Woman endures all in trying to conceive
By Cindy Chupack
OPRAH.com
CNN.com
- Author tries shots, vile-tasting teas and electroacupuncture to get pregnant
- Got pregnant on wedding night but had to have an abortion
- Planned to lose weight until got pregnant, ended up losing 50 pounds
- Have to go through bad before good in anything worthwhile, author says
It was the day before Christmas, and I was reading “Newsweek’s” cover story on diet and fertility when I stood up, ripped the roof off a gingerbread house, and ate it, like Godzilla.
This was not something the cover story recommended, by the way.
It was a reaction to something the cover story recommended, namely that you shouldn’t eat a lot of red meat if you’re trying to get pregnant.
I was trying to get pregnant. My husband and I had been trying for two and a half years. I also had a steak on the grill that was going to be my lunch before I decided to have the gingerbread house instead.
“Trying” is a good word for this process. At first, trying just meant sex without birth control, but when you marry at 40, trying quickly becomes more trying, and eventually we had the requisite army of experts, most of whom insurance doesn’t cover, but of course, you can’t put a price on a baby.
You can put a price on not having a baby. That’s running us close to $45,000 in credit card debt.
So by the time I was reading that “Newsweek” article, I’d done it all… drugs, suppositories, IUI, IVF, that test with the blue dye, acupuncture, stinky teas, hormone injections.
Once, we were driving to see a doctor in Beverly Hills, and my husband asked what kind of doctor he was, and I said, “I don’t know, but someone said to see him, so we’re seeing him!”
It was that doctor, incidentally, who told me to visualize my husband’s face on a cartoon sperm, with arms welcoming my egg to him. We decided the guy was a quack, so I only saw him twice a week for about four months.
The thing is, when you’re racing your biological clock, people can tell you pretty much anything and you’ll do it. I still worry I need to track down some saint named Amachi so I can bring her red bananas.
Recently, a friend said something about standing on your head. He wasn’t sure if you were supposed to do it before sex, during, or just in general, but this worked for two women he knew, so I guess I have to stand on my head now. I’ll probably visualize my husband’s face on a cartoon sperm while I’m at it — not because I’m onboard with that. It’s just a hard image to shake.
So it was kind of revolutionary that for the holidays we went to Jackson Hole and we didn’t even take ovulation sticks, which might not seem crazy to the average person, but when you’re in the middle of this madness, not knowing when you’re ovulating is like not knowing where your cell phone is.
And that was the idea. We wanted to lose ourselves for a while. We wanted to just have sex. Every day, you know, just in case. But even so, it was fun again, and that’s how everyone says it finally worked for somebody they know, or somebody somebody they know knows.
To continue reading:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/09/16/o.trying.to.conceive/index.html
I have been where this author is. My husband and I tried for two years without help and another year with as much help as we could afford, and never got pregnant. We started trying 6 months after we got married. Six weeks after our eighth anniversary I got pregnant by chance – we were sure it would never happen.
My beautiful, precious miracle is sleeping in his swing on the other side of the room, but the scars of infertility still run deep. I am one of the lucky ones who “beat” infertility, but it is still a huge part of who I am and will always affect who I am as a wife and mother.
Lets see, you did get pregnant once and you did something because you thought the baby wasn’t just right. I assume you aborted the baby based on what you said and now you want another. If there is a God and I believe there is, I wouldn’t give you another one after getting rid of the “defective” one.
Hmm, maybe that’s whats happening.
I am a nurse in the Newborn Intensive care and I see so many cases where women have not listened to their bodies and continued time and time again to have their own biological baby. What invariably happens is that the pregnancy can not be maintained and they have very premature, sick babies that go through hell for their parents “miracle”. I have seen so many babies that don’t have anyone to care for them. Why not adopt? God places an abundance of babies, sweet innocent precious babies on this planet for a couple to parent. Being a parent starts when you actually have to care for that human being 24/7 for 18 years. Not 9 months in the womb.
i didn’t really notice the part in the article where she thought the first baby was ‘defective’. it sounded more to me like she changed her mind & railroaded her husband into helping her kill the baby because she ‘wasn’t ready’. i was similarly railroaded when i was younger & foolish & got my girlfriend pregnant. i was terrified, but i made the decision to ‘step up to the plate’ and endure the consequences. She, on the other hand, reminded me of her ‘right’ and ‘choice’, and told me that it wasn’t my decision and aborted anyway …
i realised that day that “pro-choice” means choice for one, no choice for two.
Hey, Poe —
I intended to write an enraged response about what your comment related to how this was about you, and your experience during your youth. But instead, hear me out. I am the husband. I’m the one who held my crying wife night after night after we learned that our unborn infant had 1/2 a heart, a malformed head, and had barely any chance of making it to term (or living more than a few days if it did). I’m the one who spent thousands tracking specialists and doing everything we could to keep that dream alive. And I’m the one helping her suffer through this agony of trying, and trying to protect her from the comments of people like you — who may mean well, but may also be accidentally cruel.
I’m sorry you were “railroaded” into giving up something you wanted. Seriously. But that never happened here. I made the call because she was terrified. I drove her to the doctor. I cried with her for weeks. We await, with agony and anticipation, the day that we be fortunate enough to have the choice you were able to have many year’s back.
That’s all. I hope things get better for you, and I’m glad things are good for you now.
I personally have experienced the agony that goes along with experiencing fertility issues. Sometimes you feel like if you don’t laugh all you will do is cry. I am thankful I am able to help couples conceive now because like Cindy, it can take over your life and be a contributing factor to everything you do or plan. It feels like you think about it with every breath and if sometimes if you don’t laugh, all it seems like you are doing is crying. I hope all of you find the right program for you.