December 2002
I'm often asked by friends who are still on the infertility treatment roller coaster how I stopped. How I got off the ride. I don't think there is a simple answer. I wish there were. It would be nice if you could just pull a switch. If there was a magic number of treatments and if you didn't "succeed" in getting pregnant you would hear a RRRRIIIINNNGGGG!! and know you're done. The TIMER OF FAILED INFERTILITY TREATMENTS we could call it. See, I'm not completely healed. I'm shouting in blog speak.
There wasn't one turning point for me. Although before the last IVF cycle E and I had talked and decided that it would be our last hurrah, [God, that actually sounds like something fun], it had been building for a while. A series of small deaths along the way. The little deaths. Those tiny embryos full of hope - fragmented, cracked. Would it have been different if we had had perfect grade A, no fragmentation 4STAR embryos? Maybe. As I've said before, you start out small -baby steps and before you know it time has passed and you're going under general anesthesia and having eggs extracted from your ovaries. And the Science is so amazing and the fertility clinics are hopping with hope. And you see the happy couples everywhere. Or the illusion of them.
The time that I took to just live and breathe and not be an infertility patient was a life saver. I devoured books on everything from loss to adoption to living child-free, with some good trashy novels thrown in. E said that he really needed the time and I feel very blessed that he did. It gave me the time to really think about what I wanted. Was it more important for me to have a biological child than to not have a child? And it is not. I feel that my life will not be complete until I become a mother. I have so much love to give and the beauty of adoption is that it may take a while, a long while, for your baby to come to you...but, your baby will come to you. And I'm going to be a mother. And that is a wondrous feeling. After all the almosts, I'm ready for the finale.
To be continued...
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You are so good atd escribing palpable emotions. Being a mother IS pretty amazing. See you tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to read more.
ReplyDeleteSo well said and so beautiful. And ... yes, a trashy novel often comes in handy to distract. Have a great weekend - see you soon.
ReplyDeleteAhhhhhh. Your baby will come to you. So true.
ReplyDeleteHaving struggled long and hard to have a child myself, and having persoanlly examined all the options, I applaud your courageous and honest words here. I hope they can help other people work through their feelings, and process their decisions as effectively as you have obviously done. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDelete