Highs and Lows

I sighed as I opened up another bottle of Letrozole, a medication used often to treat infertility, as it encourages the growth of follicles (read: baby eggs). I muttered to Seth, “Should we even try this month? It seems like kind of a waste at this point.” It was our seventh IUI (read: expensive turkey baster), which we had decided with our doctor a few months earlier would be our last round until we reevaluated our plan (which would most likely be to stop treatment, at least temporarily.) We were told that at this point, doing the meds, shots and insemination added about a 1-2% chance every month compared to our typical Cheap Wine and Redbox routine.  Roughly $450 for 1-2%. (For the record, $450 can buy about 238 bottles of wine and 212 Redboxes, or 13 bottles of wine and 359 Redboxes, or 21 bottles of wine, 238 Redboxes, Chinese takeout, and an oil change.)

Despite my lack of confidence in it working, we quickly made the decision to do this final round; it was the treatment plan we had agreed to with our doctor, andpff  it made sense to just finish it out. Also, the only other plans we had for that $450 was to burn the dollar bills one by one, so, you know, why not just give it one last go.

So, we did the pill-ultrasound-shot-insemination routine again. I probably said more awkward things to nurses and I think Seth managed to make it through the “collection” piece without anyone calling in the middle of it this time. After the procedure, I scheduled a consultation with our doctor for a little more than two weeks away, assuming the procedure wouldn’t work and we’d need to talk about whether to stop treatment or notZ. We entered the infamous “two week wait” once again, trying to focus on other things and not get too caught up in counting days. The night before our appointment, I ran out to grab a pregnancy test. When I get home, instead of taking the test, Seth and I thought it would be a good idea to have a doozy of an argument instead! SUPER FUN.  Bringing children into the world is ALWAYS romantic and NEVER stressful!

The next morning, as we got ready for the appointment, it hit me that I still needed to take a test. (Clearly I wasn’t optimistic). I peed on the appropriate stick,  accidentally dropped it on the ground, and then forgot about it. Just as I was about to leave, I grabbed it absentmindedly, glancing quickly at it to confirm that it was the usual one line (not pregnant). And then I froze.

Two lines.

I had envisioned this moment for years. Seth and I would look at the test together, and cry, and hug, and cry some more. We’d sit and giggle and make up terrible name combinations and frolic through some fields of lavender and eat a pomegranate under a palm tree next to a grazing giraffe. Instead, it involved a lot of me yelling/barking over and over, “SETH! SETH! SETH. SETH COME HERE. DO YOU SEE TWO LINES? DOES THAT LOOK LIKE A LINE OR IS IT A SPOT? NO, NOT THAT LINE, THAT LINE IS ALWAYS THERE. I’M TALKING ABOUT THAT LINE!” We repeated things about lines and are you sure and maybe that’s just a smudge back and forth until we realized we were going to be late for our appointment.  We drove there in stunned silence, not sure what to believe and trying not to attach to the idea of being pregnant in case it was some cruel joke from the Pregnancy Test Scientists to make a test that produced false positives.

At the doctor’s office, I showed him the test, and he confirmed that, yes, there were two lines. So, instead of a depressing consultation where our doc said, “Welp, thanks for playin’…” we had an ultrasound, where we got to see the embryo, which those cute pregnancy apps say is like 1/5 the size of an invisible poppy seed. Somehow, though, we were able to make out a tiny gestational sac. Our doctor high fived us (literally), answered our 293 questions, and then left us in the room alone. I grabbed Seth, pulled him close, and sobbed. We were pregnant.

Over the next few days, I had blood drawn to make sure my HCG (not to be confused with HGTV) levels were rising to make sure the pregnancy was “taking”. They showed my levels to be rising – promising indicators that we were on our way.  While I kept the news a secret from our families (we would see them in a few weeks and would tell them in person then) I couldn’t help but spill the beans to a couple close friends who asked us about how our doctor’s appointment went. I recorded  their responses with the intent of making a video for our future child – See how excited all these people were? You were loved from the very beginning.

Our doctor asked us to come back at 7 weeks, where we would hear the heartbeat. So, one very early Friday morning before work, we headed back to our doctor. We tried to be nonchalant – we were aware of the very real possibility of miscarriages this early, and didn’t want to get our hopes up. But deep down, a soft mantra beat like a drum:  TodayIamgoingtohearmybaby’sheartbeatIcan’twaitI can’twaitIcan’twait. As the appointment began, Seth started recording the ultrasound screen. As the ultrasound began, the first magical words out of our doctor’s mouth were, “Wow, you have a REALLY full bladder!” Thank you, Doc, thank you.  I worked hard on that, and I appreciate you noticing. “It looks like there is a heartbeat of about 100 beats per minute.” He snapped a picture and printed it for us.  “However, visibility is difficult, so it would be helpful if you would empty your bladder,” which is professional doctor talk for “Please go take a piss, because I can’t see a damn thing.” I followed doctor’s orders, my own heart leaping – there was a heartbeat. This is real.

