Trying to have a baby sounds like a pretty good time, right? The trying is supposed to be the fun part of all of this. It should be easy up until that test reads positive for the first time, right? Well, that’s what I always assumed anyway. Honestly, in the beginning it was fun!
Brett and I decided to try in the summer of 2016, about 6 months after we got married. Little did we know at the time that we wouldn’t be seeing any sign of a bun in the oven until late 2017. I had been on birth control for many years, so I knew that my body may need some time to reset back to factory settings. So when month one came and went, I wasn’t concerned. When month four rolled around and I still wasn’t pregnant, I became annoyed, but still not concerned.
I think month six was when the anxiety started to rear its head. I was obsessed with stats and averages. I had read that 60-65% of women my age conceived by 6 months. That meant I was in the 35-40% who didn’t, and that made me feel like a failure.
That may seem ridiculous to some of you. And looking back it sounds a little ridiculous to me too. I knew it could take up to a year for a healthy, fertile, woman to conceive, so why feel like a failure only halfway through? Six months means only six opportunities- and only a 20% success rate each time. When you look at it that way things are barely getting started!
But think about the past 6 months of your life. What has changed? How much has happened? How many friends, family members, and social media acquaintances have announced their pregnancy or gender reveal? Six months of negative pregnancy tests can feel like an eternity.
Conception is not a competition. But I had turned it into one, and that was something that would cause me to spiral into a place of deep sadness, resentment, and anger.
I spent the next several months peeing on ovulation sticks, scheduling sex with my husband, and resenting every pregnancy announcement I saw. When my period would come every month- right on schedule- I would be devastated. I’d feel so humiliated telling my husband.
It’s important to note that he never did anything to make me feel ashamed or pressured. To be honest, he was pretty quiet about the whole thing, and looking back now I can acknowledge that was at least in part my fault. Nothing he said was ever right. If he comforted my tears with reassurance, I was angry at him for making light of it. If he validated my fears, I was angry because I wanted him to be my anchor and tell me nothing was wrong.
The next several months were long, and short all at the same time. Waiting, waiting, waiting, only to be disappointed again.
The questions and comments from everyone around me were the worst. “When are you guys going to have a baby?” “You two would have the cutest kids! Have babies already!” All meant with good intent, but your intentions mean nothing when your words have the ability to break my heart.
When you’re trying to have a baby, it can seem like everyone in your life is getting pregnant with zero effort, or even worse, accidentally.
There’s nothing that will make you want to throw your phone across the room quite like a Facebook “happy accident” baby announcement when you’re on month 9 of TTC (Trying To Conceive).
I know some of you may be reading this right now and thinking “Sheesh, can’t you just be happy for people?” Or perhaps you think I was being selfish. And the truth is, I was!
Trying to have a baby made me an incredibly self-centered person. It’s all I could focus on and all I could see.
Getting pregnant was my only goal, and seeing others reach that before I did drove me crazy. Jealousy, anger, envy, yea all the self-loathing stuff, it consumed me.
When I saw a woman with a beautiful round bump, I immediately thought of my lifeless stomach. I’d feel embarrassed if a pregnant woman walked by my husband and I. I’m sure he didn’t notice, but remember, everything was centered around me in my mind. I often wondered if he thought about it the way I did. If he worried that we’d never become parents. If he did, he didn’t let it show, and I think I needed him to be that way.
After a certain point, I decided to see a doctor. It was the not knowing that was killing me. Am I infertile? Would my husband’s guys not get off their Barca loungers, and did I have a uterus that was prepared to kill the ones that did? If you’re a friends fan you’ll understand the reference. Either way, I needed some sort of direction.
After some rather awkward and uncomfortable tests and detailed conversations with my doctor, we learned two things. My husband was perfect (well from a fertility standpoint, such an overachieving a-hole). And I likely had endometriosis.
For those of you who don’t know, endometriosis is a condition that occurs in the female reproductive system. It occurs when the endometrium ( tissue that lines the uterus) grows outside of the uterus in other areas. I can cause scar tissue build-up and can make it difficult to get pregnant.
I need to be so clear here- I was never told I was infertile, or could not get pregnant on my own. Just that this could be the reason it’s taking so long. We later realized that we are able to conceive naturally ( because we did just that ). The reason I need to clarify is NOT because there is shame in infertility, but because I will never mislead you or have you believe something that flat out isn’t true.
Fifteen borderline unbearable months after we decided we wanted a baby, we got the positive test we had been longing for. To tell you we were happy wouldn’t even begin to explain it. I jumped into my husband’s arms, tears soaking both of our faces. I said, “We’re going to have a baby!” There were days, months even when I wasn’t sure those words would come from my mouth.
For you mamas who have lost count of how many sticks you’ve peed on between ovulation and pregnancy tests. Or you mamas who’ve forgotten how many needles you’ve injected trying one more treatment, hoping this one will take. Or who have been waiting years for it to be your turn…
I write this with tears running down my face as I think of you and the hole in your heart that seems to grow tenfold with every impossibly adorable newborn baby on your feed. I know I have only felt the tip of your pain.
I want to tell you it will all work out, and to trust. But I won’t do that because I know how infuriating it is. I also know how many times you’ve heard it. It has been used up and all meaning beat from it.
I also know that when you are in the depths of your pain it can be impossible to conceptualize the future. So don’t, just do today.
I strongly believe there is comfort in having a sense of community. It’s so important to know you are not alone. Sharing your struggles with people who are going through similar situations can have a life-altering impact. Reflecting on this now, I wish I had followed my own advice. I kept most of this to myself for a long time. Sharing only snippets of it with a close friend. That made my life feel very lonely.
If you are going through a similar situation right now the biggest piece of advice is to treat yourself with an abundance of kindness. It may sound cliche, it may sound ridiculous, and it may even sound impossible. But it is essential.
My second bit of advice, open up to someone. A family member, a close friend, or even an online support group. Finding strangers who are struggling through the same pain can bring a world of comfort.
This chapter can be hard, really hard. But like all chapters of your life, it will end. Something new will begin. You are strong and even if you don’t feel like it today, you will find your way through this.
