The New Normal

IVF is not the most glamorous or “normal” experience that one goes through in their lives, and I know this after having gone through the protocol for the past two weeks.

Does a normal person have to hide in a bathroom stall during their work holiday party and inject themselves to fatten up their “ovarian follicles”? And then have to scurry after a needle they dropped on the floor, hoping that no one had any concerns that the Deputy Director of Human Resources was hiding in the bathroom with needles?

Does the average woman have to go to the OBGYN’s office 6 times in 10 days to get blood drawn and put her feet up in stirrups to be examined for 20 minutes each visit?

How many people have had to make room in their fridge for their IVF medication----medicine that costs thousands of dollars?

Is it normal to have to give yourself over 25 injections in your stomach---so many, that you look like you’re turning into a Dalmatian and you have to keep an eye out for Cruella?  Or having to explain to your husband how he has to jab you in the hip with a 1 ½ inch needle in the middle of Sunday Night Football?

Surprisingly, more women than you know go through this in order to have a baby, and for them, this day to day intensity is “normal.”  According to RESOLVE (the National Infertility Association), 1 in 8 couples struggle with baby-making and 1.5% of all babies born in the United States were born via In Vitro in 2014.  As weird as all of this seems, I’m definitely not the only woman you know that has gone through this.

IVF without a doubt is not for the faint of heart, but thankfully, God has instilled a fierceness and strength in me I didn’t even realize I had until it came down to this.  As much as I would like to have gone down this road the “normal” way (believe me…the “normal” way is much more fun!), I am willing to do whatever it takes and trust in the road God has taken us down, all in order to hold a baby in my arms next year at Christmas. Then I will have a whole new normal to deal with!

What Could Have Been

9 months ago, I thought that someone would be handing me a baby this week.  I didn’t imagine I would have to go through the pains of IVF, I just planned that I would be going through the pains of labor by now.

In April, the Sergeant and I went through our 5^th (out of 6) Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) procedure.  A few weeks later, after feeling unwell for two weeks, we stood side by side in the master bathroom staring at a pregnancy test that showed that I was pregnant.  The shock and joy I felt was mirrored in the tearful eyes of my husband and in that moment I saw our world changing forever.

The rest of that Saturday is branded into my brain---walking into my parents' living room with baby shoes in my hands and hearing the joyful gasp from my mom as she realized what I was holding.  Choking up as I told my best friend over the phone she was going to be an auntie.  Watching the joy overtake my in-laws’ faces as we Face-timed with them that evening.  Talking to my dad and hearing him say, “I’m going to be a grandpa,” with such wonder and awe in his voice that I couldn't help but cry happy tears...again.  Falling asleep that night beside the Sergeant as we talked about who this “bumblebee” would turn out to be.  I have never experienced so much joy in one day.

That following Monday we went to the doctor’s office to get the requisite blood work to confirm that I was pregnant.  I celebrated with the front desk staff and apologized to the phlebotomist for being a difficult draw because I had been too excited and nervous to eat that morning. That whole day flew by in a blur of excitement and nursery planning.  I had bought a pair of tiny newborn pajamas the day before, as well as a book on pregnancy I kept pouring over and the first book for the baby’s room----I kept looking at it all in wonder on the counter, so excited that this moment was finally here. I couldn't help imagining and dreaming who this baby would turn out to be!

And then my dream world came to an abrupt halt.

I received a call from the doctor at 4pm that Monday.  She informed me that my HCG (a pregnancy hormone) was at a level that indicated that although I was pregnant, it showed that my body was in the beginning stages of a miscarriage and that I would be losing the pregnancy.  The next few hours are honestly a blur.  I remember seeing the panicked look on the Sergeant’s face as he realized what was happening and that his wife was falling apart in front of his eyes. I remember throwing the snail newborn jammies, the pregnancy book, and “Goodnight, Moon,” into the trash.  I remember the pain.

My grief was all consuming.  Although I had only known about this tiny life for 3 days, I had dreamed and prayed for this little one for a very long time.  The contradiction between the joy I had experienced just hours before and the immense pain I was feeling, were crushing to every piece of my soul.  And for the next week, as my body rejected the baby that my soul desperately longed for, I was raw. My heart was broken.

It is difficult to explain the earth shattering moment of a miscarriage.  People understandably don’t know what to say, how to react to your pain, how to help you.  As everyone else’s lives seemed to move on, my pain was stagnant, my grief still so fresh.  It’s hard to explain how much life was held in that 3 days and how much that meant to my heart that had been waiting for that news for so long. How difficult it was to transition my brain from that joy to all consuming pain.

And now 9 months have passed.  I don’t find it so hard to walk past the baby section at Target.  A newborn crying doesn’t send me to the bathroom to sob in a closed stall. I am able to look at the nursery boards on Pinterest and dream of where our future little one will sleep.  I am willing to hope again.

This week, however, is a reminder of what the Sergeant and I lost.  A reminder that there was a life inside me, if only for a brief period of time, and that life was precious, that life was wanted, and that life is so deeply missed. I will carry that little one with me for the rest of my life.  If even for a few days, I was someone’s Mom.