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.
I’m small, but scrappy! I have a fierce passion for my family, friends and life in general…I’m a military spouse who has battled infertility for over 13 years, as well as the loss of two babies gone too soon. I love to laugh, and am grateful for every second I celebrate with the ones I love. You can find me at my blog Lori Does Maryland or on Facebook Lori Mullins Ennis or on The Twitter here Lori M. Ennis
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