Finding Forward

Dust fluttered into the air as I moved boxes around our storage shed. I had chosen to spend Day 1 of my spring break sorting through all my Boxes of Really Important Memories, hoping to make progress in widdling down my collection.  I mean, was my high school career so illustrious that I really need three Rubbermaid bins full of broken trophies and hand-cut photo collages to document it? Will our future children be satisfied with mere stories of my escapades as the 1999 clarinet section leader in marching band, or will I need to supplement them with photo proof? You have no IDEA the number of questions I field on a daily basis about this.  It’s overwhelming at times, really.

As I debated about what the world would miss if it didn’t have access to my 1997 JV skiing trophy, another box caught my eye. Future Baby Stuff. Inside were a few of my favorite children’s books, a few baby clothes that used to belong to my brother and I, and THE cutest baby sweater that I just HAD to buy from un mercado when I was studying in Mexico a couple years ago.

As I made my piles of Things to Donate, Things to Bring Inside, Things to Throw Away, and Things I Will List on Craigslist for Months Until Finally Coming to Terms With the Fact That No One Wants My Crap, I kept passing over the Future Baby Stuff box. The logical part of my brain told me to leave it in the shed. We had no immediate use for anything in it, save when I had the sudden urge to trigger a crying fest late at night. Yet, despite all rationality, the box found its way into the Go Inside pile.

I’ve often referred to how oCur infertility journey had us feeling like we were perpetually sitting on a bench on a train platform, slouching with our chins in our palms, itching to embark on the journey of parenthood but unsure what train would take us to that destination. We had tried to board the Baby Making Train on many occasions, and then the Baby Making Train With Supplemental Catheters, and finally the Baby Making Train with Supplemental Catheters, Shots, Pills, and Significant Emotional Lability. Most of these trains never left the station. Two moved forward for a few short weeks before the word Miscarriage flashed across the screen and the train began the heartbreaking trip back to the station. We were tired of the station but weren’t sure which train, if any, would lead us to our desired destination.

Bringing some of the baby stuff inside wasn’t necessarily picking a train, but it was at least standing up off the bench.  It was expressing some modicum of faith that, someday, our train would arrive.

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After our last miscarriage, I sat in my doctor’s office, once again discussing next steps. We’re done, I was ready to tell him. We’re tired. We need a break. Miscarriages are hard. Treatments are expensive. We can’t keep bleeding money without hope of success. We were ready to stop, or at the very least pause, fertility treatments and begin the encyclopedia of adoption paperwork ahead.

Of course, this didn’t go as planned.  Instead of my geriatric eggs being the topic of discussion, this time my uterus got to share some airtime as well.

Over a decade ago, an ultrasound showed that I had what’s called a septate uterus, which basically means there is a wall of tissue down the middle. If substantial enough, this condition can increase the risk of miscarriage. Before and during our quest to become parents, I had asked several times if it would make sense to have the minor surgery to remove it. Each time, however, I was told that the imaging showed that the septum wasn’t big enough to cause complications, and the risk of scarring causing issues was greater than not having the surgery at all.  But after my second miscarriage, when I received the lovely diagnosis of “habitual aborter” (you can always count on the medical community to be sensitive with their terminology), my doctor wondered if the septum was bigger than diagnostic imaging could show. He recommended we consider it.

I drove home heaving what felt like one big, gigantic sigh. I felt a strong desire to embrace my inner two-year-old by sticking my lower lip six inches out from my face, stomping my feet repeatedly, and shouting, “IDON’TWANNAIDON’TWANNA IDON’TWANNA!”  The surgery was pricey and I was tired. I was ready to take a break. I felt like infertility had sort of become like that boyfriend whom you really want to be with but he just won’t commit, so you wait around for a bit and give him time to find himself and backpack Europe and spend lots of Friday nights with his motorcycle until you are finally like, look Pierre, this could be something great, but at some point I gotta know IS THIS GONNA HAPPEN OR NOT. So I’m going to move on. I’ll consider leaving your number in my phone so I know it’s not a doorbell salesman in case you ever decide you’re in, but emotionally I can’t stay here. I wasn’t ready to shut the door on having biological kids, but it was starting to feel unhealthy for me to sit around hoping it would happen. Having a surgery felt like I would still be waiting around for Pierre to figure out whether he was in this or not.

