in or from the clinic. The logic was since I had such a hard time getting pregnant that I would certainly additionally have actually a hard time staying pregnant. I quite much ignored the fact that the clinic was still closely following me to prevent exactly that kind of loss.

But then I tried to reverse course and told myself it was going to job this time, that I would certainly see all 9 months of my pregnancy because I didn’t want the believed of it not working to become some horrible self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then came the feelings of guilt. I got Exactly what I wanted so Exactly what was the problem? I believed about the other 1 in 8 couples still in the waiting room that weren’t getting Exactly what they wanted.

Thanks to these damn mind games I lived day to day and week to week, However never looking ahead month to month, trimester to trimester.

That could be why I never took those week-by-week baby bump selfies. Orchestrating an elaborate gender reveal party was additionally crossed off the to-do list. There would certainly be no pink or blue filled cupcakes, no pink or blue balloon launch. There was no maternity photo shoot for the perfect pregnancy announcement for Facebook or Instagram.

At job I waited until the last possible moment to tell anyone. I didn’t want to say anything just to say a day or a week later that I lost the pregnancy forcing me to be public about heartbreak which up until that point I was quite good about hiding. It didn’t assistance at the time a coworker endured a devastating miscarriage in her sixth month so the opportunity was pretty real to me.

That last possible moment was accelerated by a nosy coworker. One day when I was 4 months a person from accounting came over to my desk along with a request. Before she walked away she pointed to my stomach and said, “Congratulations on the little one!” I panicked. I hadn’t said a word to anyone However my growing waistline and preference for baggy sweaters told a different story. Not wanting to be target of office gossip I waited for my boss to complete a phone call then grabbed your man for an impromptu meeting.

What was I waiting for? Exactly what was I afraid of? I heard a strong heartbeat at each prenatal visit. The painful CVS I suffered scanned my 11 week old unborn baby for no fewer than 3 dozen genetic disorders and that came up clean. I graduated from the fertility clinic back to the obstetrician.

While I graduated from the clinic, I never graduated from infertility.

I filled out a baby registry only because my family wanted to have actually a baby shower for me. I graciously attended and received beautiful gifts However most of them sat in the living room unopened. I was afraid to wash the clothes and put them away in the nursery, preferring to leave the tags on just in case. Easier to return that way. The baby swing and chair remained in the box, bottles sealed and unsterilized. I was supposed to be nesting and loving it However instead it became another casualty of infertility. I felt even more guilt for not feeling as thankful as I must have actually been.

Even though my analytical nature compels me to research and over-research everything, I never once googled ‘labor and delivery’, not from fear of the pain However from avoidance of yet another kind of pain, of disappointment. I still believed I would certainly never get to that point so why waste my time.

Except I did. Next thing I knew, my husband was driving me to the hospital on my due date, exactly to the day. I made it only to realize it was all a blur. Sometimes I do feel sad at letting my fear take over the joy I must have actually been feeling during this time, especially considering I knew all too well I might not get yet another shot at this ever again. However you can’t just shut off the valve. You feel Exactly what you feel.

I did one thing to feel normal. The day I found out I was pregnant I drove around the corner to the local CVS to buy a pregnancy test. For once I wanted to be like the other 7 in 8 couples and feel joy at looking at those two lines. I just had to job a little harder to obtain them.

April 24-30 is National Infertility Awareness Week, sponsored by Resolve. This year’s theme is #StartAsking. Start asking Exactly what pregnancy after infertility feels like. You can find out more about how you can assistance here.

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Filed under: infertility

Tags: infertility