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I was 38 when I got married and almost 39 when we started trying to get pregnant. I always assumed that I would get pregnant right away, who knows why I thought that given that I was almost 39! After about a year of trying on our own we began the process of getting a work-up with a local fertility clinic.
Everything looked fine on my husband’s end and for me I was diagnosed with “Unexplained Infertility” I love that one! It just means, “we don’t have a clue what the problem is!” So we started with IUI (Intrauterine Insemination — yes the turkey baster procedure!) At least this was relatively inexpensive and low tech as we were doing them unmedicated. I felt hopeful and not too crazy yet. But after six of those I was not feeling so hopeful anymore.
Of course the next step was IVF — In Vitro Fertilization. And the price tag went up astronomically at this point. To pay for these procedures we dug into savings, spent all the inheritance I had from my grandfather, asked my Dad to help us out.
Before the first IVF I can say that I was already quite desperate and worn out from the whole process. I was very self-conscious about our struggles, I already felt like a failure. I was frustrated and angry a lot of the time at being in this position. And of course I blamed myself: why did I wait so long to start trying? What did I expect at 39? Why didn’t I take better care of myself? Etc….
I began to isolate myself from my friends. None of my close friends had experienced this, they already had kids with no trouble or they were still single. I just didn’t know what to say anyway and the worse I felt the harder it was to imagine talking to anyone.
We did 2 IVF cycles at the clinic we were using and somewhere in there I realized just how much I hated the place. I hated going there, I hated the doctor who felt like a robot and I hated sitting there in the waiting room with all those other people. The place was always filled with people. It was a huge practice and it felt like a total mill.
At some point I started to notice what happened to me when I went there. I literally would leave my body before walking in the door. The prospect of staying fully present with myself and the experience was just too painful. So my spirit and soul would just go away and the shell of my body would walk in and go through the motions. It was awful.
Somewhere in there I joined a support group for women struggling with Infertility. One of the women was at a different clinic and really liked her doctor, who was a woman, and the clinic was quite small. She suggested that I think about switching. I remember that switching was THE LAST thing I wanted to do. Not because it sounded like a bad idea, how could it be any worse than where I was? But I simply didn’t have the energy to even contemplate a change. It just felt like WAY too much work, and I literally had nothing left. We had already started to look into adoption and this was not going to be an easy path either, as both my husband and I were “older”.
I had been studying yoga at a local studio for years and the owner was hosting a weekend workshop in a nearby small town and I signed up. Somehow I knew I needed a break of some kind. I don’t know where that wisdom came from. So I went by myself and spent two days just being in my body with the yoga practice and eating healthy catered lunches and doing something other than trying to get pregnant.
The weekend brought me back into my body, quite literally. I could feel myself returning and right away I felt better, in spite of how awful I felt. But at least this was better, and at least I was present with what was happening. And suddenly I had some perspective on things. I no longer felt completely and totally immersed and consumed by the process. I had just a little bit of space between me and what was happening.
So I decided to check out the other clinic and my husband and I met with the new doctor. We both immediately liked her, she felt human and real and straightforward. So we switched. The clinic was small. I knew all the nurses by name and they knew mine. When I checked in I was often the only person in the waiting room. It was nothing like a mill. It felt personal and most of all, when I went there I didn’t feel the need to LEAVE MY BODY. I was able to stay present and this felt like an incredible life-line to me at the time.
We did another IVF cycle with them and the doctor stopped this cycle half-way through because my eggs just didn’t look good enough. I remember being very disappointed but also grateful for her clear decision and saving me the heartache of another failed cycle. So we prepared for another IVF cycle and because of our financial situation we knew that this would be our last. And in a way I was relieved. I was happy to finally be getting off this train, one way or the other.
And ever since my yoga retreat I felt different about the whole thing: more at peace with whatever the outcome, less anguished about the process, more able to be clear about how I wanted to proceed. I was not AT PEACE, but a little bit more at peace than before. It might have just been a little bit, but it seemed to make all the difference in the world. One of my acupuncture teachers once told me that if you can improve the pain level of a patient in chronic pain by only 10% that this can be life changing. Now I knew what he meant.
That IVF cycle was a good one and on the day of the test result I was at a yoga class that morning. I remember thinking, “I’m going to go for a run as soon I find out that I am not pregnant”. But when I got home my husband had flowers and told me that I WAS pregnant. I had NEVER been pregnant before. I didn’t feel any different than usual. But there it was.
And 9 months later my daughter Katya was born. And although she got very sick right after she was born (That is another VERY long story) she recovered and has been healthy ever since. She turned 12 this year.
To say that I am grateful is just scratching the surface of course. I don’t know why I finally got pregnant after all that time. Why did I when others don’t? Why did I have a live birth when others don’t? Why did it only take us 2 1/2 years when for others it is much longer? The one thing I do know is how being present with the process changed everything for me. It made me feel less like a victim and more empowered to make choices that felt right to me. It transformed the experience and I know that I did feel, even if it was just a very small part of me, that if I didn’t get pregnant on that last cycle that somehow, some way, I would be alright.
I want you to be able to go through your journey better prepared than I was, with tools to help you stay connected with your whole self.
My goal with my online resources is to give you the skills you need to navigate your journey with confidence, knowing that you are making choices that are right for you. I look forward to helping you!