Better a second line? Even if not enduring?
A few weeks ago I went out to lunch with a friend from work. We are not very close, but roughly the same age and both married without kids. I knew she had fertility ‘issues’ and she knew I had miscarried, but we got to discussing it a bit more.
She told me she had been to the same midlands clinic as me after extensive tests all showing no reason for her infertility. She had tried ICSI, which had been unsuccessful, but had not gone down the IVF route because of the cost. She is actually a bit older than I am. A bit further along the road and has two friends with small children that she is really close to. Sort of kids by proxy.
She asked about me, and I said I had had 5 miscarriages. And that’s when she made the comment:
“Well, at least you can get pregnant”.
It hung in the air a bit.
I was a bit lost for something to say really. I can see from where she is, it must look like success to actually get a positive pregnancy test. I can see that. But it doesn’t feel like success from here. Not at all. That positive pee-stick is your entry ticket to the rollercoaster.
This week I have been SO SORRY about (and for) Pamplemousse and Thalia. How much worse is it to think you have a pregnancy, to have a due date out there, to line up your positive pee-sticks with pride and joy. To have that huge build-up of excitement, and gradually, gradually to let yourself believe it’s true. You are going to have a baby.
And then for it all to f*cking fail. What do you do with THAT?
And yet for me, after 2 pregnancies (obviously both failed) in just 3 cycles between June and October last year I have not even managed to get pregnant at all since. Bizarrely I felt slightly guilty at Murray’s comment on my last post. She was expecting to find a happier ending. I guess at least a bit of action would be something. I admit, it is wearing me down. At the moment I would really like at least the ticket. Actually, of course, I would like a ticket for a different ride this time.
Oh no, I have just visited Nikole, and she has just miscarried too. Another of us. Go visit her?
http://babylust.typepad.com/baby/2006/06/the_day_after.html
She told me she had been to the same midlands clinic as me after extensive tests all showing no reason for her infertility. She had tried ICSI, which had been unsuccessful, but had not gone down the IVF route because of the cost. She is actually a bit older than I am. A bit further along the road and has two friends with small children that she is really close to. Sort of kids by proxy.
She asked about me, and I said I had had 5 miscarriages. And that’s when she made the comment:
“Well, at least you can get pregnant”.
It hung in the air a bit.
I was a bit lost for something to say really. I can see from where she is, it must look like success to actually get a positive pregnancy test. I can see that. But it doesn’t feel like success from here. Not at all. That positive pee-stick is your entry ticket to the rollercoaster.
This week I have been SO SORRY about (and for) Pamplemousse and Thalia. How much worse is it to think you have a pregnancy, to have a due date out there, to line up your positive pee-sticks with pride and joy. To have that huge build-up of excitement, and gradually, gradually to let yourself believe it’s true. You are going to have a baby.
And then for it all to f*cking fail. What do you do with THAT?
And yet for me, after 2 pregnancies (obviously both failed) in just 3 cycles between June and October last year I have not even managed to get pregnant at all since. Bizarrely I felt slightly guilty at Murray’s comment on my last post. She was expecting to find a happier ending. I guess at least a bit of action would be something. I admit, it is wearing me down. At the moment I would really like at least the ticket. Actually, of course, I would like a ticket for a different ride this time.
Oh no, I have just visited Nikole, and she has just miscarried too. Another of us. Go visit her?
http://babylust.typepad.com/baby/2006/06/the_day_after.html
posted by Country Chick at
9:24 am
3 Comments:
I'm not sure either... and I took nearly a year between fairly-definite-pregnancy no 2 and definite-pregnancy no 3 (and if no 2 was not a pregnancy, it's over a year). As we know, they often come together.
Mr Spouse says that the first baby made us happy for a while, even if it was a short while (10 weeks), but the ones since then have been so brief and so fraught (especially no 3) that I'm not sure they are worth it.
And there is treatment available for infertility, but almost none for recurrent miscarriage - far more recurrent miscarriers are diagnosed "unexplained" than infertile couples, even though it must be at least as common.
By
DrSpouse, at 10:39 am
You can never compare one journey with another's, each carries their own pain. I can't imagine the pain of never having a child. Another can't imagine how I have survived so many losses.
For myself, all I can think of is what's the point of being fertile, if you can't hang onto the baby? I have given up counting how many I have lost, it overwhelmes me with grief.
By
Catherine McDiarmid-Watt, at 4:22 pm
One of my best friends has endo and had a difficult time ever achieving the double lines... she felt that all my positives were a slap in the face. She couldn't see past the fact that we were literally getting good news, then bad news the next day. All she saw was that I was achieving something she didn't.
Fortunately we've worked things out and it took me loading some brutal honesty on to her... but recurrent miscarriage I think sucks... and since I'm in that group I think I can safely say it does. Even though I know you're not supposed to compare apples to oranges... it still stinks to high heaven either way.
By
Sami, at 4:59 pm
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