The Unanswered Call: A Story of Infertility and Hope
When I was encouraged by @balancedbombshells to share my personal story during Infertility Awareness Week, it occurred to me that I have yet to write specifically about my struggle to conceive even though it was what originally led me down the path of body literacy.
It wasn’t a conscious choice to keep this story bound in journals and memories, but there is a part of me that still feels like becoming a mother is too good to be true. That in some way, because my battle with infertility ends in pregnancy, it’s not my place to share anymore.
I remember though, amid the unspeakable heartache of an unanswered call to motherhood, how I sought out stories of hope and light.
As I stumble to find the right words to share my story of infertility from 4+ years ago, I can’t help but think about what another friend once told me as I held back tears and tried to articulate the grief that I was feeling at the time.
“Laura, I promise you. There will be a time when you don’t remember how much this hurts. And that’s why you have to tell the story.”
My best attempt at telling the story is below. My path to motherhood, much like my struggle with infertility, was unexplained. The only thing I can say for certain is that it involved a tremendous amount of surrender. I was able to conceive naturally, but only because the promise of IVF allowed me to release control of the outcome. To give it over to something else.
This story will not reveal “The Top 5 Things To Improve Your Chances of Pregnancy” or “How I Conquered Unexplained Infertility.” What it will offer instead is a humble message of compassion for anyone struggling on the journey to parenthood. Whether it takes months or years or doesn’t happen at all, the space between deciding you want to be a parent and whatever happens next can sometimes be a lonely time with mostly unanswered prayers and lots of hurt.
I see you. I honor you. I am you.
“Laura, I promise you. There will be a time when you don’t remember how much this hurts. And that’s why you have to tell the story.”
A Change of Heart
As you might expect, this one begins and ends with a love story. My partner and I were wayfaring, independent people when we met. We lived 2000 miles apart with a penchant for travel so it was easy for us to love long distance. We reveled in our individual pursuits and lost ourselves in the monthly rendezvous.
It was natural that when we were married, we had both settled comfortably in the no kids camp. We had seen too many people lose themselves and their relationships in parenthood and that wasn’t for us. However, a year-long road trip of self-discovery and adventure saw our newly intertwined paths crossing with those of many parents who did things differently—their roles as parents expanding them beyond where they might have otherwise stalled.
We started softening to the idea of children as we encountered more inspiring examples of parenting outside the box. By the end of our trip, we had switched camps for good.
When we made the choice to start a family, it felt easy at first. It was natural to start playfully tossing names into consideration and dreaming about first birthdays and first words. We casually jumped into TTC mode and naively thought our childless days would quickly come to a close.
As each month passed by I would cleverly manifest symptoms during the two-week wait. Everything from sore breasts to a metallic taste in my mouth. With reproductive hubris I was certain each time that we had done it. Which made each inevitable period feel like a heavy hit of defeat. This happened once, then twice…and before I knew it 6 months went by and I still hadn’t experienced even a faint line on the pregnancy test.
A New Timeline
I started slowly changing things to improve my odds—I ate pineapple core timed to aid implantation, I ditched coffee, alcohol, and cold drinks, I cut out high-intensity exercise, I swung into legs up the wall immediately after sex…I tried on all the fertility hacks that I could find. I began tracking my cycle in earnest and dabbling in ovulation predictor kits. I diligently took my temperature each morning and took daily notes of every little sensation I experienced.
Though my personality had me in a somewhat obsessive place from the outset, I was okay taking it slow until we approached the year mark and were dealt a major blow…my husband would be deployed to Afghanistan with the U.S. Navy for a full year. At that point, it meant that we had a little over 6 months together before his departure.
As if my biological clock wasn’t pressure enough, we now had a very real time limit on our window for starting a family. And that’s when it started to hurt.
I saw more friends than I could count share their impossibly cute pregnancy announcements. I went to baby showers and beheld the growing bumps of so many mamas-to-be. One of my closest friends prepared for the birth of her son and I led a private yoga session to celebrate her transition to motherhood. I held space for the joy that was possible even though my heart was slowly breaking.
Pulling Out All The Stops
I started seeing an acupuncturist and taking fertility herbs. I consulted with my doctor who begrudgingly initiated the barrage of blood, hormone, and genetic tests that you’re generally only given access to once you’ve hit a year of trying. For anyone who has experienced unexplained infertility, you know the paradoxical place of disappointment and relief that comes with each “normal” result.
Yes! You’re within normal limits and should be expected to conceive. But No! you still don’t know what’s wrong and therefore there is nothing you can get to work fixing.
I started supplementing my diet with a countless rotation of pills and tinctures. I drank apple cider vinegar through a straw and chased it with beet juice. I made fertility cookies and bought grapefruit juice in bulk. I was always scrambling for some semblance of control.
I went through several rounds of IUI after pouring over old cycle charts to predict the best window of opportunity. My journal rivaled that of a mad scientist on the verge of discovery. We experimented with timing and protocol. Everything from stimulating my ovaries with hormones to injecting a magic potion into my left butt cheek to better estimate ovulation timing.