I went back into the room and the ultrasound continued. We could see the embryo more clearly now. Our doctor muttered some numbers to the nurse… click click click as she typed. He continued to try to get different views of the embryo, looking again for indicators of the heartbeat he’d seen earlier. More mutterings of numbers back and forth, asking about date of conception and other things.  I waited for what I’d been told by friends was the unmistakable sight and sound of a heartbeat. But from the ultrasound machine we continued to hear a long, sharp silence, which was broken by a deep inhale from our doctor as he said, “It doesn’t look like this pregnancy will continue. There is no heartbeat. What I thought I saw earlier was a distortion from your bladder. I’m so sorry.” He said a few more things, but what I remember most clearly was the ding from my phone as Seth stopped recording.  It punctuated the silence like a sad church bell.

Our doctor, who is truly wonderful, continued to say, “I know this is heartbreaking. But I want you to remember – we have still taken steps forward. We know now that you can get pregnant.  There is still hope.” I heard these words and filed them away in the Things to Reflect Upon at a Later Less Emotional Date part of my brain. He told us to take whatever time we needed in the room. On his way out the door, he took the pictures he had printed off of our baby before he realized there was no heartbeat.  My heart sank as I realized those pictures would wind up in the nearest trash can out of our sight. As soon as we heard the soft click of the door, the floodgates opened, and Seth held me as I sobbed in the same room we had confirmed our pregnancy 3 weeks earlier.  We had lost our baby.

Exhausted from spending most of the day crying, I uncharacteristically laid in bed all evening. My ever-supportive husband laid next to me until I could tell he was crawling out of his skin (he does not do well sitting still) and asked if I would mind if he got up. Later, I looked into our backyard to see him washing and tuning up my mountain bike. I smiled – there was not one cell within me that wanted to ride my mountain bike at this moment. But from his perspective, his wife was in pain and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it… but he could make sure her mountain bike was in perfect working order. I thought, if I told him that reroofing the entire house would make things better, he’d start on it now.  And through pain and sadness leaped a strong spark of love.

As I laid in bed that night, I reached into the mental file of the doctor’s words earlier that day. “We have taken steps forward.” I know. “We now know that you can get pregnant.” I know. I know. “I know this is hard, but this is nature’s way of protecting you. It means there was something really, really wrong.” I know. I know. I know. I know all of these things. They are true.  And yet – it is a loss.  Something went wrong inside me. We had done everything we could, and it wasn’t enough.

The next morning, I woke up to puffy eyes as the heavy realization of the new reality draped over me. I thought, I’ve got to get out of here. I can sit here and stay plugged into my sadness or I can get up and take it somewhere prettier with mountains and water and clean air and trees. So, we packed up our camping gear and our dog and all the carbs and bacon and headed to a lake high up in the mountains. We found a free campsite next to the water and breathed clean mountain air. I settled into a camp chair, watching Seth fly fish and the dog chase flies.  As I sat there, one hand clenched tightly around my sadness, I remembered what I had told friends before I was pregnant: I want to be open to being surprised at how God fulfills this desire. And through tears I thought – yeah. I do still believe that. That Hope is still there. She seems a little farther away from me now, but I can still see her.  In a little while I’ll walk over and sit next to her again, and she and I will keep moving forward, probably with a little bit of Sadness tagging along too. But for now – Sadness and I are going to stay over here for a bit. Not forever. But we’re tired, and we just need some time to rest.

  

Finding Joy in the Waiting

Early Easter morning, Seth and I stood at 11,000 feet, gazing over the Wasatch Range as the sun began to climb up over the tops of the peaks that surrounded us. Slowly, we watched as the shadows of the eastern faces were peeled back, making way for a new day. I have always loved the mountains – something about them has always drawn me in.  They are beautiful and majestic and scary and challenging and sharp and inspiring. They are both my favorite playground and spiritual retreat. So, attending an Easter Sunrise service at the top of Snowbird (a ski resort here) is an especially meaningful experience.

As I watched morning reveal itself, I kept reflecting on the Easter narrative and how it applied in our situation. In our faith tradition, we believe that Jesus was murdered but then three days later was resurrected, defying death and the evil that sought to snuff out his flame. I love the Easter story, because to me it means that death and destruction and pain and evil and suffering have not had the last word. It means that when I feel loss or longing or a sense of incompleteness, it isn’t the end of the story. It means that the deepest longings of my soul are not in vain, and someday all will be made right again.

