Maybe baby

Part Three: Clomid + Advice + No Positive Pregnancy tests = Raving Lunatic

(Also see Maybe Baby Part One and Part Two.)

I left off last time with the option of in vitro being given to us after some testing and rounds of Clomid had failed. As I mentioned before, that was really not the path we wanted to take in this quest and entering year two I was getting a bit frazzled with the whole thing.

At this point in our journey emotions were starting to run high. Everyone knew we were trying so everyone would constantly ask “Well? Anything, yet?” When the answer was no, then the conversation would always shift to advice. As I have said before, I know these comments come from a place of love, but I was really starting to dread them.

One of the top comments we heard was “Well, if you just quit trying it will happen.” Silly me. Why didn’t we think of that? I mean that is super easy to do when you are taking ovulation tests, checking your temperature, trying to eat things that supposedly increase your fertility, avoiding alcohol, taking Clomid, going in for ultrasounds and searching out any other information online that will help you get pregnant. I mean, sure we will just quit trying and not think about it.

The other emotional pitfall was all the pregnant people around me. And no, I wasn’t just being self conscious, I kid you not everywhere I turned there was a pregnant person in my life. Friends at work, people in my family, even a same-sex couple I knew announced the news that they were expecting. How many times could I swallow hard and say “congratulations” before I lost control and instead burst into tears. I mean, that would be awkward, right? It was literally in the double-digits of people in my life who were happily expecting. How many more baby showers could I endure? The reality was creeping in on me. I might not be able to have a child. Ever. This was thought I really had not considered.

The anger and bitterness were really started to build inside me and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like feeling that way. How did I get to this place? This journey started out so exciting and happy and now I was sitting around asking “why?” It all had to stop or I was going to lose my mind I was quite sure of that. The questions had to stop. The advice had to stop -- all of it. And for my own self-protection I proclaimed that it needed to stop. I told my family to stop asking and started telling anyone else who asked “Oh, that just isn’t in the cards, we moved on to something else.” It was my defense mechanism. It was my retreat away from the whole thing. But that didn’t mean I was healed or that it was over, but rather it was just one more step in the journey.

I needed something to control because I did NOT have this situation in my control at all. I needed a new beginning. Tune in next time to see what that was.

Makala Pollard