I can’t even count how many baby and children’s events I’ve had to decline or suffer through in the past few years. Baby showers, mother blessings, births, new baby visits, baby blessings, birthday parties. You know the joyful gatherings that infertile women tend to dread. (Of course this is on top of every other event that becomes child-centered when so many family and friends have kids, who are often the focus of attention.)
I can’t even tell you how many gifts I’ve had to buy for expectant mothers, babies and kids since we started trying. Too many. If I have to walk into another store with some clueless clerk asking me how far along I am, or how old my child is, or boy or girl, I might just fucking lose it. Plus it’s just too sad to keep wondering if I will ever need these things for myself one day…
Click here to continue reading...
Luna is the contributing editor for Infertility. She writes daily at Life From Here: Musings from the Edge where she covers her infertility story from loss and IVF to her current journey through domestic adoption.
Showing posts with label Luna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luna. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
There's Just No Escaping It
The fact that I’m childless, not by choice.
No, there is no escaping this reality — the deep longing, the empty ache of my heart and arms, the silence in our home where a toddler should be playing. There is no forgetting our unfulfilled plans, our failures. There is no suppressing this primal urge, the instinct and desire to parent. There is no end to the lingering anguish over the fact that my baby boy is gone.
And yet, even if by some miracle these feelings were to somehow magically vanish, I could still never escape the painful, cold hard truth that I am childless. That my only real chance at becoming a mother may have died with my son. I cannot avoid the sad reality that we may never become parents, even though I know in my heart it’s what we were meant to do.
The reminders are constant — they are everywhere. Pregnancy announcements by friends and family. Baby showers, blessings, children’s birthdays. Expecting colleagues planning maternity leave. Pregnant strangers in the street. Bellies and strollers everywhere. Mothers and fathers with their children, or just talking about them. It’s a natural part of life, simply unavoidable. And our encounters will only continue as the children in our lives grow and have ever more occasions to celebrate — graduations, weddings, and some day even babies of their own.
Click here to continue reading...
Luna is the contributing editor for Infertility. She writes daily at Life From Here: Musings from the Edge where she covers her infertility story from loss and IVF to her current journey through domestic adoption.
No, there is no escaping this reality — the deep longing, the empty ache of my heart and arms, the silence in our home where a toddler should be playing. There is no forgetting our unfulfilled plans, our failures. There is no suppressing this primal urge, the instinct and desire to parent. There is no end to the lingering anguish over the fact that my baby boy is gone.
And yet, even if by some miracle these feelings were to somehow magically vanish, I could still never escape the painful, cold hard truth that I am childless. That my only real chance at becoming a mother may have died with my son. I cannot avoid the sad reality that we may never become parents, even though I know in my heart it’s what we were meant to do.
The reminders are constant — they are everywhere. Pregnancy announcements by friends and family. Baby showers, blessings, children’s birthdays. Expecting colleagues planning maternity leave. Pregnant strangers in the street. Bellies and strollers everywhere. Mothers and fathers with their children, or just talking about them. It’s a natural part of life, simply unavoidable. And our encounters will only continue as the children in our lives grow and have ever more occasions to celebrate — graduations, weddings, and some day even babies of their own.
Click here to continue reading...
Luna is the contributing editor for Infertility. She writes daily at Life From Here: Musings from the Edge where she covers her infertility story from loss and IVF to her current journey through domestic adoption.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
An Open Letter
To the expectant mothers in my life (with love):
I know this is a very special time for you – a time filled with excitement, anticipation and unbounding love for your baby soon to enter the world. This time is for you – a chance to celebrate, to contemplate, to prepare. This is your moment to delight in the joy of expectancy, to embrace the promise of parenthood, to exude radiance. To rejoice in feeling life grow inside with every fluttering heartbeat, every kick. Soon you will enter the sacred sisterhood of women who become mothers, forever transforming their lives. Soon your arms will hold new life, as you bask in the warm glow of your child’s beaming eyes. Soon your heart will fill when you hear his/her laughter, the tight grasp around your finger. You will marvel at the wondrous little being you created out of love, in an act more natural than any in the world.
And yet. As you enter perhaps the most magnificent time in your life, we are finding our way through crisis, trying to navigate a life-altering journey with persistence and grace. We don’t know where it will lead us, how it will end. Our future is uncertain. I don’t expect many people to understand what we are going through. But I would hope that you would try to appreciate that it is real. It is crushing. It underlies and permeates every aspect of our lives, everything we do. As impossible as it is to imagine, as hard as it is to see, and as challenging as it is to live, it is our life and our story. And it is staggering. Such a primal urge, a natural instinct, a deep desire – unmet, unfilled, unlived…
Click here to continue reading...
Luna is the contributing editor for Infertility. She writes daily at Life From Here: Musings from the Edge where she covers her infertility story from loss and IVF to her current journey through domestic adoption.
