Oh Baby…Or Not…

It’s been months since I wrote something in this blog or really just in general other than a work email.  I started my blog as a creative outlet last year.  I had just graduated with my Master’s degree and I actually missed writing papers for class.  I also had a job where I was not being challenged, so I needed something to keep me occupied.  Of course, if anyone has read my handful of entries they would know that soon after I started writing that I accepted a new job.  Although it is still not the job I necessarily hope to stay at forever, it is definitely more of a challenge.  I’m an introvert by nature and the new position deals a lot with the outside public-either in person, on the phone, or by email.  This has left me exhausted and desperate for quiet time when I do eventually arrive home at around 6 PM.  It has been the same routine for a year now.  Arrive home at 6, make dinner, walk the dogs, arrive back home around 8-8:30.  By this time I am ready to start unwinding and preparing for the next day.  To make a long story short, I have been neglecting my creative outlet.

However, on top of my new job I have also been battling another issue that has taken over my mood, my relationships, pretty much everything.  So, I decided that I needed to return to writing to get my life back on the right track.  2015 has been a year of curveballs-and I’m not doing a very good job at dodging them.  In fact, I’ve been letting them hit me right in the gut.  I have started this blog post multiple times in the past 11 months.  Trying to figure out how to put my feelings in to words.  But every time I tried it just did not come out in a cohesive way-so I deleted the post altogether.  I will try again today.

Doctor’s have determined that I am infertile. Nothing, and I mean nothing, makes your biological clock tick louder than knowing at 28 that you may not make a baby naturally.  And I still do not know why.  I have also learned many things in the past 6-7 months.

1. Good god the reproductive system is so much more complicated than I thought.  Right after I got the test results back showing that I was not ovulating I was recommended a book called “Taking Control of Your Fertility”.  I stood in front of the fertility self help section at Barnes and Noble and guffawed at the amount books and theories and methods of getting pregnant.  Not only on how to get pregnant but WHY you are infertile.  Endometriosis, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, etc.  I started hyperventilating in the aisle.  The book that was recommended to me was thicker than the bible.  It was insane; it was information overload.  Plus when I opened the book and tried to read it I was just overwhelmed by the process of getting pregnant.  The book has been collecting dust on my night stand since that first week I have bought it.
2. People say the dumbest things when you confess to them that you are having trouble getting pregnant.  I have heard responses such as “well I guess I was just super fertile with all my kids so I never had that issue”.  Awesome for you.  Or when we told my in-laws, my father-in-law replied “when I just touched your mother she got pregnant”.  Which is actually better than my Dad’s reaction; which was to say nothing at all and pretend like he had never heard me. My own Mother cried.  She was super supportive.  But then after the first round of fertility drugs failed and I expressed my disappointment to her she said “You know what?  People try for years to get pregnant and can’t so you are really lucky”.  I stopped expressing my frustrations after that.  My own personal favorite response though is “You just need to relax.  You are stressing yourself out.  That’s definitely why you aren’t pregnant yet”.  I fully realize that all of these people are coming from a place of love and concern for my well being, but COME ON!
3. How even more clueless my husband is than me about the reproductive process.  On my first round of fertility drugs I did ovulate.  Which I was happy about and relayed to him.  Two weeks later, after I had started my period, his family turns to me at dinner and says “We heard you are ovulating now, do you need to leave to…you know?”.  Palm to face.  I did not have the heart that night to tell them-the time had passed and failed.  This led to a long talk about ovulation and the course of a woman’s cycle with my dear sweet husband.  Since he has asked me about it a few more times I know it did not fully sink in.
4. Lastly, how incredibly guilty you feel when you find out that you are the one who may not be able to have children.  This feels terrible to admit but I felt better about it when I wasn’t sure whose fault it was.  Seth got tested early on.  Apparently his swimmers are “awesome” according to my OBGYN.  I remember feeling like I got punched in the stomach when they told me that.  I remember letting out a loud “HUH” when the nurse laughingly told me that my husband had super sperm.  Of course I didn’t want anything to be wrong with him.  But it was the realization that this was fully me that sucked all the air out that day.

So there it is, out on the table.  I have been slowly starting to tell more and more people about our fertility struggles.  It’s not something to be ashamed of, some secret we have to keep tucked away.  So I realized after almost a year of keeping this all to myself that there was really no reason to do that.  It certainly didn’t make me feel any better to keep everything bottled up.  However, telling people has also really not helped me to feel any better about the situation.  I think this is just one of those things that sucks while you are going through it.