For most of my life I would say I’ve been a pessimist, or as I like to call it, a realist. After meeting my husband my perspective on life started to change and I became much more aware of the blessings that were all around me. I think this pulls me through every month, focusing on all we do have – but it still doesn’t take away the pain and hurt I feel for the one blessing we long for.
Earlier this week, Tuesday I think, I saw on Facebook my cousin 7 years my junior is expecting…TWINS! This was the very first ‘news story’ that popped up on my newsfeed (funny how that works huh?). I thought how unbelievably lucky she and her fiancé are – do they even know how blessed they are? This is the week my period is due – two negative home pregnancy tests later and nearly 19 days post ovulation, I am still waiting. I am taking a progesterone supplement that I start four days after my ovulation test is positive – this has stopped my luteal phase spotting for two of three cycles now – I also read online that it can delay your cycle. Since taking the supplement my period has come on the dot 17dpo. Feeling nauseas this week, I thought there may be a slight chance I could be pregnant, but I absolutely refused to allow myself to get any type of excited over this prospect. I did take a test earlier in the week and it was negative, but according to those oh-so accurate baby boards, some women don’t have a positive test until well after their period is late. I guess there was a voice in the back of my head that said “You still have a chance”.
I don’t know why I thought suppressing these hopeful feelings would make a negative test less painful – it wasn’t. I came home from work and struggled with the idea of taking the test “just to see” or waiting until my husband got home, because if the test was positive, I wanted to be in that moment with him. Then I thought, if it was negative, I’d rather not ruin a good evening. No, let me be completely honest here, if it was negative I didn’t want to disappoint him.
The test was negative and the wave of disappointment washed over me, knocking me down and pulling me out to a sea of despair. I sat on my bed and had a brief moment where no tears came, just this ache within my heart. Shaking my head and sadly repeating the words “I can’t have children, I can’t have children”. Now grant you, my doctors have found no other issues with my reproductive or endocrinology systems, but of course when you’re in the sea of despair you don’t think straight and your emotions take over. I laid down to take a nap and just sobbed. I hugged my pillow, tears falling all over, and cried. This lasted a few minutes – at least the crying sessions have gotten shorter – and I eventually fell asleep.
The thing with the progesterone is that you have to make sure you are not pregnant before you stop it – so every month I need to either wait for my period to show or take a test (possibly reliving the disappointment all over again). This morning, August 7, I took my last pregnancy test, thinking perhaps my sample was too diluted yesterday. It was negative. So, now I will stop the progesterone and start over next cycle.
Still to this day I can’t believe my husband and I are in this situation. We are both disappointed – we are problem solvers, I sometimes have been accused of being a control freak, my husband is very logical and analyzes quite a bit – yet regardless of our strengths to find solutions and make things happen, this is something we are having a really hard time solving. Why have we still not conceived after nearly two years of trying? We are going to make a follow up appointment with our fertility specialist – I guess to explore our other options. Do I want to use Artificial Reproductive Technology to have a biological child? No, not really. Do I feel like I am letting my husband down? You bet. Why do I put this on me? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because that is my way of controlling the answer to our question – unexplained infertility won’t suit my reasoning, but pointing the finger at myself, as illogical as that may be, will.