Fertility Part 2: One Year Later

Read Part 1 here

It has been just over a year since I wrote about my struggles with secondary infertility in a letter to no one in particular.  In a letter shared with no one but written simply for the sake of clearing my head and mending my heart.  I reread that letter today and was reminded of all the feelings of loss, anger, exhaustion, surrender.  If I transported myself back to the moment I finished writing those last words I would not have imagined that one year later I would be sitting down to write a second letter on the topic, my thoughts occasionally interrupted by the sharp kicks of an unborn son in my belly.  I am 31 weeks pregnant.

In the weeks and months following our failed IVF cycles last summer I made a decision to focus on my health, mentally and physically.  I continued my long walks around the city listening to podcast marathons.  The spotlight was no longer on my infertility and I was motivated to tackle other health issues that I had put on hold during the year of fertility treatments.  The first was a recurring eczema on my hands that has plagued me for several years.  The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor who treats me is an expert on the condition and has significantly improved my symptoms over the past four years with the use of bitter herbal teas taken for several months at a time.   No other doctor, naturopath, dermatologist, or dietician had ever been able to help me previously.  However each spring the eczema returns, not as severe as before but still irritatingly present.  So by mid-summer I was boiling the familiar herbal teas once again, determined this would be the last summer. 

With each passing month I continued to suffer debilitating 36-hour migraines, always swearing I wouldn’t make it through another one but with no defense against the next occurrence.  I decided to consult my herbalist about it who thought it would be straightforward to treat, although she recommended waiting until I finished treatment for the eczema.  However after an exceptionally horrible migraine one month I begged her to begin treatment and she complied.   Fortunately success of this treatment did not depend on my buy-in.  How could a special concoction of herbs taken just days prior to the expected migraine be effective? And how could it be a long-term solution?  I don’t fully understand how or why it worked but it did for that month, and the next, and then the next.  By mid-Fall I was eczema and migraine-free, no longer boiling bitter teas, and had completed not one but two 25-km walks across the city as part of a fund-raising campaign for cancer.  I was recharged and feeling like myself again. 

Thoughts of fertility treatments started resurfacing by November and I found myself consulting another herbal specialist. She had come recommended.  Did I want to put myself through the rollercoaster ride of emotions again? It had only been five months since we had stopped trying, since I had written that letter.  It had been freeing to stop.  But the recent improvements in my health were inspiring and I now held an even deeper respect for Chinese herbal medicine.  Perhaps this time if we still didn’t conceive a child, perhaps at least by trying this different route, my overall health would be improved along the journey.  Holistic medicine might be the opposite approach to what had felt like brute force and blind faith with IVF.  I booked an appointment.

From my year at the fertility clinic I had never learned anything medically to explain why the fertility treatments had failed.  That had been a source of such frustration.  Interestingly my TCM doctor, acupuncturist, and this new herbal specialist had all suspected an issue at the implantation stage because my body was lacking something.  It was the reason why inseminations and IVF hadn’t worked, they said. The acupuncturist had described it like trying to plant a seed in soil that was too cold to nurture new life.  They related it to my poor circulation, my cold hands and feet, likely stemming from my childhood leukaemia and the chemotherapy I had received.  Cold uterus syndrome is the only condition I have found online that sounds like it might be what they had been describing.  I don’t really know since the condition was never given a label, just explained to me through metaphors. 

I am a person of numbers and charts, an engineer by trade.  I used to chart my basal body temperature religiously, always looking out for trends and clues.  Over-analyzing, no doubt.  One of my observations after months of data had been that my temperature readings were always below the range described in examples.  I had mentioned this casually to various people before but it never got much attention, especially since my chart followed the classic trend of highs, lows, and dips that are typical.  It wasn’t until this past December, my second month seeing the fertility herbal specialist, that my temperature readings were elevated.  Within range.  It appeared the bitter teas were having some effect.

Later that month, on Boxing Day, I pulled out a home pregnancy test even though I could barely even be considered late.  It was for logistical reasons.  We were headed to Ottawa to ring in the New Year with friends and I needed to know which concoction of herbs to take with me.  The recipe depended on whether or not I was about to begin a new menstrual cycle and could require a last-minute appointment with the herbalist before our road trip. 

The test stick showed one pink line, then crosshairs a few seconds later.  It was positive. I was pregnant, just like that.   Two months of bitter teas and a home pregnancy test erased the pain of the past two and a half years which included seven failed inseminations, two cancelled IVF cycles, and two failed embryo transfers.  I climbed back into bed, sharing the incredible news quietly with my husband.  I lay there for some time savouring the moment beside our sleeping son who had crawled into our bed half an hour earlier.  I can still remember the joy and calm and relief, imagining the year to come.

Today I write this letter seven months pregnant, reflecting on what should have been a more celebrated pregnancy.  Instead, throughout my pregnancy I have felt the weight from friends and family who have confided in me about their own failed treatments, miscarriages, complicated pregnancies, broken marriages, impossible decisions.  It has been a quiet celebration with mixed emotions. 

Sleep was scarce for the first several months.  Fatigue was inevitable during the first trimester, amplified by a son who started waking up with nightmares and a husband tossing and turning with worries for his father who had been hospitalized the day after we revealed our happy news.  He would remain there for the next four months.  I had my own anxieties over family, friendships, and the small business of which I am a co-founder.   My body became accustomed to waking around 3am each night, and eventually rather than tossing for an hour in bed I would head to my laptop where I planned for an upcoming manufacturing run.  I crunched numbers, contacted overseas suppliers, scheduled deliveries, and reviewed finances.  Then I would catch another two hours of sleep before the day began.  It was an exhausting, often lonely stretch of time.

Things finally improved in the late spring.  The mid-night work sessions ended, my father-in-law’s health turned a corner, manufacturing was well on its way, my energy returned.  I switched my son from full-time to part-time daycare so we could have two days each week together, trying to make up for lost time in what had been a taxing first trimester full of short tempers and shouting matches.  There are some days I second-guess the decision to make the switch when tantrums are fierce and patience is scarce.  But most weeks I am grateful for this chance to make the best out of everyday activities together; baseball at the park, visiting manufacturers, morning swims, eating ice cream on the porch, volunteering at the lab, shopping for groceries, prenatal appointments, sewing in the office, riding his bike.  He participates in all of these activities which are not always magical or exciting but they are the pieces that make up real life.  I want him to appreciate what real life looks like.  And on days when he is supposed to get ready for preschool but lies in bed unwilling to get dressed, when he whines that he’d rather stay home with me, I know he loves the time we spend together.

Summer has arrived and there are only two more months until we introduce a new life to this family which we’ve waited oh so long to meet, a life that my son endearingly refers to as “my baby”.  With all the changes to come in family and work life this is my time for quiet reflection, for gratitude, for moving past the situations that no longer serve me.  It is a time for real celebration.