Tanya is another SSA friend of mine whom I have not yet met in person, but her story has touched my heart and we have had numerous chats about the issue of infertility. I’m so thrilled she has been blessed with this gorgeous little munchkin Ella!
All told, myself and Dean’s fertility journey has lasted more than 10 years, close to 8 of those we were trying to become parents in one way or another. When we first stopped preventing pregnancy and threw out the birth control, we were living in New Orleans, Louisiana. Months passed and I didn’t get pregnant, but I didn’t worry about it too much. After all, Dean was gone a lot, working an unpredictable offshore schedule, and I felt like him being away so much must have been what was giving us trouble. After all, you have to both be in the same spot at just the right time each month to give the conception part a good go. Meanwhile, I did lots of research on family planning, fertility, and ovulation signs, and felt like I learned a lot about my body. And still, no baby.
We were offered an opportunity to move back to Newfoundland, our home province, and we were thrilled. Not only did we feel like living at home would be perfect when we finally added to our family, Dean was promoted to a position that required minimal travel, eliminating that “never home at the right time” barrier to parenthood. Months passed and I still wasn’t pregnant, so I was referred to a fertility specialist. Being Canada, a country of socialized medicine, there was a long wait time, and we carried on with the good old fashioned “trying” method in the meantime.
And then, rather unexpectedly, a late period and, even more unexpectedly, a positive pregnancy test! I thought I was seeing double and there just couldn’t possibly be two lines indicating a wee baby was in my belly, so many times I had tested with a negative result. I bought the test with our weekly grocery order and took it as soon as I got home, and remember immediately going to the kitchen and throwing out any foods I deemed “unhealthy” because I wanted to feed this wee one only the best! So funny. I was accepted as a patient of the specialist I had been waiting to see, deemed higher risk because of the length of time it took for me to conceive. At the first scan with Dr. O’Grady, the baby was measuring smaller than expected, the following week a scan showed no growth at all. This pregnancy was, in medical terms, non-viable. Although there was no growth, the scan still showed a faintly beating heart, and I didn’t feel right taking medication or scheduling surgery to end things. I was given the option to wait until there was no longer a heart beat to proceed with things, which I took, but there was no need. I began miscarrying naturally the very next day, Valentine’s Day. Had the baby survived, he or she would be going to kinder-garden this year.
The positive thing was that I was now a patient of Dr. O’Grady’s, so it was full speed ahead with the testing – blood work, radiology, minor procedures – and everything came back “normal”. It was actually a disappointment, I had been hoping for a diagnosis that would have a simple fix. Being left with the label of “unexplained infertility” was particularly frustrating for me.
Our first course of treatment was IUI – Intrauterine Insemination – or, as we liked to call it, the turkey baster method. The staff was fantastic, our nurse fabulous. She joked with us that we’d better hold hands during the procedure so when it was successful, we could at least say we were touching when we conceived our child, but none of the IUI attempts we made resulted in a pregnancy.
Dean was then offered a fantastic opportunity from his employer. They were going to send him back to school to complete his masters degree, all expenses paid. The catch was that it was at Rutger’s University, in New Jersey. We decided to go for it, and put fertility treatments on hold during our move.
New Jersey was great, and settled into life in the garden state. Soon after arriving, I became pregnant on my own (well, Dean helped, when I say on my own I mean without fertility assistance), but it ended up being a chemical pregnancy – I literally started bleeding just a day or two after the positive test. At that point, we decided to not seek any fertility assistance in New Jersey, opting to take a break from it all and enjoy our time in a new state. Dean had a student schedule and I wasn’t working, so we had lots of free time. We had fun, and I concentrated on getting healthy, losing 30 pounds in the process. I began to consider what life would be like if we were unable to become parents.
With summer’s arrival, we road tripped back to Newfoundland for a visit, and I stayed on to work a few weeks while Dean headed back to the states. Unexpectedly, I became seriously ill and ended up hospitalized for two weeks. I needed a minor surgery but was not well enough to undergo it right then, so it was decided that I would return to New Jersey to finish recovering and have the surgery there.
All went well and the surgery was successful, but even as weeks passed I felt odd. Turns out the odd feelings had to do with me being pregnant. I had actually gotten pregnant right before the surgery but did not know it. I was so, so panicked, absolutely sure that by going under general anesthesia I had done major harm to my baby. My worries grew as I was a “bleeder” on and off throughout my entire pregnancy. Still, the scans looked good and everything progressed as it was supposed to.
On May 17th, 2011, our sweet Ella arrived. She is now 2 years old, a firecracker with bright red curls. She is our miracle, the light of our lives. She was meant to be our daughter, and during those 8 long years, we were simply waiting for her time.
Just a couple of weeks after Ella’s birth, we moved to Houston. She is close to 2 1/2 years old now. I have been pregnant another two times since her birth, and both have ended in early miscarriage. In some ways, these miscarriages have been easier than the two I had before Ella was born. Though I am losing a baby, I am not losing my chance at motherhood. Yet in other ways they have been harder. After all, now that I have Ella and I am a mama, I truly and fully understand what I am losing in a way I didn’t before I was blessed with motherhood.
And this is where we have decided our fertility journey will end. I am fast approaching 40, as is Dean. I’m simply not sure I can handle the emotional toll another potential miscarriage would take on me. Although my dream was to fill our home with at least 2 or 3 children, Ella will remain an only child. I hope she doesn’t resent us for that down the road, or feel like she missed out too much because of a lack of siblings. After more than 10 years, I find myself researching birth control options, a completely foreign experience to me these days. But to those who are struggling, I hope that the fact we were trying for 8 years before finally having our sweet Ella is encouraging, no matter where you are in your own journey.