It’s not the story I would have written.
Growing up, I dreamed of being a mother. I loved going to my brother’s tee ball games because I knew there would be babies there to play with. I read all of “The Babysitters Club” books and was totally team Claudia. I wanted to start babysitting at twelve, just so I could be around kids. As I got older, graduated college, and didn’t get married immediately, I focused on being around my friends’ kids. I was Aunt Casey and took them on dates and went to recitals and school programs. I spent time with families whenever I could because that was the closest I could get to building my own at the time.
I met my husband when I was 31 years old. Honestly, I hadn’t thought as much about being married as about being a mother. Turns out that I like my husband more than I realized I would. So, we didn’t immediately rush into having kids. Partly because I wanted to finish graduate school and partly because we were enjoying figuring out how to do life together.
I thought it would be easy. So, when we started trying to get pregnant and it didn’t happen immediately, it threw me off a bit. I look back on it now and roll my eyes at my younger self. I’m too hard on her, really. The very first month I woke up the morning I could finally take a test and it was negative. I had gotten up early enough that my husband hadn’t left for work yet, so I went back to sleep. I told myself that it was fine and that it was the first month and all the things we tell ourselves to try to talk ourselves out of what we’re feeling. I fell back asleep and had a vivid and horrible dream. I woke up with tears streaming down my face and cried for much of the day. I told myself that it was the dream, but I think it was also grief. If I’d only known what was ahead of me.
About a year or so in, we decided to do some testing to be sure nothing was wrong. All the tests came back normal. This sounds like good news, right? But when something seems to be wrong, normal test results don’t answer questions.
Infertility feels like a roller coaster that you didn’t know you stood in line for and that now you can’t get off of. It’s short but intense and just when you feel a bit of relief, it starts over again. Waiting, hoping, grieving, waiting, hoping, grieving. Over and over. And because so much of it happens in my body, I’m the messenger. “Hey, I’m ovulating!” (wink wink) “Not this month.” Not only am I dealing with my own grief, I have to watch my husband’s face fall when I deliver the news.
We couldn’t believe it when we finally got a positive test. Because it had taken us a while, they brought me in early just to take blood and get a look at numbers. Everything looked good! They scheduled our first ultrasound for the eight week mark and we were thrilled. Finally! We came back in at eight weeks for the ultrasound. The doctor explained that I was measuring a little earlier than they expected, but it was still so early that it was too soon to tell if there was a problem. He sent us home and said he wanted to see me again in two weeks. A few days later, I started spotting. Those two weeks were some of the most terrifying of my life. I remember wishing I could just stay in bed and hide and lay very still so I didn’t do anything to “mess it up.” Google research told me that my symptoms were normal and I had nothing to worry about. But then we went back and there was no heartbeat. Our doctor sent us to the hospital next door with the big fancy ultrasound machine just to be sure. The tech barely said a word to me as she did the internal ultrasound. It all felt violating and humiliating. And then we went back to my doctor’s office to get the results from him. I’ll never forget sitting in that waiting room, listening to the teenage mom next to me telling her sisters how weird it was to feel the baby moving, as we waited to hear what we already knew. There was no baby.
We waited the recommended amount of time before trying again. Even then, we were a bit half-hearted about it. We were planning a vacation for our anniversary to an all-inclusive. It sounded nice to be able to have a glass of wine with dinner. We also knew that we could not handle another miscarriage. So, trying to get pregnant again was a little terrifying. As we were booking the trip, we decided to take a test, just to be sure before we officially booked it. It was positive. I wish I could say we were excited, but our initial response was fear. We were so scared. I didn’t want to get our hopes up if we were just going to lose it again.
They did blood work that same day and started me on progesterone. My husband, who is by far the more private of us, said we should tell our people. Even if this life didn’t last long, it deserved to be celebrated, and we would need their support. While I understand why people hesitate to announce pregnancies until they are “in the clear,” we have found it to be helpful for those closest to us to know early on.
That pregnancy resulted in a sweet, smart, compassionate, hilarious ball of energy named Noah. Being his parents has been such a crazy adventure so far. He teaches me so much about life and about myself. I have learned that I am far less patient and far more selfish than I ever knew. I’ve learned that sometimes messes, even big ones, are totally worth it. Clothes will wash, so why not jump in mud puddles? I cried through his first school program. I had been to a lot of those, but it was the first time someone up there belonged to me. I had no idea how sweet that would feel.
