Dealing with infertility is one of those sad things that brings people together. It's this intimate little club that nobody ever really wants to belong to, but once you're in; you discover just how many other women are there fighting alongside you.
I never knew this world existed, until I was here.
I never knew how many of us there were, until it was me.
When I first started writing about doing my IVF cycle in July, I was contacted by two different women who were going to be cycling at the same time as me.
One was a single woman in her 40’s right here in Alaska.
The other was a married woman in Seattle (going to the same clinic as me) who also suffered from endometriosis.
Both had cycles starting just a few days after mine.
Both were going to be as new to IVF as I was.
And both are now pregnant.
I can’t really explain to people who have never been through it what going down the IVF route is like. It is so much more intense than you can possibly imagine. The money and heart that is on the line is incredible, and when it doesn’t work; it is the greatest failure in TTC that there is. When you fail at IVF, it isn’t the kind of thing where you can say to yourself “well, there is always next month… and as many months after as it takes.” Because unless you have unlimited funds (and a willingness to put your body through that torture over and over again); next month likely isn’t a reality.
You can’t just keep trying. When you fail at IVF, you feel like all hope is lost. It is a blow that strikes so much harder than a failure in any other round of TTC.
Because in any other round of TTC, there is still always a next step. There is still always something more you can be doing.
There is still hope.
With IVF though, it’s not as simple as just jumping back on that horse and trying again; putting everything you’ve got into that next month.
Because it really is the end of the line.
Even if you have extra embryos left over (or plans to do more than one fresh cycle); you still know you’ve just used up one of your very few shots.
And failed.
In trying to conceive, it doesn’t get worse than that. That diminished hope. That reality that you’ve gone to the ends of the earth and back to get pregnant.
And failed.
The sinking realization that you have utilized the greatest methods that modern medicine has to offer.
And failed.
I have always said that I would never be a woman who begrudges another her pregnancy, and I remain firm in that. These women deserve to celebrate their pregnancies; they deserve to rejoice in them and shout to the mountaintops about the accomplishment they achieved.
Because I am still not bitter, and I refuse to become so.
But in that same sentence (even as I myself have been celebrating for them); their success stings. It isn’t that I think their being pregnant makes me any less so, or that I feel as if they are any less deserving than I am (because not for one second is that true); it’s simply that their success stacked up next to my failure is painful to look at.
Part of it is the timing. I think someone close to me could have a successful pregnancy from IVF 2 months from now, and it wouldn’t faze me nearly as much. But with this? We started this journey together. We began the quest to motherhood by sharing all of the ups and downs together.
And now I’m left behind.
Both women are where I should be right now; growing a life inside of them that they already love more than their own existence. Both are at the stage in pregnancy I would be; the place I thought I would be. Both are experiencing what I was so sure I would be experiencing right now.
Both are pregnant. And I am not.
I find myself wondering what they did that I didn’t, and why it worked for them when it didn’t work for me. But even with that; I can’t seem to make myself feel anything concrete. It is just this abstract idea that I find myself mulling over and trying to understand; attempting to comprehend and dissect. Like a science experiment rather than this very real disappointment in my life.
All I can manage to pull out of it is that it kind of sucks to be a part of the failure statistic. To be the 1 in 3 who isn’t experiencing the joy we all set out to find together.
I catch myself wondering if they look at me and think "Better her than me."
Because the truth is, if the roles had been reversed; I would have been so grateful that it wasn't me.
But it is. I'm the one who was left behind. The one who it didn't work for.
The odd man out.
These women will both make amazing mothers, and they both deserve every ounce of happiness that their success has brought them.
But some days I can't help but wonder why I didn’t deserve it too.
ADSPACE
