November is adoption month - so why am I writing about my infertility.... perhaps because in the last few months, there have been several occurrences, conversations, situations, that reminded me of my infertility. Perhaps because I have distance from it now, that I feel as if I have more clarity... and strength to say the truth of how it really felt and what it really brought me.
Infertility sucks. No two ways about it. I felt alone, isolated, helpless and desperate... ALL the time. Even when I was smiling, I still felt that pit in my stomach, that failure. Not just for a minute or day, but years... from 2001 through 2005. I had such a deep desire, such a deep drive to have a baby and here my body was failing me and my husband. As a women and wife, I just felt like that was my job - to bear children. And here I couldn't. I think that is partly why a lot of women just don't talk about infertility. Not even family members would talk to me about it. And given it was some of my darkest years, it really is too bad more people don't talk about it to understand you don't have to feel alone.
When we first went to the fertility clinic, we had a small folder -- paper thin, literally. I remember us eyeing other people's folder that were inches thick and feeling sorry for them. And occasionally we'd see a red folder, wondering what that meant. Little did we know what we were in store for.
I remember some of our first meetings with the infertility doctor, he kept saying I was young and healthy and it would be no problem to get pregnant. Rounds and rounds of test, internal checks, marital checks and doctor appointments found nothing. So over a course of almost a year, we did 3 artificial inseminations, endometriosis surgery, 3 more artificial inseminations with injectiable drugs and nothing. So much for the "no problem getting pregnant". We decided to take a break from the emotional roller coaster.
Which that in itself is a great metaphor -- only you aren't on the ride with a ton of people. I felt like I was in the front cart, totally by myself. And although my husband was on the roller coast with me, he was in the way back cart by himself as well. Both of us on the same roller coast ride, but almost always at different points on the ride. We did have a few close family members cheering us from the ground, supporting us, but we were still individually alone.
A year after 12 monthly disappointments, we took the leap of faith to do IVF. Most people don't realize what that means, the weeks to get your cycle on track, the days of repetitive shots (in multiple places on your body), the weekly blood tests, the internal doctor checks. All sense of privacy for your own body is out the door. (Not to mention the money.) The emotional stress of how many eggs did you get, how many fertilized, how many do you put in, how many do you freeze...
The emotional build up, the wait, the anticipation. All the previous months of getting my period were horrible. But this time given we were doing IVF, to be told it failed was as if all of those previous failers were combined and dropped on my head in a crashing blow.
Then the grieving... and being told by the infertility doctor that he isn't sure why it didn't work but that we should do testing on my eggs... during the second IVF. To do it all over again.... but we did and we did the testing only to find out my eggs are bad, so bad that we only had 1 embryo... a girl. Which clearly didn't take. How about that for crushing.... not getting pregnant AGAIN and knowing she would have been a baby girl.
I was done, I was raw, I was spent. And yet I was still willing to do a donor egg so that I could be pregnant, so that my husband (at least) could have a biological connection. (Which looking back is ridicules, but it was our path to get to "our" family, so in the end, it was worth it.) Now a donor egg is a whole other process.... looking through photos of young women, trying to pick one that would be half of the genetic make up of my child.... would her hair color go well with my husbands eyes? Would her skin tone complement my husbands? Would her height and weight complement my husbands? Try envisioning your child made up with your husband and some random women's picture that is on your computer screen.
By the way.... that red folder at our infertility doctors office meant they were using a egg donor. Yup, we had become one of those red patient folders.
We eventually picked a young women, we paid her (through our fertility clinic), we flew her down here, we got her eggs and inseminated them with my husband... and then comes the day when I'm to get inseminated with those embryos. There I am, at the clinic, in the room, laying on the table, mom on my right side, husband on the left side, feet up in lovely, cold stir-ups, a handful of techs swimming around the room, and the doctor walks in with 3 embryos, in the - as someone so rudely commented to me once - turkey baster. In the middle of literally inserting the embryos, the doctor pauses and I knew there was something wrong. He LOST the embryos. They didn't make it where they were suppose to be -- they were gone. Just like that -- gone.
And the other embryos that we had were frozen so we couldn't use them that day -- we had to wait a few more days, over a weekend. Horrific days those there. Desperately trying to do anything to not think about what had just happened and the pressure of what was to come.... our last embryos dethawing, how many would make it, would it be enough, would they implant, would they take? So there we were in early November, putting up Christmas decorations, just to avoid facing those thoughts.
After the dethaw, insemination and two weeks of complete bed rest to increase any chance we had, we still got the call that it didn't work. Crushing... beyond crushing.
Our doctor was willing to do anything to help us. He has some frozen embryos from other parents who HAD their kids and were willing to donate their embryos that they weren't going to use. But we were so raw, so disappointed, so empty that we couldn't pull out the deep depression we were both in.
I was done, beyond done. I wanted my body to be mine again -- not a pin cushin, not feet in stir ups every week. I no longer cared about being pregnant or giving birth, I just wanted a baby.
But I know why I had to live through that pain -- to get to not only 1 but 2 amazing children through adoption. Their stories are amazing, beautiful stories. They are amazing, beautiful kids. They are literally the light of my life as my life had been dark for years prior to them. I understand why I had to go through the awful pain of infertility... because if I hadn't, if we hadn't decided to do all those rounds of treatments, all those months of deciding next steps, we wouldn't have OUR kids. They just weren't born yet.
But my infertility left a scar. I still don't go to baby showers. I still don't like being around pregnant people. I still leave conversations where people tell their birthing stories. I still call those women "breeders". I don't hate them for being able to do something I wasn't able to do (be pregnant and give birth to my kids). I don't turn away because of any hate or mal-intent. I do it to protect myself from remembering that pain I felt so many years ago.
So as horrific as my infertility was, I'd do it again just to buy time to get to our kids. But would I tell someone else to choose fertility treatments over adoption? I wouldn't only because I know that drive, that desire where no matter what anyone tells you, you're going to do what you feel is right at that moment. But I would, and do tell them this -- adoption was THE BEST thing that I did. All the fears of adoption that we had before we adopted are 110% gone. My kids are MY kids. I'm THEIR parent -- no question.
It doesn't matter that my son doesn't have my nose or that my daughter doesn't have my eyes. New parents always seem stuck on this... the baby get his/her nose from mom/dad or the baby gets his/her toes from this or that (grand)parents. Honestly, later in life, do you think about that? When your teenager is yelling at you, do you think.. geez, she has my mouth? Physical characterics don't define a person. Who they are inside, how they conduct themself is what defines them. How they are raise by their parent (not necessarily who birthed them) helps mold their personality and that is what being a parent is about.
