Sometime last year, when I was chatting with one of my girlfriends who was pregnant, she shared something that completely resonated with me, “trying to get pregnant is a chore”! My head almost screamed “OH YES”! You can probably guess where I am going with this :). Just around that time, another really close friend shared a blog post that resonated with me completely and inspired me to write this post.If you are not one of the couples who were successful in the first few months of trying, getting pregnant almost becomes an obsession. If on top of this, you also had to then deal with fertility challenges, it’s as good as dealing with a full-time job.
Let me start by recognizing that while my fertility journey was very challenging for me, I personally know of so many people who have had a significantly more trying experiences than I did. This post isn’t intended to compare experiences, but rather just share a few things in hindsight that I thought would have been good to know earlier. I also decided that I had to write about this not only because it helps me document an important time period in my life which helped shape me, but also because I was fortunate to have people who shared their experiences and normalized what I was going through, and I wanted to pay that forward to the anybody who reads this. We tend to do this is silos, I am guilty of it as well, but if we are ready to extend our hands there is a big community out there to help us.
The year I rang in 30, I started thinking if a child would fit into our mix and if it did, would it be sooner or later? We played around with the idea for a while before I said let’s try it and see where it takes us. After a perfect pre-pregnancy clearance from my gynecologist, not getting pregnant even after 5 to 6 months, got me riled up. So much for not being 100% sure if I wanted to raise another human! My life was all about ovulation kits. I would probably travel without my wallet but not without my ovulation kit. I am mentioning travel here, because V travels every week for his work which meant that traveling was such an important ingredient in the “trying to get pregnant” soup. Recently, I was going through our travel photos to build our 5-year wedding anniversary album, and funnily realized how every trip at one point was planned around my ovulation days! I am glad and grateful to finally be able to laugh my heart about it. It was however not so funny then – there have been months when the onset of PMS had broken me down, and reminded me that it was not happening again, AND THAT WAS NOT A PRETTY PLACE TO BE. The feeling was one of being pushed off a cliff and you have to find a way to climb back again and try all over and try to be positive, but how?!?!
My gynecologist was a warm and kind person, and choosing a health care provider who is all ears to your concern is so.. SO important! They play such a significant role in how you feel about the whole process. She kept saying everything looks normal, it is just taking some time. Due to other unforeseen circumstances, I was stuck at home unable to work and time was moving excruciatingly slowly, which meant I began hyper focusing on getting pregnant and stress does not help any part of your life, surely not fertility! Through this whole time, we did undergo a bunch of different screenings, like the HSG, thyroid levels, vitamin D levels, ovarian reserve, and semen analysis etc. to see if there were any sort of abnormalities and every single time I would hear back from the doctor’s office about how wonderful our results were and that there were no areas of concern. Except that didn’t soothe me, I wanted an outcome!
This story is long and it does not end here, in fact this is just part – 1. The whole IVF life cycle will deserve a post of its own! But when I look back at that time here is what, I wish I knew, here is what I learnt and the things I am grateful for.
- I wish I knew back then that, 1 in every 8 couples today are struggling to conceive and if you are one among them, you are not alone and this is not your mistake
- A key learning for me during this time was to stop and completely rewire my brain from comparing my life with others, and embracing the pace of my own journey with its own unique rainbows, thorns and unicorns in it. This has personally helped me in every aspect of my life
- When I had my low days, I let myself have them. My husband and my sister were my little soldiers normalizing it for me, every step of the way. I still remember crying to mom one day about how this is my shortcoming and she immediately said “no, says who?” That made a sea of difference! But despite all of this support I have still felt lonely and alone sometimes and that is just how it will be
- I wish I knew sooner that this journey could be long and there are boundaries one needs to set. Once I did set them, it helped me cope a lot better. I have skipped baby showers, stayed out of conversations that involved planning a future with children. I even had moments where someone’s especially 2nd pregnancy announcement would trigger me to ask “I CAN’T EVEN MAKE IT HAPPEN ONCE, WHY!!!”. Fortunately having some spiritual foundation and a husband who always showed what possibilities lay ahead even if things didn’t work out, made it significantly easier
- One of the hardest parts of the wait was reconciling with my preconceived ideas of how things should be, and accepting that my path to having a baby may look very different than the standard path. I strongly believe that getting there sooner will make things a LOT easier to bear. It realistically took 6 to 8 months for me to make peace with that feeling
- Fertility treatments don’t magically increase your chances of cooking a baby to 99%. The whole lifecycle of a fertility treatment, all the way from choosing a clinic is an investment of your time, money and emotions! It will take up a lot of you, be aware and be ok with it. If you do go the fertility treatment route, take your time, do your research and understand what it implies so you don’t feel cheated at the end of the process
- Trying to conceive can be extremely exhausting for a couple, but fortunately for us, the baby in the horizon was not more important than the happiness of our marriage. We used the time to focus on other things we loved doing, and that made the wait somewhat bearable
We all have to walk our own journeys, but if there is one thing I do know, pausing once in a while to put things in perspective, and reaching out to people who have gone through this path before can be immensely helpful.
