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.

Sharp Edges and Sarcasm

And the journey continues.

It’s been interesting, to say the least. The roller coaster has continued in much the same way, but this time, it involves pills, more expensive pee sticks, and romantic visits to Inseminations R Us. Also, the cost of conception went from $4 for a glass of wine and a Redbox to $350 for Seth’s specially selected MVPs and a monthly visit to The Place With the Stirrups. So, if trying to make a baby before fertility treatments was like riding Space Mountain, trying to make a baby with fertility treatments is like riding Space Mountain while wearing an uncomfortably placed catheter and throwing hundred dollar bills over the side.

This last round of treatment involved taking Clomid (an oral medication that helps build follicles) and then going in for interuterine inseminations (IUIs). IUIs provide the unique opportunity to conceive a child with a complete stranger in a lab coat while your husband is twenty miles away. The first super-fun part about this experience is scheduling. I spend several days peeing on the aforementioned sticks, which are approximately $47.00 apiece (unless you buy a box of 2,000 on Amazon, in which case they are $45.39 each). When I get a happy face (it is literally a happy face – I think this is the first time my urine stream has made someone smile), I tell Seth, “CANCEL ALL YOUR PLANS. IT IS TIME TO SCHEDULE THE INSEMINATION.” So, we immediately quit our jobs and frantically call Inseminations R Us: “WE NEED TO GET IN IMMEDIATELY. I PEED A HAPPY FACE! I PEED A HAPPY FACE!” The nice people at IRU try their best to schedule a convenient time right in the middle of your work hours around all the other frantic people who have also peed happy faces.  Then, Seth goes in to our appointment. He goes and sits with other men who are also  trying to produce offspring in the Andrology waiting room, also known as The Most Awkward Room in Existence.  Another nice person calls him back to The Place Seth Never Wants to Talk About, samples are provided, and they are put in a cute little syringe with our names on it.

Here’s where I get a part! Yay! I show up about 45 minutes later.  Seth and I run into each other in the parking lot. Since this could be Conception Day, we make it super romantic by hugging, saying, “Don’t forget to grab cat food on the way home!” and maybe squeezing in a butt slap as we dash our separate directions – him back to work, me to get pregnant.  He shouts something like, “Go get ‘em, tiger!” as I run into the building. (Just kidding. He never says that, because he is smart.) I go up to the other waiting room that is slightly less awkward.  I am called back by yet another nice person (Seriously, I’ll give you $10,000 if you can find a jerk who works in an infertility clinic) who shows me a Styrofoam box.  On the top is a sticker that says Seth Foster and Bethany Foster. He asks me if those are our names. I say, “No, my name is Oprah.” I am very mature and responsible and simply say, “Yes.” He then opens a series of baggies and other containers like one of those wooden Russian dolls, each of which with our name on it, and asks me in three languages if the names are correct. I, still being mature, simply say, “Yes, oui, ja,” instead of snickering about my husband’s sperm swimming around in a syringe.

I then go back to The Room With the Stirrups. Yet ANOTHER nice person walks in, introduces herself, and tells me that she will be doing the procedure today. I say not-awkward things like, “Can’t I at least buy you dinner first?” and she chuckles and pretends that no one has ever made that joke before.  Then some stuff happens that I don’t wanna talk about because my dad reads this, and she says “All set!” I make another joke about could she at least offer me a cigarette, followed up with, “Just kidding, I really don’t smoke,” all of which she just ignores, probably for my sake. I lay there for 10 minutes, doing some conception visualization that looks surprisingly similar to early-2000’s anime, get dressed, and leave.

It’s all super hot, really.

In all sincerity, the hills and valleys of the roller coaster are steeper now. There is more hope because we are doing something, but with more hope comes higher expectations and bigger letdowns. We did what the doctor suggested – Clomid and 3 rounds of IUIs (plus one bonus IUI, because I have always liked earning extra credit.) For most people, this will work. For us, it didn’t.  While the rubber stamp of “infertility” was hard to swallow at first, we were quickly buoyed by the interventions available. I felt confident that our extra effort would pay off - we were going to do all the things in all the boxes and most likely our good faith efforts would be rewarded. We had everything under control.

Ha. Control. Funny!

After the four failed IUIs, we found ourselves back at the doctor, trying to create a new plan of action and hoping he would provide us with more boxes to check (I just LOVE me those boxes). We were left with few options short of IVF (which is not an option we currently have on the table).  Our doctor suggested one more Hail Mary: more intensive (and expensive) IUIs. These involved Letrozole (similar to Clomid) on Days 3-7, an ultrasound on Day 7, some self-administered shots to help “grow” follicles (eggs), another ultrasound on Day 11, another self-administered shot to induce ovulation, and then taking progesterone the rest of the month. Super simple!  But, since it is the last medical intervention available for us currently, we agreed to give this next round of treatment a shot. (Shot! Get it? I’ll be giving myself lots of those. Good thing I have absolutely no problem with needles and am not the least bit squeamish about this. Good thing my husband also does not sometimes pass out when he needs a shot of his own. Don’t worry about us, though; we’ll be fine, ‘cause we’ll just train the dog to do it.) 

