My Recipe for the Perfect Family.

I'm a dreamer, an imagine-r, a stare out of the train window for hours-er. In moments where my brain is free, my mind floats away to the moon and when it does, mindless, endless ideas and lists form. It's something that occurs, like the morning sunrise, nothing I've ever planned. As a kid, I would list to-do's that I hoped to accomplish, but likely would not: History paper, Math homework, get a ride to volleyball, warn Mom and Dad that I'm probably failing French.

As I got older, the lists got older too. Errands, work goals, dreams, aspirations. Sometimes, if there wasn't a list to be made, I'd find myself rerunning a conversation in my head on repeat - my wandering mind never knowing how to rest. Yes, I realize that me talking about this might have you running for a xanax, but I actually barely notice it and who knows, maybe it's a really great brain exercise - or undiagnosed OCD. 

 

Then, two Wednesday's ago when I was showering before work, my mind wandered and listed as it tends to do. I didn't notice anything strange at first until I was toweling off and realized that I wasn't listing my to-do's anymore. I was listing stuff that had already been done. Stuff I'd already gone through. I was listing the major hurdles I had to overcome in order to grow my family.

septum surgery
IUI 
IVF 1
IVF 2
FET 
blood loss (during delivery)
D&C 
D&C 
natural pregnancy # 1
Miscarriage
natural pregnancy # 2 
please.please.please.letthisoneworkout.

So, there you have it. That's how you make a family.

It was something of a recipe, really. A little recipe that yielded one daughter thus far and always ended in a little hopeful begging because you see, I'm pregnant right now and for me, being pregnant has never been a carefree, happy time in my life. Instead, it has been filled with a lot of heartbreak, a lot of emotional roller coaster riding, and a lot of pushing the negativity into outer space and focusing on the complete picture. I am lucky because all of my hard work has not been without reward. My frozen embryo transfer gave me a daughter. A perfect daughter. And I promised myself that I would try very hard to give her a sibling. If it doesn't work out, she will know how hard I tried and in some way I hope that consoles her. 

So, as of now I am still in this phase of life where one tries to multiply their love with their spouse to create a little family tree. As much as I would love for the pressure of this all to be over, it is not. And so, I list. I list our journey over and over. A tortured mantra. A poem of empowerment. A prayer of some sort. Maybe I'm proud of everything I've gone through or perhaps just deeply scarred by it. Either way, it's my story. 

 

I wasn't always like this. Like most people I was really excited to have a child initially. It is my nature to be optimistic and jump into massive life decisions with deliriously positive abandon. Everything would work out! We had already been married a couple years and couldn't wait for the adventure to begin. These were obviously going to be the best days of our lives!

Turns out life was pretty great before. I never understood how hard some people have it. I never had to. But let met tell you, when you're in the waiting room of an infertility clinic and you can barely find a seat for the 57th day in a row, you find out a lot of people have it hard. There are basically 400 scientific miracles that must go perfectly every time someone gets pregnant with a healthy baby. When people call it "the miracle of life," it's probably because they've been through the mud.

For me, it started with a misdiagnosis (who has a T-shaped uterus anymore?), then correct diagnosis and subsequent surgery to remove a rather large uterine septum (goodbye, nature's birth control). This was followed by a failed IUI and two cancelled IVF cycles due to slow embryo growth and crappy eggs. Each of these things take an eternity, by the way. Lastly, I had a frozen embryo transfer where I placed two embryos in and was lucky enough to have one grow into my beautiful daughter (but not without 12 weeks of spotting and bleeding, hypothyroidism, bed-rest and a threatened miscarriage).  During delivery with her, my placenta adhered to my uterine wall (because why should anything be easy?) and I lost a LOT of blood. Two surgeries ensued and voila, I was a Mom. 

Who wouldn't want to go through all that again?! 

Right now, I am naturally pregnant. This will be my second natural pregnancy actually - the first ending with a miscarriage at 8 weeks, 5 days. On the first day of my in-laws visiting from across the country. While they ate pancakes on our dining room table and I cried alone in the bathroom upstairs. 

So yeah, everything is hard.

Infertility and pregnancy struggles are a very lonely place. Even if the waiting room is filled to the brim at an infertility doctor's office, nobody talks. It is eerily quiet. It is serious. The air is heavy with sadness and loss. Everyone offers half smiles while silently counting down the minutes until they never have to come back. This was not a club that people wanted to join. 

It is for that reason, that I would never want another person to look at my family and see something that isn't true. This did not come easy. This did not come without a fight. I wish I could wear this list on my chest. I wish fellow strugglers (and even non-strugglers for that matter) could know my family-making recipe because if they are going through even just a fraction of what I did, I would want them to feel less alone and give them the energy to keep going until everything is in the rear view mirror. Once it is, maybe we can all wave goodbye to these days together.

This is my family recipe. What is yours?

xo,
Laura