Infertility Awareness Week: Michelle’s story
It’s National Infertility Awareness Week (April 21st-27th, 2024), which was created to not just bring awareness to how pervasive infertility is (since 1 in 8 couples has trouble conceiving, it’s a pretty safe bet you already know infertility is a thing), but to also reduce the stigma around talking about infertility.
This week is important to me personally because I can feel everyone around me acknowledging the 4 years of infertility I endured to conceive my son, and rallying behind me and others with similar stories. I didn’t tell anyone I was undergoing infertility treatments until I was about 2 years into the process, and when I was finally ready to share my experience, I was amazed at how much better I felt just by knowing that my friends, family, and extended community were there to support me. So in hopes that this week of awareness does its job and further reduces stigma, here’s what I went through.
My Story
(Trigger Warning: skip this section if you don’t want to hear about miscarriage as part of the IVF process)
In early 2019 my husband and I were diagnosed with “Unexplained Infertility.” In layman’s terms, we couldn’t get pregnant and doctors didn’t know why. All our tests came back as normal so there was no medical reason why we weren’t conceiving. By “our tests” I really mean “my tests” because they usually run only one very non-invasive test on the male subject and several invasive, painful tests on the female. (Not that I’m still bitter or anything like that.)
We underwent 6 medicated IUIs: fertility specialists had me take medication that made my ovaries produce multiple egg follicles instead of the usual single egg follicle during ovulation, then I went in for blood tests and ultrasounds 3 times a week for a month to watch how close I was to ovulating. Then when it looked like it was time to ovulate, they would have me and my husband come in together, take his sperm into a lab to mix it with some kind of special sauce, and then insert it into my uterus and have me lie down with my legs in the air for an hour hoping that sperm and egg would meet at just the right time.
Every time we underwent the procedure, we had to sign a waiver that the multiple eggs I was producing could mean twins or triplets, but every time I ended up with a period instead of a pregnancy, and lingering side effects from the medications like hot flashes, headaches, fatigue, and hair loss. The physical side effects weren’t nearly as bad as the emotional “roller coaster” everyone who has been through this can attest to. We would start with the hope and excitement of finally getting pregnant because why would your clinic have you sign a waiver to not sue them if you have triplets if it wasn’t going to at least give you one bun in the oven, right? And then the month would end with the despair of another month or more of starting the process all over again.
When the IUIs didn’t work it was clear that IVF was the next step. I was dreading it getting to that point but I forced myself to face my fears of hospitals, needles, surgeries, and side effects if it meant a better chance at reaching our goal of starting a family. We had our first consultation with an IVF clinic in the spring of 2020, and then BOOM everyone was in lockdown for the pandemic. All my appointments and procedures were done alone since no one was allowed into clinics but the patient, and part of my medication protocol included a drug that weakened my immune system, so I couldn’t have much contact with anyone outside my home for nearly a year.
We did one egg retrieval, which involves similar drugs to the IUIs but to create even more follicles with eggs. Then instead of inserting sperm into the uterus and hoping it meets an egg, the patient is put under light anesthesia and the eggs are surgically removed. In a lab, individual sperm are injected into the eggs to attempt to force a fertilization. The result of my egg retrieval was about 20 eggs removed, of those 7 successfully fertilized, and of those 7, which we had DNA tested for abnormalities, 3 became normal embryos with the best chance of success. It was considered an excellent retrieval since we got so many eggs and our chance of success with 3 normal embryos was estimated at about 60%.
Now comes the embryo transfers. An embryo isn’t just installed in a uterus like a spark plug in a car. The body has to be properly prepped and then “tricked” into believing it’s pregnant to have the best chance of an actual pregnancy. Which means more drugs, more side effects, longer waits, and bigger let downs when it doesn’t work.
My first embryo transfer worked. I got pregnant, and the embryo split into identical twins. But about 8 weeks into the pregnancy the embryos stopped growing and it ended in miscarriage and several months of waiting for all the pregnancy hormones to leave my body so we could try again. The second transfer went similarly, and failed even earlier in the process. At that point all the medication and hormones were causing polyps to form in my uterus, which required 2 surgeries to remove.
By the time I was ready for the third and final transfer it was about a year after the egg retrieval and I knew I emotionally wouldn’t be able to handle another failure. If this one didn’t work, I couldn’t put myself through another egg retrieval and potentially another year of this rollercoaster.
The third transfer worked, but instead of feeling the elation of success, I was exhausted and depressed. By the time morning sickness kicked in I spent days crying on the couch not just because of the pregnancy hormones, but because I felt like I had just climbed Mt. Everest with IVF and then without any time to rest or even change my boots I had to get right back up there with pregnancy.
I did enjoy pregnancy and really loved some parts of it, but the infertility journey before it left me numb. It didn’t sink in that I really was pregnant until about month 7. I stared at the pile of gifts at my baby shower thinking I was at someone else’s party and not mine. I went into labor and headed into the hospital almost robotically like it was just another medical procedure to add to the long list. It wasn’t until my son Cameron was about 3 months old that the fog lifted and I really felt like a mom. Now of course he’s the best thing since sliced bread and I couldn’t imagine my life without that little goober.
Photography as Art Therapy
I’ve talked about art therapy before for processing and healing the infertility struggle, and I’ve kept it going over the past 2 years after having my son. I created this photo in the home stretch of pregnancy to consider how I felt with the mountain of IVF behind me and the challenging world of parenthood before me.
Around my son’s second birthday I recreated it.
The great thing about art therapy is that you get to let your creativity take over and be the voice for you when you’re not sure how to articulate what you’re feeling. I was compelled to create this image but couldn’t say why until I looked at it later. Parenthood is so beautiful and fulfilling and colorful and wonderful. And it’s exhausting and goes by so quickly! The roller coaster of an infertility journey transitioned right into the roller coaster of parenthood without much of a rest inbetween and the 4 years to create little Cameron instead of the usual 9 months sometimes feels like it has aged me by decades.
Whether a person’s infertility journey ends with achieving their goals or not, it stays with you. The pain, the medical procedures, the emotions, the feeling of your life being on hold… all of it leaves a lasting effect on a person.
That’s why this week is so important. Couples going through infertility can feel SO lonely and lost, and for the first part of my infertility experience I actually needed to feel alone for it– I wasn’t ready to tell anyone because I couldn’t bear to hear their unsolicited advice or see pity in their faces. It’s because of National Infertility Awareness Week that I am now able to share my experience and feel stronger because of it since I have the backing of those around me.
If you’ve never been through it yourself or don’t even know anyone personally who has, it’s still important to talk about it. Talking about infertility can feel very uncomfortable, but it’s how we support each other as a community. They say it takes a village to raise a child. It also takes a village to raise the adults up in their struggles to find their place as parents.
And my advice to you if you know someone going through infertility: keep your mouth shut but your mind, heart, and ears open. Unsolicited advice or tips only make things worse, and it’s exactly why it took me so long to open up because I couldn’t bear to hear another story about someone whose IVF failed but they ended up naturally pregnant “so keep strong and there’s always hope!” or someone to tell me to try a keto diet because it helped them lose weight so it might help me get pregnant, right?
Be there for someone going through infertility by simply saying you’re there for them and asking how you can help, whether that’s listening with an open heart and a closed mouth to all they’re going through, or distracting them completely by ignoring it’s even a part of their life right now and taking them out to brunch. Find out what they need by asking them, and just be there for them physically and emotionally if they don’t know what they need in that moment. It’s a long, draining journey filled with ALL of the emotions ALL of the time with no breaks, so do your best to give them the breaks they need to keep going.