Now that I’m pregnant, I am experiencing a wide range of emotions, from joy to apprehension. It can be difficult to relax and enjoy a pregnancy after dealing with infertility for so long. Going from infertility to finding out your pregnant will leave you, not only feeling like you are back on the rollercoaster, but almost like you are in denial of the pregnancy. It’s just hard to imagine that it finally happened and I guess in a way you can’t believe it. It is hard to keep from thinking that something will happen between the time you find out your pregnant to the time you go to your first doctors appointment. While the whole time you are extremely excited, you don’t want to get your hopes up. My biggest fear was that we would get to the doctor and there wouldn’t be a heartbeat. But, to my surprise, there were TWO…and both had excellent heartbeats! They both had a heartrate of 171 and it was so cool to see that little flickering heart beating.
The goal of every couple dealing with infertility is to have a positive pregnancy test. When that finally happens, most couples feel both elation and fear. For many couples who have experienced the hope and disappointment of infertility, it may be hard to believe something is really “going right.” The only way I can even comprehend how this happened to us, is that it is a complete gift from God and for that I will be eternally grateful for my two little miracles.
Infertility is about so much more than the inability to conceive. It can rock a woman’s very foundations — her sense of control over her own future, her faith in her own body, and her feelings about herself as a woman. It can result in a loss of innocence, as a woman finds herself on the wrong side of the statistics. Suddenly, bad things don’t just happen to other people. Despite all her efforts, she is unable to achieve the experience that many women see as a birthright. Pregnancy likely cannot be achieved except with substantial medical help, and may very well never be achieved at all.
When a pregnancy finally does occur, it can be difficult for a woman who has experienced infertility to view herself as just another pregnant woman. This long-desired pregnancy may not be the joyous experience I had always dreamed about. The experience of infertility brings its own baggage to a pregnancy: grief for previous losses or inability to get pregnant; anxiety; and fear that my body, unable to conceive on its own, may not be able to carry a pregnancy.
Going through a pregnancy after infertility has it own unique challenges:
* You may feel like you don’t belong. You feel like the average pregnant woman can’t understand your feelings, yet you may feel uncomfortable talking about your pregnancy with your infertile friends who are still undergoing treatments.
* You distrust your body’s ability to carry a pregnancy since it took so much medical intervention to get pregnant in the first place.
* Fear of preparing for a birth, buying maternity clothes, or purchasing baby items so as not to “jinx†a pregnancy. Although, I’m so excited I can’t help myself so this one is pretty much thrown out the window for me.
* I think the biggest one for me is the fear of complaining about pregnancy symptoms or discomforts because you might seem ungrateful. I feel like if I complain about anything people will just think, “you asked for it, you wanted to get pregnant”. And because I did want it so bad and went through so much to get it, I don’t feel like I have any right to complain. Now I’m not complaining about this, but 24 hour nausea and vomiting is not fun…but I take it as a good sign, that’s why I don’t complain. The truth is, pregnancy can be uncomfortable, but disliking frequent vomiting, 24 hour nausea, or heartburn does not mean I cherish the pregnancy any less. The way I see it, the two little babies I will have in the end will be completely worth all the discomforts in the world.
