Inhale.
It's not like I haven't felt heartbroken before. When I was a little girl, I had dreams. Expectations. I grew up with happily married parents who were high school sweethearts and married at 18.
I expected to have some boy fall madly in love with me and meet me at the altar while the ink was still wet on my diploma. When so called head over heels boy ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it, I changed my expectations. It took time but I realized through this heartache that I deserved to be respected and loved like I was the only girl in the world. Then, I fell in love with a boy who gave me those things. He turned into the man I married not at 18, but at 21, and the ink was barely dried on my college degree. Close enough. Heart healed.
I expected to have all the most important people to me near by and smiling on my wedding day. Little girls imagine this day all the time. I just replaced the groom with whatever teen heart throb was on the cover of Tiger Beat that week. When I finally had that sparkly engagement ring on my finger and had the love of my life's face to put in my imagination wedding day, I had to face the fact that my grandfather was not going to make it to that day. I had always had a special bond with my grandpa and he was always there dancing in my wedding dreams. On a cold fall night I was there saying goodbye to one of my favorite men. As he took his last breath, I felt like he had taken mine with him. Seriously, lungs of fire, heart crushed. My fiance was there with a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on. And on our wedding day he filled my heart so full of love that I had no room left for sorrow or self pity. Grandpa would have been proud of me and the man I married. Heart healed.
I expected to have a career that I loved and the financial stability that went along with it. Not many 21 year old women have that these days, but I did. I loved my job....and I loved my pay check. Then the economy went south. Numbers were low. I was let go. Again, Heart break. I was so tired of heart break. It was the day before I was meeting my husband out of state for a sunny vacation. I. could. not. stop. crying. Not only was my life ruined, but so was my husbands. I had no idea what I was going to do. My husband did. Get on the plane. Fly down south. Act like nothing changed. Have fun. Go home. Search for a job. Life moves on. He will take care of me. Six months later, with a very supportive man in my corner, I found a new job. Heart healed.
I expected to give my husband children. I expected to be a mommy. Now, after three years of trying to start a family this damn doctor is breaking my heart. "You have zero percent chance of getting pregnant." this is a whole new world of heartache. Never mind that I had taken literally over 100 pregnancy tests over the past two years. Never mind that I had been poked and prodded and shot up with dye. Never mind the nights I cried myself to sleep because I was so lost in my need to have a baby. Never mind the days in Walmart when I caught myself staring at all the babies and all the extremely pregnant women waddling around and it took everything I had not to drop to the floor in the fetal position and beg God to make me disappear. Never mind whispering to my sisters newborn baby that I wished he could be mine for just one day. Never mind convincing myself that my husband hated me for not being able to give him a child. This was worse. My heart was in pieces on the floor. I'm pretty sure the doctor held my lungs in his hands squeezing like his life depended on it. I could see he was still talking. I couldn't comprehend the words. It sounded like I was under water. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. God, I couldn't breathe. But, then he said "We will do IVF. I guarantee I will get you pregnant". Out of all my dreams, I never had that one. A strange man insisting he can get me pregnant, with my husband standing by. Awkward. He had my attention now.
The next months were terrible. Filled with self injections, medications, ultrasounds, blood work, egg retrieval, growing embryos and embryo transfer. Not to mention, thousands and thousands of dollars that we didn't really have. And doubt, Lord was there doubt. We doubted that God would want us to do IVF. I doubted that it would work. I doubted I could get through it physically. The medications made it so hard to breathe. God, why was it so hard to breathe lately?? On egg retrieval day they got 19 eggs from my ovaries. Only 15 were mature. Only 9 were fertilized by my husbands "best men". After five days of growing in a test tube, four embryos were healthy enough to transfer to my uterus. We decided to transfer two. I laid there with a painfully full bladder, ultrasound probe pressing on pelvis, doctor threading 5,342 feet of catheter into my uterus, hand in hubby's hand, and watched my two little specks move into my uterus. It's all very romantic. I wish we had candles in retrospect. Maybe some rose petals. Definitely a few more med students huddled around us. Then it was over. Doctor handed us our first picture of our children (a picture of the embryos under the microscope) and said "I've done everything I can, it's in Gods hands now."
 |
| Aren't they precious? |
Then we waited. 12 days. Blood work every other day. By the way, needles are nothing now. I can inject progesterone oil into my my cheeks without a flinch, eyes closed. Pick a cheek, any cheek. I talked to my babies all the time. I prayed that they were ok. I loved them every second of every day. I prayed some more. God knows how much I prayed. Then I got the call. I. was. PREGNANT! I couldn't stop laughing. Who does that??? It turned out that only one baby had made it. I was again heart broken for my lost little baby, but I still had one child growing inside of me. Take that, Infertility!
Heart healed, right?
Not quite. I'm a bitter girl. I try not the be, really. But even though I finally became a mother, I still feel an ache in my heart when I hear another girl got pregnant (without even trying, her boyfriend just looked at her and POW, pregnant). I still feel like my heart stops when I think about having a second child. It is not a guarantee. My husband can't just pump me full of margaritas, take advantage of me and be holding a newborn 9 months later. It takes months of medication, thousands of dollars, tests, and procedures to maybe get pregnant. I worry that it's selfish of me to want another biological child when God has already blessed us with one.
This is one heartache that I never expected, and it never completely goes away. Infertility is a cold hearted bitch if you ask me.
But, guess what? I can breathe now. Because this ridiculously handsome little man calls me Mama.
So, heart healed? Yes. But, definitely scarred for life.
Exhale.
No comments:
Post a Comment