If this is your first time on this site, please see our comment policy.
I know this is a very special time for you – a time filled with excitement, anticipation and unbounding love for your baby soon to enter the world. This time is for you – a chance to celebrate, to contemplate, to prepare. This is your moment to delight in the joy of expectancy, to embrace the promise of parenthood, to exude radiance. To rejoice in feeling life grow inside with every fluttering heartbeat, every kick. Soon you will enter the sacred sisterhood of women who become mothers, forever transforming their lives. Soon your arms will hold new life, as you bask in the warm glow of your child’s beaming eyes. Soon your heart will fill when you hear his/her laughter, the tight grasp around your finger. You will marvel at the wondrous little being you created out of love, in an act more natural than any in the world.
And yet. As you enter perhaps the most magnificent time in your life, we are finding our way through crisis, trying to navigate a life-altering journey with persistence and grace. We don’t know where it will lead us, how it will end. Our future is uncertain. I don’t expect many people to understand what we are going through. But I would hope that you would try to appreciate that it is real. It is crushing. It underlies and permeates every aspect of our lives, everything we do. As impossible as it is to imagine, as hard as it is to see, and as challenging as it is to live, it is our life and our story. And it is staggering. Such a primal urge, a natural instinct, a deep desire – unmet, unfilled, unlived…
Click here to continue reading...
Luna is the contributing editor for Infertility. She writes daily at Life From Here: Musings from the Edge where she covers her infertility story from loss and IVF to her current journey through domestic adoption.
If this is your first time on this site, please see our comment policy.
Luna's Story
Luna is the contributing editor for Infertility. She writes daily at Life From Here: Musings from the Edge where she covers her infertility story from loss and IVF to her current journey through domestic adoption.
More than six years of infertility, and over four years of trying to bring home a baby…
5 surgeries, 4 IUIs, an IVF and FET, thousands of acupuncture needles, and countless herbal remedies…
One beautiful baby boy lost halfway to term at 21 weeks due to P-PROM…
And two loving people who would make wonderful parents…
This is my story.
I first realized I might be infertile more than 6 years ago, when I discovered that a massive fibroid was consuming my uterus. I was 32 years old, just finishing graduate school and beginning to think about starting our family. For years, I was infertile and didn’t even know it. When I learned this mass had been growing inside me for years and threatened my fertility, I was shocked. The thought had never occurred to me: I might not ever have children.
Suddenly I was facing major surgery and an uncertain future. My doctor offered hope, but there was a chance that I would never have a baby, at least without serious complications. We thought we were resolving our infertility problems before they even began. We had no idea how wrong we were.
After healing, we tried to conceive without success for over a year before seeking help. I was diagnosed with a variety of problems – recurrence of new smaller fibroids, a blocked tube, uterine and pelvic adhesions, hormonal imbalance (sometimes anovulatory cycles, short luteal phase). Later, we learned that my husband’s sperm, while plentiful and motile, had poor morphology, yet another problem to overcome.
With irregular cycles and a blocked tube, the chance of conceiving was greatly diminished. If I was able to conceive, a small fibroid was blocking my one open tube, and scar tissue from my uterine surgery further inhibited implantation. Even if I could overcome those obstacles, I had a significant risk of miscarriage or pre-term labor. If I made it to term, there was a risk of uterine rupture or loss. Plus, the fibroids would grow during the first trimester from elevating estrogen, resulting in an even higher risk pregnancy.
Yet somehow, in the fall of 2005, I beat the odds and became pregnant, without medical help, after a year and half of trying to conceive. It was probably a miracle, or at least a fluke. I didn’t even believe it. When I made it to the second trimester without any issues, we were elated. Our baby boy was perfect. We were blissful.
Then it all changed. In two weeks, he was gone.
I began spotting lightly just before 19 weeks. A week later, I woke up in a pool of wet.
Somehow I had suffered a substantial rupture of the amniotic sac. Preterm premature rupture of the membrane, or P-PROM, is rare and occurs in just 1-2% of all pregnancies (possibly with a 1 in 3 chance of recurrence). If the rupture did not heal, our baby boy would die. Life was not viable inside or outside. Our only chance was to wait and see. I was placed on strict bedrest for a week.
Despite all of our hopes and prayers, we lost our baby boy at 21 weeks, on February 3, 2006. Nothing could be done. Part of me died that day with him. I was lost, an empty shell.
Eventually, we were ready to try again. While nothing could replace our son, the only thought that kept me going was that we would try again. So we were back to the beginning…
After healing from several extensive surgeries, my RE encouraged us to try on our own in April 2007. I spent thousands on acupuncture and herbs. I changed my diet. We had already tried clomid for 3 months, which gave me nothing but a headache. We returned to the RE and tried 4 medicated IUIs before moving to IVF in November 2007 and an FET in March 2008. When that failed, our hope of a biological child was crushed. Our dream continued to elude us.