So, we continue to move forward.  It is more challenging to stay optimistic, so I find myself becoming a bit more mechanical… going through the motions and relying rather extensively on sarcastic humor that isn’t actually very funny.  (For example: When I have to leave work early for IUIs, I always say to a certain colleague of mine, “Off to go get inseminated like a common barnyard animal!” And she always responds with a dry, “Mooooo…”) And I’ve decided that unfunny sarcasm and mechanical motion-going is okay for awhile.  When life’s edges get sharp, sometimes you need to do what you can to keep from bumping up against them.

And yet, despite my best efforts to avoid the pokey spots, they’re still there. I run into them more often than I’d like; usually at night, when the jokes have run dry, the day’s goals are asleep, and there is no distraction to hurl my emotional energy towards.  My eyes dart around the dark room as if searching for a distraction so I am not left alone with the question that I try to avoid: What if we really can’t have kids? The thought comes and I jerk away from it as if I’ve touched a hot stove. I’m not ready for that.  I can’t go there yet.  I still find myself thinking of “our child”, that hypothetical being who is wanted so badly that it feels as if she actually exists. I still find myself asking the same question, although this time with a crack in my voice and a distinctive tone of desperation: Where are you? Please, come.

I am still hoping, praying, that we find each other soon.

  

An Unintended Journey

September 9, 2016

I never thought I’d need this so strongly.

Growing up, I’d hear friends talk about their dreams for motherhood someday. I’d hear them wax poetic about how as long as they could remember, they’d always dreamed of being a mom.  While they pursued dreams and goals, all ambitions fell secondary to Motherhood and they would happily trade it all for that one role.

I never understood this.

I mean, there was definitely a part of me that felt a tug for it.  But the thought was abstract, and as I examined my future pursuits, I naively looked for spaces where I could neatly fit motherhood amidst my other aspirations.  Via both nature and nurture I grew to be fiercely independent, and I’dbedamned if anyone got in my way of my plans. I had things to do, degrees to earn, people to reach, a career to build, books to write, mountains to climb. Someday, I thought. Someday. After my castle is built and I have some time to set my chisel down and turn away for a bit, then maybe I can tend to some children.  I continued to nudge this impassive notion further into the future like a child kicking a stone walking home from the bus stop, and Someday was repeatedly launched forward, settling on some date too far ahead to discern.

And then.

 The desire came swiftly and unexpectedly.  The ache, simultaneously sharp and soft, sweet and bitter, rose from the very marrow of my being and engulfed me – mind, body, soul.  This abstract concept of a child somehow morphed into a person I felt I practically knew. In my mind, I began to refer to this hypothetical being in familiar terms. Where are you?  I would think. Come.  You are already loved here. Please, come.  Despite my recent master’s degree in social work during which the diagnostic criteria for delusions and hallucinations were clearly outlined, this currently nonexistent being felt real to me. While I cast halfhearted attempts to trust God with my Isaac, I am no Abraham, and thus continued rapid cycling of an Ericksonian trust vs. mistrust circuit as I would loosen and tighten, loosen and tighten my grip on motherhood. I-trust-You-I-know-You-love-me-more-than-I-can-imagine-You-know-my-innermost-thoughts-but-wait-do-you-really-remember-how-much-I-want-this-maybe-I-should-tell-you-again?

The intensity of these emotions surprised me, and they came as an even greater surprise to Seth.  One of the reasons we were both attracted to one another was that we both shared a desire to adopt. So, imagine Seth’s surprise when I came to him saying, “Sooo, you know how I’ve always told you that I wanted to adopt and would be fine if I never had a biological child? Well, so, uh, what if we put adoption on hold for a bit and gave it a shot?” To Seth’s credit, he took this abrupt change in stride.  While he didn’t understand the intensity of my desire, he assumed a supportive role and climbed aboard the Baby Making Train with me.  Choo-choo, all aboard.

Since I was spending all of our baby-making budget (both time and money) on grad school, we decided that we would wait a bit to get pregnant.  But the moment my hypothetical due date calculator gave us a safe buffer after graduation, we began “trying”, which is a socially appropriate way of saying that you’re doin’ it all the time at regularly scheduled intervals.  It’s a funny thing, really – you spend years trying to prevent pregnancy, doubling up on contraceptive methods and doing a fair amount of frantic Googling of “How late can I be at taking my pill?” and then all of a sudden you’re acting like pit crew workers at a NASCAR race – “GO! GO! GO! Make that baby! GO!” And since I had read all the articles about all the things women in their thirties should do to increase their odds of conception, I expected that it would happen within about thirteen minutes. So we waited. And waited. And waited.