Seth and I debated the pros and cons. There were no guarantees, but there was a chance it could decrease the likelihood of another miscarriage should conception occur again. On the other hand, we had already devoted a lot of time and energy and money to things that had “a chance” of working. It felt like we were rolling a set of 100-sided dice with a baby on one side. Sure, there was a chance, but our wrists were sore from rolling.

Eventually, though, we realized that even though we were going to take a break from fertility treatments, if we were to not have the surgery, conceive naturally, and then miscarry, the What Ifs would haunt us forever.  So, we decided this would be our last “intervention”, at least for awhile. Fine, we told Pierre. You get ONE LAST CHANCE.

The surgery involved pumping me with anesthesia that “usually doesn’t make people sick” and essentially “buzzing” the wall off. (Ladies, if you’re looking to get buzzed, may I recommend a day-old, room temperature Lime-A-Rita mixed with your best friend’s backwash instead.) To keep the uterus from collapsing in on itself  (are we talking about my uterus or a sandcastle during high tide?), my doctor then inserted a balloon all up in there to hold things in place while the wound healed. A BALLOON. INSIDE OF ME. And not just any balloon. You know the kind of balloons that have a plastic stick on the bottom instead of a string? THAT kind. Wait a minute, you ask… if the balloon was in there, the stick was… Yes. Yes, that is correct. And while I’m not easily embarrassed and I believe in using the correct terms to describe reproductive anatomy, if you want any more detail, you need to take me out for a REALLY fancy dessert.  Because I’m classy and becausemydadreadsthis.

(Also, if the above description was too much, may I point out that when ladies are describing their birth story, they often talk about “how many centimeters” and “how long I pushed” and other intimate stuff like that and no one bats an eye.)

After surgery, Seth drove me home and I did a really good job keeping it together until I barfed in our driveway. I then took up residence on the couch and spent the next 24 hours dozing in and out with episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee in the background, which, when combined with narcotics, can lead to some pretty trippy dreams about Jerry Seinfeld. In addition to the typical joys of recovering from surgery, I got to augment my experience by taking hormones and a course of antibiotics strong enough to cure an elephant’s syphilis.

I was a real joy to live with that week.

At my one week follow up, my doctor removed the balloon (angels sang) and I celebrated by walking normally.  He gave me instructions on the pill regimen I’d be on for the next two months. I ran through my list of questions, which unfurled like a verbal scroll across the floor. My most pressing concern: How successful was the surgery?

“Well, the septum was a lot bigger than we thought from the imaging. I think this could really help decrease your chances of another miscarriage.”

Great!... wait, if it could have an impact on my miscarriage rate, what are the chances that the septum caused at least one of my miscarriages?

“Oh, I’d say it’s about a 50/50 chance.”

A fifty-fifty chance that the surgery I asked for multiple times in the last decade could have prevented a miscarriage?

“Yes, this could really help you going forward. Do you have any other questions?”

Sure do. But the rest of my questions are for my therapist.

When we began pursuing parenthood, I remember being surprised by the power of my own emotions.  Sometimes these primal feelings would rise up inside of me, almost on a cellular level. This experience was no different. I drove away from the doctor’s appointment with a profound sense of loss. I felt like I was miscarrying all over again. Against all rationality I kept repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” through a thick stream of tears. I was apologizing to the babies we lost. “I should’ve advocated for the surgery more. I should’ve demanded it. I’m sorry.” My rational brain knew this wasn’t helpful. I knew it was entirely possible the miscarriages had nothing to do with what the surgery supposedly fixed. Yet what I couldn’t get out of my mind was the image on the last ultrasound screen of a slow but visible heartbeat. Life. For a moment, it was there. To believe that that loss was outside of any human’s control – somehow, that was easier to swallow. To even briefly entertain the thought that a simple outpatient surgery could have kept that heart beating – this brought me to my knees.