While I will always grieve the loss of our son and all that my infertility has taken from me, I am finally now facing the future and letting go…
After searching our hearts, we realized that becoming parents was more important than becoming pregnant. And so we have begun down a new path, as we pursue domestic open adoption with open hearts and minds. We know another long road still lies ahead, but we have finally taken the first steps on the next phase of our journey to parenthood. And so we move from hopeless to hopeful…
My blog life from here: musings from the edge began as an online journal to explore my infertility and document our IVF after nearly four years of lost hope. It also provided an outlet to process my lingering grief over losing my only child at 21 weeks gestation in February 2006. It now documents the aftermath of infertility as well as our pursuit of parenthood through domestic open adoption. Thank you for sharing our journey.
NOTE: this post was excerpted from a longer more detailed version of my journey on my blog.
More than six years of infertility, and over four years of trying to bring home a baby…
5 surgeries, 4 IUIs, an IVF and FET, thousands of acupuncture needles, and countless herbal remedies…
One beautiful baby boy lost halfway to term at 21 weeks due to P-PROM…
And two loving people who would make wonderful parents…
This is my story.
I first realized I might be infertile more than 6 years ago, when I discovered that a massive fibroid was consuming my uterus. I was 32 years old, just finishing graduate school and beginning to think about starting our family. For years, I was infertile and didn’t even know it. When I learned this mass had been growing inside me for years and threatened my fertility, I was shocked. The thought had never occurred to me: I might not ever have children.
Suddenly I was facing major surgery and an uncertain future. My doctor offered hope, but there was a chance that I would never have a baby, at least without serious complications. We thought we were resolving our infertility problems before they even began. We had no idea how wrong we were.
After healing, we tried to conceive without success for over a year before seeking help. I was diagnosed with a variety of problems – recurrence of new smaller fibroids, a blocked tube, uterine and pelvic adhesions, hormonal imbalance (sometimes anovulatory cycles, short luteal phase). Later, we learned that my husband’s sperm, while plentiful and motile, had poor morphology, yet another problem to overcome.
With irregular cycles and a blocked tube, the chance of conceiving was greatly diminished. If I was able to conceive, a small fibroid was blocking my one open tube, and scar tissue from my uterine surgery further inhibited implantation. Even if I could overcome those obstacles, I had a significant risk of miscarriage or pre-term labor. If I made it to term, there was a risk of uterine rupture or loss. Plus, the fibroids would grow during the first trimester from elevating estrogen, resulting in an even higher risk pregnancy.
Yet somehow, in the fall of 2005, I beat the odds and became pregnant, without medical help, after a year and half of trying to conceive. It was probably a miracle, or at least a fluke. I didn’t even believe it. When I made it to the second trimester without any issues, we were elated. Our baby boy was perfect. We were blissful.
Then it all changed. In two weeks, he was gone.
I began spotting lightly just before 19 weeks. A week later, I woke up in a pool of wet.
Somehow I had suffered a substantial rupture of the amniotic sac. Preterm premature rupture of the membrane, or P-PROM, is rare and occurs in just 1-2% of all pregnancies (possibly with a 1 in 3 chance of recurrence). If the rupture did not heal, our baby boy would die. Life was not viable inside or outside. Our only chance was to wait and see. I was placed on strict bedrest for a week.
Despite all of our hopes and prayers, we lost our baby boy at 21 weeks, on February 3, 2006. Nothing could be done. Part of me died that day with him. I was lost, an empty shell.
Eventually, we were ready to try again. While nothing could replace our son, the only thought that kept me going was that we would try again. So we were back to the beginning…
After healing from several extensive surgeries, my RE encouraged us to try on our own in April 2007. I spent thousands on acupuncture and herbs. I changed my diet. We had already tried clomid for 3 months, which gave me nothing but a headache. We returned to the RE and tried 4 medicated IUIs before moving to IVF in November 2007 and an FET in March 2008. When that failed, our hope of a biological child was crushed. Our dream continued to elude us.
While I will always grieve the loss of our son and all that my infertility has taken from me, I am finally now facing the future and letting go…
After searching our hearts, we realized that becoming parents was more important than becoming pregnant. And so we have begun down a new path, as we pursue domestic open adoption with open hearts and minds. We know another long road still lies ahead, but we have finally taken the first steps on the next phase of our journey to parenthood. And so we move from hopeless to hopeful…
My blog life from here: musings from the edge began as an online journal to explore my infertility and document our IVF after nearly four years of lost hope. It also provided an outlet to process my lingering grief over losing my only child at 21 weeks gestation in February 2006. It now documents the aftermath of infertility as well as our pursuit of parenthood through domestic open adoption. Thank you for sharing our journey.
NOTE: this post was excerpted from a longer more detailed version of my journey on my blog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
