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Intricasies of Infertility
This last month holds an interesting mix of some of my greatest elations and equally some of my most difficult emotions. Earlier in July, I celebrated what would have been my momma’s 77th birthday. That day is also the same day two years ago we had our IVF egg retrieval capturing only a disheartening 8 mature eggs - though admittedly better than none. And at the end of that week, I found out I had three little growing embryos. Three chances at life to grow within me. I was overjoyed given the odds we had. Three baby boys as it turns out.
For a variety of reasons, we sent them to be genetically
tested prior to transfer. One came back healthy for transfer. This
amazing little embryo that could become my sweet beautiful baby boy, the
one I’d dreamed about since I was a child. He is one of the greatest
miracles in my life. The other most amazing miracle would be my
daughter, who despite being told we would most likely never conceive on
our own, was a spontaneous pregnancy.
Being a mother has always been my dream. When my husband and I started our journey to family, it never occurred to either of us we would encounter infertility…he had 2 kids already. But we started our infertility journey. At one point after many failed attempts to even attempt to have a baby, we were told our chances of spontaneously conceiving were slim to none without God’s intervention. So with a huge sadness in my heart, we started the IVF process.
During that time, I also served as my mother’s caregiver, helping her move through her metastatic breast cancer diagnosis and ultimate passing. Due to our family history, I was given the chance to test for the BRCA genes. I refused. I didn’t want to know because I’m my mind, it would be a death sentence.
By God’s hand, our San Diego Male Infertility doctor referred us to his former intern who’d shifted to Female Infertility (IVF) in San Jose. She had gone through a similar walk with her mom and asked “what if we can stop it with you?” Until she asked, I’d not been willing to vocalize how heavy that possibility had been laying on me, terrifying me. So we started the testing process.
Nine months later when everything was done, all results coming back positively, and I received the call that we were now ready to start our 1st round of IVF, I had to tell them we would not be proceeding. That same day I tested positive for being pregnant. See I needed all of that waiting and in-between “stuff” to happen. I needed to be there for my mother. I needed to have Dr. Bastuba refer us to Dr. Waks. I needed my IVF doctor to give me a possibility that gave me the strength to get genetically tested so I could have the confidence and security and comfort to know I would not be condemning my baby with these genes. I needed to walk God’s path in God’s time with God’s confirmation of his power in the spontaneous conception of our daughter that we had been told would not happen without God’s intervention. God’s timing. God’s path. Not mine.
But nobody prepared me for my Infertility Irony No. 6 - you will
mourn the babies that never were. I knew if I miscarried or if my
transfer failed, I would definitely mourn those losses. But I was
completely unprepared and blindsided by how much I was affected by the
loss of our two embryos - my other two baby boys.
They both had deleterious genes so if they had been
implanted, they would have resulted in a miscarriage. I know logically I
would have never held them, never known them beyond maybe carrying them
for a short period in my womb. But someone forgot to tell my heart.
It’s the most confusing conundrum and battle that my brain and heart
have, especially this time each year. I mourn them. I wonder who they
would have been, even though logically I know they never would have
been. And I think about both of them far more than I ever thought I
would.
What I keep finding out about infertility, even now as we are
done having babies, is that it never stops messing with you. It’s
constantly messing with you.
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