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One of the brave ladies whose blogs I follow had some bad news today. Only 1/3 of the eggs they retrieved during this cycle were mature. She is understandably crushed and feels that she has reached the end of the road. Despite thousands of dollars of drugs and treatments, months of healthy living, and the highest level of medical intervention available she feels like pregnancy isn’t going to happen for her. I feel her pain. My feet are also on that road, and it is a sad, lonely, painful path to walk.
We spend so much time scouring blogs, boards and articles looking for hope – trying to find that one success story, trying to convince ourselves (and often succeeding) that we are the lucky ones, that it will happen for us. People answer your questions and are very supportive – “Keep trying!”, “Don’t give up!”, they say. That support is invaluable, but it’s also misleading.
A few months ago I posted a question on an infertility board and got lots of warm, friendly, supportive, positive replies. I felt good, better, even hopeful. And then a woman sent me a personal message. She told me that she had the same diagnoses as me and was a bit younger. She had basically the same response to meds. And she was going to use donor eggs. She urged me to open myself up to other options, because, as she said “it was very, very unlikely that I’d ever carry a pregnancy to term with my own eggs.” I was angry, hurt and confused. She’d burst my bubble. Where was the support? All those words that I wanted to hear? I didn’t want to hear that it wouldn’t work, I didn’t want to acknowledge that as a possibility.
Months have gone by since she wrote to me. Since then my AMH has dropped. I had a miscarriage and another unsuccessful Clomid cycle to add to my list of failures. My odds, which were never good, are in the toilet. So I wrote her back. I asked her questions. And I now trust her as someone who will tell me the truth. Not in a mean, hurtful or dismissive way (like my RE) but like someone who has been there. Like someone who walked this horrible road before me and understands the pain, frustration, and utter powerlessness that you feel. She found a way out of this terrible place. She recently gave birth to twins – a boy and girl – as a result of her DE cycle. She beat infertility. Not in the straightforward way we all wish for, but in a subterfuge – an undercover coup. She found the courage to accept a work-around, and she has 2 beautiful children and couldn’t care less where they came from. 2 souls now exist that didn’t before. Her arms and heart are full. She won.
Let me be very clear here – donor eggs, surrogacy, adoption – these options are not for everyone. It is an extremely personal choice. The point is that there is a choice. One of the most awful things about infertility is that your choice, the control of your own destiny, the control over your own body is taken away and no amount faith, karma, begging, wishing or believing can change that. But there are options. There are choices.
So, when my blog friend wrote how defeated she was feeling my first instinct was to comfort, reassure and sooth her. But I erased that response and tried to be honest, hoping that eventually she would find some comfort in that honesty and that it would help to make the road she’s on a little less frightening. I wanted her to know that even if her very worst fears come true (which is very possible) life won’t come crashing down. There is hope, but it may look entirely different than you thought it would.
That was wonderfully put. So often I receive warm well-meaning responses to not give up hope and try IVF again. But here I sit barely able to cover the debt incurred from the last attempt and right now I see nothing we could do differently this next attempt that would improve our chances over our last attempt. It’s important to remember just because that dream is gone, a different form of the dream can still be found.
Sometimes straight honesty can feel harsh at first, but is more helpful in the long run than false hope.
Thank you for this post! I often wonder how to respond to posts like the one you mentioned. Should I always be positive and supportive no matter what? Should I open up to people about how I decided to sue DE and the facts and figures that brought me ther It seems to be a balabcnce in posting between being supportive and being rasonable. I hope I get it figured out!e!?
It’s tough. I know I personally like getting optimistic responses (since I have so hard a time being an optimist myself) but it’s also difficult to accept them when they fly in the face of so much evidence to the contrary. I don’t like thinking that people are just saying “oh chin up!” without really thinking about whether a more realistic approach is warranted. Then again, I think we all know in our own heart of hearts when we’ve reached the point where going forward would be kidding ourselves or we can’t emotionally handle it anymore. We just have to get there in our own time. In the meantime, no matter what comments people make, it just helps me to know that we’re not alone.
great post. i always have that moment, like you describe where I wonder, should I be hopeful or honest in my reply? i often go with hopeful because I find myself in tears too much on the support sites, though I wish for honesty in replies to my posts. After reading the above, i can see how beneficial it can be to share more honest feedback in my replies. begin being more honest it in my replies. i guess i just don’t want to cause more tears for those i am responding to. because for me, sometimes honesty really hurts.
Thank you. I really appreciate what you said here.