Dear Normal Pregnancy Doctor

Dear Normal Pregnancy Doctor,

We want to thank you for taking the time to read this letter, and ask that you share it with your staff and add it to our file.

ML and I have been together for 11 years, married for 7. After trying to start our family for nearly two years, we received a devastating diagnosis of infertility. We spent the next year and a half meeting with so many different doctors, undergoing invasive testing procedures, trying experimental therapies, and ultimately grieving the loss of a biological child. 

This past March, thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, we finally succeeded with IVF. We are excited, yet still feeling very cautious about this pregnancy. After getting bad news for so long, I guess it takes some time for good news to sink in and feel real. 

We are so happy to be graduating from the RE to your practice. In most respects we are normal first-time expectant parents, yet having invested so much into achieving this pregnancy we may at times benefit from some extra hand-holding and compassion. 

Specifically there are a few things we’d like to request of you and your team:

• We’ve been through a lot, and appreciate your patience, kindness, and smiles more than words can convey. 
• Foxy prefers not to be left alone in exam rooms. ML will attend most appointments and would like to join Foxy for any tests or exams.
• We prefer not to learn the gender of our child until the birth. 
• Before the end of our visit, or conversation, please ask us if we have any final questions. 
• We live and work in the next county over, so appointments are most convenient for us in the late afternoon. 

Thank you for taking good care of us.

Sincerely,

Foxy and ML

ecstatic

I always expected that we would be ecstatic when we finally got the wonderful news that we were pregnant. The reality has been so different. 

I expected to cry tears of joy, to embrace ML, to joyfully announce to my mom that she would finally be a grandma, to hug Bestie knowing that we are finally pregnant together. 

There were tears, my dear sister burst into sobs when I told her over the phone that she was going to be an auntie. It was the sweetest, purest reaction. Her heart is so big, and even though we've had our challenges, her love for me, ML and this baby is so clear. 

We've been so cautious as we've shared the news. And everyone has ben so careful to follow our lead in their response. At the same time as I want them to understand our hesitation in believing that this is actually happening, I want them to burst into tears of joy, to dance in the street, to respond ecstatic.

I really think that there was a part of me that believed we would never find ourselves here. My Someday mantra was specifically crafted in such a way that it looked beyond HOW we would become parents. Early on our journey huge pieces of the how were torn away from us and I spent a long time grieving that loss. Part of that process was letting go of a lot of the the expectations I had about how we would become parents. 

I had the tinyist bit of light pink spotting when I wiped yesterday. I was strangely calm, thinking that 'it was what it was' and there wasn't much I could do about it. But it also made me think that being pregnant, what I thought was an outcome I wanted, is really only a means to the ultimate outcome that I really want. 

Don't get me wrong, I've wanted this pregnancy more than anything. I want this more than anything I've ever wanted. However all these emotions are all existing together in that crazy mishmash of feelings that I've learned co-exist in each of us. 

Its been a week and 2 days since we got our good news, and slowly, very slowly, it is starting to sink in, starting to feel real. 

*****

Resolve is celebrating National Infertility Awareness Week with a Bust a Myth campaign. I've been trying to think about a myth that I can bust in honor of NIAW, and came across this Myth/Fact on the Resolve website. It seems fitting for what I am feeling right now. 

Myth: "You will be ecstatic when you get that positive pregnancy test."

Fact: There are many non ecstatic feelings aroused by that positive test. Most couples experience shock and disbelief. As one RESOLVE member said, "During eight years of infertility I had fantasized how I would react to the news we had waited to hear each month. I had dreamed how I would shout it from the roof tops and call everyone I knew that didn't happen. When the doctor told me...all I could say was 'are you sure?' I sat at the table, numb, trying to absorb what I had just heard. I guess what I feel is that I am protecting myself again." There is also a great deal of fear and anxiety, especially about pregnancy loss. Often there are symptoms, such as spotting, that escalate that fear. For many people, the anxiety is somewhat eased by an ultrasound showing a uterine pregnancy or by carrying into the third trimester. For others, especially those who have previously lost pregnancies, anxiety can remain until a healthy baby is delivered. One pregnant woman said, "My first 4 pregnancies ended in miscarriage...I cannot bear to hear people say, 'Oh, how wonderful! Congratulations!' No, it is not wonderful...being pregnant is frightening and anxiety producing and a situation in which daily life feels like walking on eggs."

I'm off to the spa with my mama. Hope that you all can find an excuse to pamper yourselves a little this week :)