Last week, one friend was asking about the treatment plan we’re using this month to get pregnant. I explained the whole thing and she said, kind of doubtfully, “But are you really more likely to be pregnant this month than last month?” I rushed to give her all of the reasons that this treatment is great, that it’s improving my fertility like crazy, that I have more reasons than ever to be hopeful.

Two days later, another friend asked about this month’s treatment plan I explained it to her. “Wow!” she said excitedly, “You could be pregnant RIGHT NOW!” I rushed to give her all of the reasons that while this treatment is appropriate I’m not getting hopes up, that infertility is complicated, that I have been disappointed too often to let my imagination run away with me.

Crazy, huh?

It’s so complicated. I feel despair, but I don’t want my friends to buy into my despair. But if they’re too optimistic, I feel like they’re rushing me.

The friend in the first paragraph is actually my best friend for talking about these things. She’s fertile but is incredibly sympathetic and thoughtful. She and I started talking more about how it would feel to be pregnant. What if this treatment works? I told her that until I got past the first trimester or at least was knee-deep in hormonal symptoms, I don’t know if I would allow myself to accept the pregnancy. Miscarriage is such a reality for me; that first trimester is going to be hard. I said that it would be difficult to announce a pregnancy because other people don’t always understand the trepidation that comes with an increased risk of a miss. (I had one ex-friend who said, “I think it’s stupid when women don’t announce their pregnancies because of worrying about miscarriage; it’s just so negative!”) So if I said, “Hey, I’m pregnant!” And the person lit and up and congratulated me, I know I’d be tempted to say, “Whoa there, pardner! Not so fast! Let’s not count our chickens, eh?”

The other thing is that getting pregnant doesn’t erase all the infertility stuff that came before. My friend said that she wondered if I would feel the “loss” of no longer being infertile because it was such a big part of my life. I don’t know. I wonder if she’s right. It makes sense. I remember that after I got pregnant with Noah after two miscarriages, the two misses still hurt. People would say, “But aren’t you glad you’re pregnant *now?*” And of course I was but it didn’t take away the pain of those two misses.

I don’t know if I’m making sense but I just wanted to try and get some of this down.

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