I often think of what Jesus’s disciples were going through during the time in between his death and resurrection. I can’t imagine the pain and sorrow. They had left everything to follow Jesus and had clung to his promises. They had watched him heal the sick, raise the dead, break bread with society’s outcasts, speak for the disenfranchised, and turn the contemporary power structure on its head. They had thought, at last, our Messiah has come. But then – he was gone.  What were they thinking and feeling? Was all their hope gone? Did they feel duped? Betrayed? Did they regret trusting as they did?  They mourned the death of someone they loved intensely and waited, hoping against hope that the promise of a resurrection would be fulfilled. They had been assured of heaven, but I have to imagine those hours felt a lot like hell.

I have heard many Easter sermons refer to this time of waiting the disciples experienced and apply it to our lives. In periods of uncertainty, it can feel like nighttime lasts forever as you wait for dawn.  Though I won’t pretend to understand what the disciples felt like, or compare our journey to the suffering I see in those around me, in this season of our life I identify with this feeling of waiting. As I stood in the early morning twilight, watching the horizon for the sun to appear over the mountains, I thought about how life felt a little like twilight right now. While there is still much beauty and joy around us, we are also waiting. Waiting to see if our efforts to get pregnant are successful.  Waiting to find out how we should move forward.  Waiting to discover how our family would be built.

And through it all, we’re encouraged to just relax, which is perfectly easy to do when you are looking forward having a catheter shoved into your uterus. While I know that stressing doesn’t help and could hinder our chances, it’s easy to want to wrestle our future as a family within our control. And the thing is – thanks to medical interventions, there is a LOT you can control. I can control the meds that I take and the shots that I give myself. I can control exactly when I ovulate and exactly when I go in for an insemination.  I can control the supplements and prenatal vitamins I diligently ingest every day.

But yet – it is not enough. I have done everything I’ve been told and checked the boxes, And so, slowly, I have learned to let go.

This doesn’t mean that my desire for a family has lessened. That feeling is still there, strong, coloring my vision and influencing every major decision.  But I have learned to let go on how and when it will happen. I have loosened my grip on how exactly our family will be knit together through biological children and adoption. I have spent less time attending to all the questions – how long do we keep trying biologically and when do we pursue adoption and it would be nice to have a maternity leave over some vacation days and what if as soon as we stop “trying” and go the adoption route and adopt a sibling set of three and then get pregnant with triplets and then WHERE DO WE PUT THEM ALL DO WE HAVE TO BUY A NEW HOUSE?

Being held captive by anxiety can be exhausting, and there is something incredibly freeing about letting go. And yet – it is also hard.  It can feel like letting go of what you can’t control is, in a sense, admitting defeat. It can feel like a loss, because as much as those worries bring pain and stress, they are also a perverse sort of comfort.  It can feel incredibly scary, because letting go means acknowledging that this thing that you desire so badly is actually not yours to snatch with entitlement but to wait to receive with gratitude… and being open to the idea that what you receive could be entirely different than you had imagined.

Through all of this, I have begun to realize that, even if we continue with medical interventions, I needed to change the way I viewed our situation. I needed to shift my mindset from a narrow, impatient, tapping-my-foot waiting to an open-armed acceptance of the many ways our family could be formed. This shift started deep in my belly where words cannot reach and slowly bubbled up to the surface where I began to articulate it verbally. I found myself beginning to say to friends – I want to be open to being surprised at how God fulfills this desire.

The first time I said it, the words surprised me. Did I really mean that? But I quickly latched on to them with confidence: Yes! Yes. I want to be open to being surprised at how God fulfills this desire. Open, surprised, and joyful in the waiting. I want to slowly pry from my sweaty palm my detailed plan of how our family should be built. I want to open the doors and windows of my expectations, because squinting narrowly at the future can cause you to miss so much beauty in the periphery.

Waiting is hard. It creates space where fear and anxiety and uncertainty can quickly slip in. But Seth and I – we do have a choice. We can let Worry and Doubt stay and set up camp and rule our thoughts, emotions, and decisions. We can let them affect our relationship and steal our passion. Or we can look at them and say, Look, we get that you guys might be here for a bit. And that’s okay. But you’re going to need to move over, because we’ve invited some friends over. And then we open the door and let Joy and Hope in, and the air begins to smell a little less musty. We learn to let them all coexist and repeatedly remind Worry and Doubt to sit down because they’re not the boss. And in the early morning twilight, we wait, hand in hand, for the sun to rise – confident that it will, open to it defying and exceeding our expectations.