We decided to start trying for another baby when Noah was about a year and a half old. The very first month we tried, we had a really early term miscarriage and then nothing happened for about nine months. We were a bit older and all the literature told me that my uterus had actually expired shortly before Noah was born. Apparently, thirty-five is considered “advanced maternal age.” (If anyone, ever, uses the term geriatric pregnancy to describe me, unless I’m in my late 70’s, I will get violent.) We knew it was recommended that you consult a specialist if you’ve been trying longer than six months and you’re over thirty-five.
We scheduled with a reproductive endocrinologist and began diagnostic testing to see if there was a problem. There wasn’t. He essentially told us that we could do IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) or IVF (In vitro Fertilization). Since IVF costs as much as a nice car, we decided to try IUI. We did four rounds. The first two did not result in a pregnancy. The second two resulted in pregnancy, but we lost both a week after learning we were pregnant.
It is crazy to me that those months are summed up in that small paragraph. Remember that infertility roller coaster? There’s something about doing fertility interventions that makes that roller coaster run at double speed. Not literally, but figuratively. Maybe it’s the meds involved, maybe it’s the increase in the amount of hope, maybe it’s the pressure that now we’re spending money on this, so I hope it works. Whatever it was, it was hard on my body. For the first time in my life, my blood pressure was high. I was anxious and having heart palpitations. I gained weight and lost sleep.
We decided to take a break from fertility interventions. I started acupuncture and found it to be tremendously helpful for anxiety and the depression that comes with grief. I started running to deal with the anxiety and back pain I was experiencing as my body worked hard to hold all of my grief. While I never took a break from soaking up every inch and second of Noah, we started being more intentional about memory-making as a family. It has been a messy, hard, beautiful, sweet season of life.
And we’re still waiting. I hope that, someday, this can all be past tense. This journey has shown me that I am much stronger than I ever thought. It’s shown me that I am not nearly as good at being aware of and dealing with my emotions as I thought. Somehow, at times, it’s been hard on our marriage and also it’s brought us closer. It’s made me unendingly grateful for Noah. It’s also made all the milestones a bit tinged by grief because it may be the only time we reach it and everything before that milestone is done already. As parents, we all celebrate and grieve the growth. So, maybe that would be just as true if we had another. But I often hear moms talk about how final it feels when the baby of the family reaches their milestones. So, we find ourselves wondering if this is the first and last time we’ll celebrate first steps and peeing in the potty and counting to thirty.
We’re not good at grieving in our culture. We want to push each other past it. Seeing someone hurting is painful, so we say things that we think should make them feel better because we’re uncomfortable with the pain of it all. “Everything happens for a reason.” “At least…” “God has a plan.” The truth is, there’s not one thing that any of you could say to make me feel better about any of this. Why is that? Because the way I’m feeling is right and true. There’s not a better way to feel. The pain of grief is not constant, but it also doesn’t go away permanently. It will always be with me, even if it changes over time. And so, I got a tattoo.
With our first loss, the word that came to mind for both of us was “peace.” And then I heard a sermon about the Hebrew word “shalom.” It means peace, unity, completeness, order out of chaos. It’s a way to greet and a way to say goodbye. It seemed like just the right fit after our first loss. So a sweet friend designed the shalom portion of my tattoo. Last November, I added the branch. It’s got four buds and one bloom. I was showing it to Noah shortly after I got it. I was showing him the flower and told him that it was his flower. He put his little fingers on it, then moved to each of the buds. “These flowers didn’t grow up!” No, buddy, they didn’t.
Our story isn’t over, but this is all I’m ready to talk about for now. We often get the question of whether we’ve considered adoption. We have. Adoption is beautiful and amazing and maybe it will be a part of our story someday. It is not a solution to infertility. It is it’s own journey. I’ve watched people I love walk through adoption. Some bring babies home and then the birth mother changes her mind. Some get to know faces and stories of babies, their babies, and then the adoption laws in the country change. Some wait for years to be chosen by a birth mother. Some have happy endings. Others do not. If that’s the journey we are called to, we will follow that call. Today, this is the journey we are on.
I’m sharing my story today for a few reasons. One, is that I deeply value vulnerability and believe it is the way to connection. Another is that sometimes I feel alone. And I have good people, wonderful people, who love me so well. Not everyone has that. So my hope is that maybe you would feel a little less alone. If this has been triggering for you, reach out to your people first. They know you and love you. You are also invited to reach out to me via Instagram DM. If you decide to leave a comment here or on social media, be thoughtful in your response. You’re invited to share of yourself and your own story. I ask that you not share of anyone else’s story or attempt to “fix” anyone’s grief. But please know, I’d love to hear from you.
