LITTLE LADY IN WAITING…
🌷Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.
The grieving process is fraught with sadness, anxiety, and is so, so difficult to overcome. It’s not linear, and just because you experience once stage and leave it, doesn’t mean you won’t revisit again – soon or in the far-off future. One moment you can be so in shock at the reality of your life events, you don’t believe they are happening (denial) and the next, you can be so weighed down with sadness, the prospect of ever feeling joy seems like an impossibility.
When we lost Henry, there were days I would wake up, go for a run, have a productive day at work, come home, go on a date with my husband, grab a drink with a girlfriend, and then completely crumble the moment I saw a Pampers commercial. I got so good at the denial stage, people likely thought I was okay. The reality was, I was dying inside. For a lot of my grieving process, my anger and depression were only seen by those whom I was close. My bargaining was in done in the middle of the night – begging a God that I no longer knew if existed, to please, please, let this all be a nightmare, or at the very least, let me get pregnant.
Phil and I will never fully get over the loss of our son. We keep his ultrasound picture close, and we think about seeing him stretch on the screen. I remember the first symptom of my pregnancy, and I remember every minute detail of those 5 months. Time helped alleviate the pain, and the news of our Baby Girl certainly mended our hearts. If it wasn’t for our son, our daughter would never exist, and THAT reality is what helped us move forward.
Phil and I had to grieve the loss of our son, but we also had to grieve the loss of me never being able to carry children. This process has been ongoing, until this week. I went through 6 uterine surgeries before I was truly able to accept that carrying children was never part of my future. My last one was this past week.
For over two years, I have not been able to accept this reality. Yes, we have a gestational carrier, but there has always been this little piece of me wondering if *maybe* in the future, I could carry. When my cycle returned this past summer, I had a resurgence of hope! Oh, denial can be such a strong, powerful stage. I thought, “if I stay super healthy, eat healthy fats, do x, y, and z….maybe my body will recover.” Bargaining, oh so formidable.
When I entered the Mayo Clinic, with my mom at my side, I thought “maybe I will wake up from this surgery, and they will tell me how beautiful my uterus looks, and I will absolutely be able to carry.”
Wrong. I woke up. And although I was a bit fuzzy, I remember every word Dr. Khan told me. Yes, there was a bit of endometrium forming (about 30%), but it wasn’t healthy. Most of my uterus still looked like concrete. Surprisingly, there was no more scar tissue, BUT, without endometrium (and especially without healthy endometrium), any pregnancy would be extremely dangerous. If I got pregnant (which is a possibility,) I would either miscarry or must electively terminate due to the dangerous nature of a pregnancy with my condition. Gestational surrogacy would only ever be our safest option to grow our family.
You would think I would be disappointed in hearing this. Thrown back into the dark depression and anger stages, but to the contrary, I felt like hearing this very truthful, non-sugar-coated-news, was what I needed to hear to reach the elusive acceptance phase that I would never be able to carry our children.
Grief is a funny thing. It is torture to go through, but it’s very peaceful once you are on the other side. I often think, especially with infertility, the uncertainty is one of the most difficult aspects of the process. There are so many unanswered questions, and questions no one can really answer. Can I get pregnant? When will I get pregnant? Is there something wrong with my eggs? Can I make healthy embryos? Will my relationship survive this trauma? When will I laugh again? When will it not feel painful to see a baby or hear a pregnancy announcement?
You end up living the grey space of unknown.
If you would have told me two years ago, I could fully accept that I cannot carry my own children, I would have told you there is no way in f*&(#%#^ in hell. Today, I am at peace with that news because it is concrete. It is certain. It allows us to take steps forward and leave the grey painful grieving process in our wake and focus on our daughter and future.
If I could change one thing about how infertility is treated (and there are many,) it’s to stop messing with women’s emotions during the most traumatic experience of their lives. I spent years holding onto medical professionals “false hopes,” when the kind thing would have been to hear truths about our situation. Platitudes are cruel. Honestly is kind.🌷
