in the company of infertility
🌷Two profound things happened this week. The most important, we got to see our little baby’s heartbeat beat oh so strong. And secondly, I got to meet an amazing woman going through a very similar path as mine, at the same time. Let’s start with her.
Erin and I met on social media. As inadequate, despondent, lonely, sick, and helpless as social media has made me feel over the past couple years, when Erin reached out to me, stating that she was in Minnesota and had just had an embryo transfer (one day after ours,) and would love to have someone to connect with who is going through gestational surrogacy, I was SO THANKFUL for the platform.
Erin and I met up for coffee and spent FOUR HOURS chatting (the only other time in my entire life I spent that much time chatting with a complete stranger was when I met Phil for the first time.) The similarities were remarkable. Both of us have Asherman’s Syndrome (hers caused by her IUD, mine caused by multiple surgeries after a late term miscarriage,) we had seen the same surgeon at the Mayo clinic, we are both on independent gestational surrogacy journeys (we didn’t use an agency,) we both experienced the loss after a failed embryo transfer, both our embryos took this round (and thus, we have babies due one day apart,) but most importantly, we understand the pain of infertility, specifically, that which results from the need to have someone else carry our children. We both understand the devastation of understanding we can’t carry our children and grieve that horrendous loss. We understand the emotional, financial, and psychological struggle of all of this. We get each other in a way no one else has been able.
Chatting to Erin was like talking to myself in a mirror. I love my husband, but our experiences are different, simply because, I am a woman, and having the ability to carry my own children stolen from me, as a man, Phil just cannot fathom that experience. Erin did, and I am so grateful for her. It took nearly two years for me to meet someone who truly understands my experience, and I immediately knew she changed my life for the better. Thinking back over the past couple years, I wish I could have been as brave as Erin and reached out (yes, likely over social media, as no one in my circle could relate,) to someone whose story sounded like mine. Maybe if I had, the loneliness and pain would have been [slightly] more manageable.
As for our sweet baby’s heartbeat. I thought I was nervous to get the pregnancy results, oh my goodness, this may have been more nerve wrecking. The amount of rabbit holes I went down over the past couple weeks, trying to determine the likelihood of a heartbeat based on the original pregnancy Beta numbers, I was literally driving myself mad. I felt nauseous, sick, anxious. Kimmy brought her sweet daughter with her, and it was such a juxtaposition, her little girl being SO disinterested in her mom laying on her back at the fertility clinic (Barbie YouTube videos were WAY more exciting than our little bean and Kimmy’s uterus), and Phil, me, and Kimmy, intensely watching the ultrasound tech’s and midwife’s face as they looked for our little one’s heartbeat – knowing whatever we did – or did not – see, would changes all our lives forever. When the midwife said, “baby is perfect, heartbeat is 130, measuring a day ahead” I screamed. Kimmy cried. I kissed her head like 100 times. Magic. Absolute magic. I’ve watched the video of the heartbeat maybe 100,000 times. I have felt like a complete human failure for the past couple years, and to hear that our baby that WE CREATED is “perfect” and already an overachiever….oh gosh, there are no words for how that feels. It’s time for me to watch that video again…🌷