I’m going to pause for a second to take a moment and say that I don’t fault my doctor here. He gave the best medical recommendations with the information at hand. But sometimes we have to make decisions of which road to take with a map that is incomplete. We do our best, and sometimes that works out. Sometimes that takes us to sad places. Sometimes our experiences leave parts of our lives not neatly combed but with frayed, ragged edges.  And yet, onward we march, frayed ends and all.

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I brought the baby clothes, along with a few children’s books, inside the house.  I opened the door to the “gray room”, the room that we hope will eventually be a nursery but is currently our second guest room. In the closet sits a dresser that I intentionally put out of sight. Recently, kid-type stuff had started to appear. A wooden caterpillar on wheels made my by carpenter uncle. A few of my favorite children’s books I had collected throughout the years.  Teddy bears that belonged to Seth and I when we were kids. I opened the top drawer and began laying items in. A denim dress I wore as a toddler. A little Carhartt jacket that belonged to my brother. The sweater from Mexico. All entirely impractical things to be in the top drawer of a dresser that I hope will belong to an infant soon. Yet they laid there like little beacons, symbolizing a way forward.

Forward. I knew that was where we wanted to head, but which direction was it? I tried to imagine all the paths in front of us that could lead towards parenthood. Biological kids. Private adoption. Foster to adopt.  I am so tired of trying to convince my body to do what it was “supposed” to do naturally, yet there is something inside of me, something intimately primal, that seemed to block every step I tried to take away from it. The what if’s kept pulling at me, and now there were even more of them. What if the doctor is right and the surgery really helped prevent another miscarriage? Am I giving up? Shouldn’t I be more hopeful now than ever? Is there something wrong with me that I don’t feel that way?

And yet, at the same time, when I consider more fertility treatments or continuing to “just relax and wait” for it to happen naturally – I can’t do it.  We’d been rolling those 100-sided dice for awhile. Talking to others that are also on the infertility journey - we’re all just standing at the table rolling dice. Some people’s dice have more sides than others. Some are able to keep rolling longer than others. But eventually, it seems that one of two things happens – they either land on the baby side or they step away from the table. You can stand at the table forever, because the reality is that, unless there is a clear, definitive you-cannot-get-pregnant reality at hand, the next roll of the dice could be the one. And this thought can be maddening. 

Or, maybe there is another option. One can step away from the table but not pull their dice out of the game. They can look at other tables and see if there are other ways to “win”. And maybe some of those other tables will bring “success”. Or maybe a miraculous breeze will blow through the place and the baby making dice will land baby side up.  Maybe, stepping away from the table doesn’t mean cashing out.  Maybe we can leave the possibility of biological kids open but divert our energy and resources towards other ways of begetting a human child. Because at this point, we aren’t picky about how a kid gets here. We just want to be parents.

Thinking of it through the lens of the train metaphor – maybe getting on a train at the train station doesn’t mean that’s the only possible train to be on. Maybe it leads to a place that’s even better than what we see on the postcards. Or maybe, the next train we get on takes us to a new station with different trains.  Maybe we stumble on a train that doesn’t seem exactly right at the beginning but we soon realize is exactly where we should be.

Sometimes it’s good to sit in the station for awhile to collect yourself and try as best you can to determine the next route you should take. Sometimes we need to take a deep breath and refill our water bottles and go buy an overpriced snack. But the thing about train stations is that no one wants to live or vacation there. They aren’t meant to be the place we stay. Sometimes, you’ve got to study the map as closely as possible, throw your backpack on your shoulders, and just climb aboard. You don’t know what lies ahead or what direction the track will turn. But you get on, and you settle in, and you look out the window, and you say – the scenery might look different than I envision, but I’m going to stay open to being surprised by how beautiful it can be.