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Thirteen years.
That’s what I was thinking yesterday as I drove myself to my fifth embryo transfer in three years.
I’ve been ‘at this’ for thirteen years.
Thirteen years of trying to build our family. Thirteen years of being jealous of women who said, “My husband just looks at me and I get pregnant.” Thirteen years of baby showers and baby commercials and church nursery duty to fill an ache in my arms, not because it was my turn on the nursery roster.
Thirteen years.
How has it been that long? I think that after the first few months of infertility, one still feels pretty hopeful. Doctors are still telling you that it’s early and you are young.
A few years later, and you have sort of developed a pretty thick skin. You have realized that it being early and you being young has done nothing for you, and that in order to function in the real world, where pregnant women and new mothers surround you, you have to almost be desensitized to it…however that may be.
Most days, I made light of it. I’m fairly sarcastic by nature and would crack little jokes about my barren womb. To me, they were just that—jokes that I had to make to prevent me from crying.
Of course, to others, they were awkward comments for which they did not know how to respond. Crickets would chirp as I’d nonchalantly tell someone I obviously was meant to vacation instead of mother.
Because seriously—how do you respond to that? How do you tell someone who has heard it all before (and tried it all too!) that if they just.keep.waiting, their time will come?
The reality is that sometimes, it never does.
Or, in our case, it does, but ends so tragically.
So all these thoughts were swirling through my head yesterday and then I heard Steven Curtis Chapman’s “The Miracle of The Moment,”[1] song on my radio.
The words made me cry.
He sang of the miracle of the moment I was in right then and there…taking tears and tasting them if that’s what the moment brought, but throwing my head back and laughing if that’s what it did instead.
And I realized that regardless of how long it’s been, or how many children I’ve become pregnant with and lost, there truly has been a miracle in each and every moment our little embryos have been placed back inside of me. Every single time.
My heart is still so tender from loss, and yet, I was giddy again with excitement as I drove into my clinic’s parking lot. Oh, how familiar now, this roller coaster of emotions has become.
I decided that the moment I was in was miraculous, and regardless of the outcome, I wanted to embrace it.
It’s taken a long 13 years to get to this place…this place of simultaneous mourning and hope. Of wistfulness and acceptance. Of gratitude for so much, but remembrance of so much more that I feel I’ve lost.
Today, I choose to throw my head back and laugh WHILE I taste the tears that come.
It’s just who I’ve become.
UPDATE—JULY 9, 2012….Beta was negative. Thanks to so many for prayers and well-wishes!
[1] Steven Curtis Chapman, Miracle Of the Moment. From the album “This Moment” (Sparrow, 2007.) Produced by Chapman and Bronleewe.
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About Lori Ennis
Who you’ve become is beautiful – inside and out. Your perspective is amazing. I hope number five is the charm!
Thank you very much! That always makes me feel good to hear because some days, I just want to throw that perspective out the door, ha ha! Truly, though, gratitude brings joy. And I have a lot to be thankful for! xoxoxoxo
Much love and prayers for you Lori. Beautifully written and am thankful that we have met. =)
Me too! That was a very sweet treat for me at a really needed time! xoxoxoxo
Absolutely love this. So true that it shapes you and sometimes you feel tears and sometimes you blurt sarcasm. You bring beauty to this journey and have encouraged and helped so many. Your boys’ lives have touched so many hearts!!! Love you!!!!
Love you too, friend…and thank you!
It’s funny how this journey changes us all of us, in big ways and small. So many times, the pain of being a lump of clay is all others see, and sometimes all I can feel. Other days, I can feel the gentle whisper of the Potter telling me that He’s making me more beautiful for Him. Somedays I miss my baby, sometimes I grieve over the infertility journey, sometimes I just grieve for the person I used to be. I look forward to coming out of this a better woman than I started, once I get to the other side. Baby or not.
I hope you have a successful transfer and a perfectly beautiful reminder of how good God is. Crossing fingers, and saying prayers, for you and all of of us.
Yes! So many different emotions and it seems like time just gives more secret places for those emotions to find and burrow in…popping up at very different times for very different reasons.
And I definitely know I am not who I used to be. At all. I’m just working to be who He wants me to be.
xoxoxoxo and prayers to you!
Thankyou for sharing. I just looked up that song and listened to it. I felt like that song was written for me. I thought about the chapmans loosing their little girl and wondered if just like me they beat themselves up with the what if and “if only we could go back.” That’s were I spend so much time, wishing I could go back and undo everything that led up to us losing our baby and get him back. I don’t know how to live in the moment. Before I lost my baby boy, I was always the type of person looking towards the future and eager to see what is coming around the next bend. Now, I am afraid of the future and I live in the past in a world of “what ifs.”
Oh Megan…those what-ifs will eat you alive. I’m so, so sorry for your loss. If I’d had a c-section from the start (instead of 27 hours of labor and then an emergency c when my ob broke my water), Matthew would be alive. Let me tell you how my mind plays the ‘what-if’ game with that one.
But it’s for naught. The what-ifs are not the ‘what actually happeneds’ and there’s no way we can change it—to beat ourselves up for those adds to our loss…steals more of who we are and what’s left of us.
And I know that fear. I do. It’s hard not to when this is our life.
Many prayers and much love.
