Pregnancy After Infertility

7 years. That’s a long time to hope, pray, and plead for a baby. In my 7 years of trying to conceive I experienced many setbacks. So many, that eventually I began to talk myself out of being hopeful in an effort to soften the blow of potential disappointment. My internal dialogue sounded a little something like this:

• “You know this might not work.”
• “There are other treatments to try if it fails.”
• “Don’t get your hopes up, remember how upset you got last time.”
• “Just hope for the best and prepare for the worst. That’s the smart thing to do.”

For many women who have battled infertility, myself included, this need to prepare yourself for the other shoe to drop does not end once you see two pink lines on a pregnancy test. I would love to tell you that once I conceived that all my stress and anxiety faded away and I melted into blissful gestation. The truth is that I was now anxious because I had what I wanted the most, which meant I had something to lose.

At 10 weeks, I was released from my infertility specialist into the care of my OB/GYN. You would think this would be cause for celebration and fist-bumping, but I felt adrift. I was leaving the people who knew me, knew my story, knew how hard we had tried and knew how needy I felt. I was leaving the waiting rooms of battle scarred infertility patients for waiting rooms full of burgeoning bellies and new life. It was bittersweet. I had a feeling of not quite belonging to the “fertile” world and hadn’t had time to process the emotions of what I had been through. I had met wonderful women in the infertility community who were still struggling to conceive and I suddenly felt like I didn’t belong to their group either. Bottom line, change and transition is difficult. Add hormones (both natural and the ones you are still injecting daily into your posterior) and you’ve got yourself quite the roller coaster.

Once we made it through the first trimester, I happily shared our news with more and more people. I got excited about the opportunity to buy my first pair of maternity pants (can you say comfort? Side note ladies, why can’t we just forget skinny jeans and adopt these as our fashionable pant of choice?), but I couldn’t bring myself to purchase anything for the baby yet. I’m not normally a superstitious person, but I felt like that might jinx the deal. I couldn’t let myself give in to the joy of pending motherhood just yet.

When I finally began to feel my little one move, I took solace in knowing he was really in there, active and kicking. Then my OB told me about kick counts. I became hyper-focused on counting his kicks. One night after finally getting comfortable and going to bed I realized I hadn’t felt him move in the last few hours. I jumped out of bed at midnight and began pacing the house, jumping up and down, prodding my belly in an attempt to rouse my baby. I needed that reassurance that he was real and safe and not a phantom.