Still nothing.
It wasn’t all bad though. The best thing to come out of my darkest time to date was Whidbey the dog. He was my ride or die during that struggle and he gave me the unconditional comfort that I so desperately needed. I welcomed the opportunity to care for him in every way because it allowed me to step into motherhood before it was truly my time.
A Last Ditch Effort
Speaking of time...with our days quickly running out, my husband and I decided to consult with an IVF specialist. This involved long drives from our small town to their facility. Lots of contemplative silence in the car where we both felt deeply sad and helpless. The doctors there were a bit more willing to accelerate the IVF process given our situation even though I was only 32 and had been trying for just over a year. I was put on birth control, we made a deposit of $18k, and the process began.
In early December 2017, I went in for my pre-IVF ultrasound. The one where they inspect your insides to make sure the birth control had done its job of keeping everything hormonally quiet. Much to their (and my) surprise, I was ovulating despite being on birth control. Right there on the screen was a huge follicle ready to burst. I didn’t appreciate how incredible this was because I was immediately devastated. With ovaries that were already ripe with follicles, we had missed the window for retrieval and our IVF journey would be delayed by at least another 2-4 weeks. We would be running up against the clock to move through retrieval, testing, and frozen transfer before my husband left in March.
We left once again defeated. More silence. More sadness. I cried the whole 45-minute drive to our home. In the midst of what felt like sheer desperation, I started again with research and note taking. I was trying to find a way to make everything work in the limited time we had. We planned on a frozen transfer which would allow our embryos to be tested and rule out any genetic anomaly that had kept us from conceiving thus far…but what if we transferred fresh? That could save us a week! What if I opted for the hormone stimulation to move ovulation ahead of schedule? At every turn, I was trying to outsmart my body, but my body knew better.
That afternoon, when the panic had somewhat settled, we decided to throw one last Hail Mary…I was ovulating after all. What if we gave it one last try before surrendering our biology to IVF?
After so many months of trying, things had sort of fallen into a bit of a routine. That time felt different though. The pressure was off because we had a backup plan—we were going to science our way around what our bodies struggled to do on their own. I didn’t spend my postcoital moments inverted and alone. Instead we went about the rest of our day together strategizing for an upcoming drive from New Hampshire to Texas. A trip home for the holidays with a 6-month-old puppy in tow.
A Road Trip to TX
Two weeks later, we hit the road. We drove and we drove and we drove. Out of habit, I spent much of the trip still tracking my cycle obsessively in a mobile app. I was chatting back and forth with strangers who were going through the same thing I was. I had cramps that signaled my period was on its way and I was excited because it meant that we might be able to start IVF when we returned to NH in the new year. I preemptively wore a tampon during our travels for fear that I would get stuck managing a surprise arrival in a gas station bathroom.
I cuddled Whidbey in the back seat as we listened to podcasts and old albums. It was more relaxed than I had felt in a long time. I ate ice cream, sipped coffee, and had a Snickers bar. I did things that felt reckless through the lens of fertility, but something in me whispered, “why not?”
By day 3 of driving, I was a little surprised that my period was still a no-show. I had all the signs that it was coming, but I figured it was probably irregular because of the birth control pills I was still taking. We arrived in Austin tired and weary, and happy to be with family.
The Body Knows
The next morning, I woke up early. Very early. I had this weird flutter in my stomach as I recalled that last visit to the doctor when we were told our IVF would have to wait. I hadn’t thought about that day in almost two weeks. Two weeks doesn’t sound like very long, but when you are trying to conceive, it’s a miracle if even a day goes by and you don’t perform some mental calculation on your pregnancy odds.
The thought stuck with me. And I couldn’t let it go. My mind was saying, “there is NO way you are pregnant,” but my heart kept insisting, “...but maybe?”
I had a lonely pregnancy test in the bottom of my toiletry bag that I hadn’t needed since starting IVF. In the pre-dawn darkness, I quietly retrieved it and went to the bathroom. Whidbey followed closely behind me. I peed on a stick and waited.
My daughter couldn’t be stopped when she chose us. She was conceived after 16 months of trying on the path to IVF.
I couldn’t believe my tired eyes when I saw two lines. The most hopeful, beautiful, impossible two little lines. I shrieked and squeezed Whidbey close. I wanted to rush in and tell my husband, but experience taught me that there was still a degree of uncertainty. I made an excuse to go the drug store and took two more tests later that morning.
Two more positives. I was in disbelief and in that moment, for just a moment, everything changed. I felt an overwhelming sense of ease and joy. The world seemed brighter and it was like I had come back to life.
The story of my husband learning he would be a dad is one that I’ll keep private, but it was one of the most special conversations I’ve ever had.
And just like that, my story of infertility ended. With an unexpected blessing that arrived in divine timing to get me through what would be a very challenging year without my partner.
What happened next was pregnancy and birth and motherhood. Stories that are still unfolding in beautifully unexpected ways every day.
