My friend Lane, from Club MomMe, asked me to stop by today and talk a little bit about why I started this site. Lane is no stranger to infertility either, and she has even shared her story here.
Here’s a little to get you started…
In the very beginning, I didn’t feel so very alone. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t screaming, “I’m infertile!” from every rooftop, but I didn’t feel like an outcast either.
Truth be told, I didn’t use the word “infertile” for quite some time. Doctors, books, websites, and family members were fond of reminding me that one miscarriage didn’t mean I was headed toward infertility. It simply meant that I was unlucky. I was in the 25%…even if a miscarriage at 13 weeks isn’t actually all that common.
A dear friend of mine experienced two miscarriages before her first child was born, so I knew that I wasn’t alone. I confided in her, and a couple of other friends, when I needed some consoling.
For a while, it just felt like something I had to get through. I was sure that once I was able to get pregnant again, the miscarriage would just be a thing of the past.
But then the second miscarriage happened. Once again, it took me by surprise. There wasn’t a cramp in my uterus or a spot of blood to be found that might have indicated that things were not actually “progressing on schedule”. 11 ½ weeks. I was stunned.
Even then, I didn’t call it what it was. Because one is bad luck, and a second is super bad luck…but you really need a third to earn that title “repeated miscarriages”.
Unless you go months and months and months with no pregnancy.
Then you’re both unlucky and infertile. Particularly if your eggs are old (read: anything over 30).
One year passed. The months dragged on. The anxiety mounted. Hope quickly dissolved. It was exhausting.
And then the phone calls came: Back to back, two of my closest friends announced their second pregnancies. I was pregnant when they were pregnant with their first children…they just didn’t know it at the time. We were supposed to do this together.
I struggled to make sense of it. I didn’t know how to respond. I was happy for them. In fact, I was over the moon. But I was also anxious, jealous, and depressed. How could they possibly be going on number two when I couldn’t, for the life of me, have a number one?
That’s when the isolation set in. Even though my friends checked in regularly and hoped against hope that I would get there soon, something felt different.
Life changes when you have one and are expecting another. Your world shifts.
Suddenly, I felt very alone…
Please stop by Club MomMe to continue reading this post.