Every month became a roller coaster.  The first half involved lots of peeing on sticks, repeatedly counting days on a calendar, and constantly telling myself to relax, dammit. I would entice Seth into romance by sexily barking, “We’ve gotta do it tonight!” between gulps of coffee on my way out the door in the morning and reminding him to “Turn off Netflix, my eggs’re droppin’!” at night. The second half involved a lot of repeatedly counting days on a calendar, trying not to pee on sticks, and constantly telling myself that I will “be okay with any outcome”.  I tried to refocus, but was still tuning into every bodily sensation (and making several up): Wait! What was that? A twinge in my side? Certainly, there is a brilliant child doing calculus in my belly. It was like an insecure teenage romance – I tried to appear like I was playing it cool, but was actually checking my phone 17 times a minute to see if I got a text.  And then I’d get confirmation that, in fact, what I was feeling was really the effect of reheated Chinese food, not the Miracle of Life. 

And that is hard. Every month, it is really hard.

Through it all, Seth remained steadfast and supportive, trying valiantly to cheer me up with the ABCs of Spousal Support: Attentive Listening, Bacon/Backrubs/Bringing the Dog Over to Snuggle, and Copious Amounts of Carbs. Individually, I tried a variety of experiments with myself to ease the impact of the infertility freight train that hits me every 28.5 days. I try to focus on the good things about not being pregnant. I’d pick a date 38 weeks away and think of what I could be doing that month; given that I wouldn’t be tied up pushing anything out of my lady parts, the calendar looked pretty open. I’d think of work endeavors I could pursue, a trip I could plan, a hobby I could begin.  I’d think, well, at least I’ve got another month of enjoying the finer things in life, like cheap red wine and gas station sushi.  These thoughts served as distractions, and sometimes they worked, at least for a bit. I’d refocus and remind myself about what I could do. And I’d truly be excited about those things.

Until.

I’d see a mother cooing her child in the grocery cart. I’d meet a child whose name was one of my favorites. I’d see a father with his kids and think of watching my amazing husband be an amazing daddy. I’d play with friends’ beautiful children. I’d hear of another pregnancy announcement and wonder why isn’t my body doing that.  I’d be marching confidently through my day and the desire for mommyhood would hit me, hard, and it was all I could do to not curl up and cry.

So, a year after I stopped birth control, I shared with Seth my fears and impatience. I needed at least SOME answers. While his biological clock may not have been ticking as loudly as mine, he sensed my urgency and agreed to take the next step. We went to THAT doctor.  We provided our blood tests and, ahem, samples, and went to find out exactly what was wrong so we could do exactly what we needed to do to fix it with a minimal financial investment. (Ha.) While I knew that things weren’t quite right, the first time a doctor used the word “infertility” to describe our situation, time froze for a bit while I struggled to accept this new label.  Infertility. We struggled with infertility. It was like being stuck with the pin of a badge I didn’t want to wear.

We learned a lot at that appointment. We learned that, while I had been told at a younger age that my uterus was a bit misshapen, it was in fact in pretty perfect baby-growing condition. We learned that my husband had a healthy troupe of well-armed servicemen ready to go.  We also learned that my AMH level, which stands for All the Mommy Hormones and helps determine your egg supply, were that of a woman seven years older than me (I used this opportunity to tell people that my ovaries were born seven years before I was.  Tip: Sort of funny-awkward with your friends, but regular- awkward in an elevator.) Thus, our chances of natural conception are about 3% per month, which is coincidentally about the same percentage of the time I agree to watch any show but Parks and Recreation on Netflix.

We also learned of the options we had for treatment – monthly rounds of Clomid and interuterine insemination (read: turkey baster) which would improve our odds a bit and gave us some hope. While the reality of our situation was a hard to swallow (i.e., a couple ugly cries that made me look like I had been jumped by killer bees), I did feel better to have a plan and a course of action. I like plans and courses of action and boxes to check off – I don’t do well with ambiguity (which is, of course, a hallmark of infertility – there is often no definite explanation).  Seth, on the other hand, struggled with the sterile feel of it all. While he would prefer to keep his attempts at conception to the good ol’-fashioned way, his objections quickly faded into soft concessions of “Sure, babe. Let’s do it,” as he sensed the desperation I felt.  And in that moment, amidst a cacophony of intense conflicting emotions, I was reminded of one important thing: I married a good, good man.

And so now – here we go.  The only direction to go is forward, armed with our faith, our love for each other, our trusty boxes to check, and a deeply rooted (if entirely irrational) conviction that our child is out there, somewhere – waiting, in a sense, for our paths to cross.

I hope we find each other soon.