Thank you so much for sharing. It is truly amazing how much this journey shapes us. I have found that I am not who I was 10 years ago.
this is so beautiful Lori. As always, your words are an inspiration.
xoxoxoxoxo
Perfect! I feel like you have reached inside my soul and written about what we are going through and how I feel. <3 Five sounds like a great number, I'm keeping my fingers crossed too! Thank you for putting it into words Lori!
Thank you for these kind words…I’m really humbled! Best wishes to you wherever you are in this ‘journey’. xoxoxoxoxoxo
Lori,
I can relate to this on so many levels. We also did several years of family building attempts, with all of the acronyms: IUI, IVF, IUI with DS (donor sperm), IVF with DE (Donor Eggs) and IVF with DEmb (donor embryos). Multiple surgeries and multiple miscarriages eventually led to three beautiful little heartbeats. Only one of those heartbeats made it to delivery (c-section with hysterectomy at 27 weeks), and our hearts were completely broken when we had to take our son off of life support and watch him slip away. Our remaining donated embryos became our rainbow twins, when a friend gave us her heart by carrying them for us.
Only someone who has been there, can understand that unrelenting sliver of hope that gives us the strength to keep reaching for our dream of a family. Circumstances, and even well meaning family and friends try to squash it, not “getting” what it means to walk in our shoes. I’m guessing that everyone reading your article will not only “get it”, but will be praying with you and sending you waves of hope that five times is the charm! Please keep us posted, if you don’t mind. We’ll be hoping for you!
(((((hugs))))),
Lori
Crazy how that language just becomes part of the thread of who we are, isn’t it? So grateful to your precious friend for the gift of your rainbow twins. What a blessing. Thank you for the kind words. I really appreciate them!
And…sigh…it was negative. One more cycle and then we are DONE. At a place to accept things as they are…
xoxoxoxoxo
Hi Lori! You are definately a strong woman, and you are an inspiration to every woman who are trying to have a child. Even your smile is encouraging, I can’t think of anyone who has had so much disappointment yet you are so cheerful. I had my own of disappointment s too with fertility and miscarriage, but I believe that one day God will grant me the desire of my heart, if it is according to his will for my life. You are a wonderful person, and God will grant you the desir of your heart, never give up, keep trying. My fertility Dr. told me to take Mitochondrial energy optimizer with bi PQQ and COQ10 to improve my chances, it might help to ask your Dr about these two supplement, maybe they will help you, am praying that it will help me. No matter what others say keep trying, it will work. From here on I will keep you in my prayers. Ask and it shall be given, so talk to the Lord Lori , he is listeing. I am so proud of you.
Your story has really spoken to me. I feel our stories are quite similar with how long I have been “at this” too. In about two months my husband and I have been married for 17 years. Now we haven’t been doing IVF for that long, more like 12. Our only child Lara, who would be just over 3 years old now, is in Heaven. We are currently going through another cycle of IVF, which has been a real roller coaster of emotions, hope and uncertain outcome. I’m clinging onto everything left in me, that we will be successful and have some much needed happiness in our lives. I thank you for writing what you have and I wish you all the very best with this current cycle – hoping for a BFP for you. Take care
Elizabeth,
I just wanted to say that I’m so sorry for the loss of your sweet Lara. I know how much strength and courage it takes to move forward and continue trying. I will be hoping and praying for a positive outcome for this cycle, for you and your husband. If you need someone to talk or vent to, please email. You aren’t alone!
(((hugs)),
Lori C (lchek@nc.rr.com)
Elizabeth…xoxoxooxoxoxoxo
You are an amazing and courageous woman, Lori! And I don’t say that lightly! I remember the first tine I heard about your experiences through Faces of Loss and how impressed I was by your tenacity and positive out look in the face of darkness and despair. We could all take a lesson from you on survival with grace and dignity. Wishing you many blessings and another living baby to bring home and cherish!
You are too, too kind. It’s hope…that’s what it is…just hope for more joy. That joy is just so precious, even if lost…it’s what drives us for more.
xoxoxoxoxo
Lori
I love this article. So eloquently written and described. It’s who you are. An amazing, courageous, strong mother and woman. I am in awe of you, Lori. Your hopefulness and life outlook makes me believe with you. Thank you for writing this article. I feel so many of your same thoughts…only in different ways because of our different experiences. Love to you, sweetie. ((hugs))
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxo
I felt compelled to say thanks for this post – and good luck! We have a lot in common. I am also a military spouse, and it took us 12 years to finally meet our child. We have since had three losses trying to have number 2. I always feel like rolling my eyes at the people who complain about having been trying for 2 whole years, or 3 whole years, or 5 whole years.
I am sure you are rolling your eyes at my 12 whole years….good luck to you. I hope this is your cycle.
Oh Mary, I am not rolling my eyes! twelve years SUCKS! And honestly, I know what you mean, but I try to remember when it was just a few months or a year or two for us…how much that sucked….when you’re in it, you’re in it and it stinks big time. And the military makes it so much harder—how much of that time had to be lost just to deployments and such?! Such is the life, huh?
This wasn’t a successful cycle…and we’ll try one more. But we are ok. Blessed and we know it, so we are grateful for what we have.
xoxoxoxo
Lori
. I wish you the best and my fingers are crossed for you. You are such a strong person to go through this strange journey for so many years.
Oh man! I’m just restarting the infertility ride after losing my son at birth a year ago. Your so right we are all these crazy emotions……mostly because we are so jacked up on hormones
Good luck!!!