Guest Post by Meagan G.
I am THAT girl your warn your daughters about.
“Don’t be like Meagan and get pregnant during spring break!”
Yes, I am she: that girl.
My high school boyfriend and I went away with sixty of our “closest friends” (what were my parents THINKING!?). After a week of utter debauchery under the Florida sun, we came home with more than a great tan. We had only lost our virginity to each other just a month before… how was this even possible? I remember thinking, “I must be a fertile Myrtle… I better be careful!”
And I was. Not one scare in seven years.
When I got married in October 2010, I thought, “I better be careful, don’t wanna get pregnant too soon!” If I knew then what I know now. The first few months of “trying” seemed easy enough. My period was regular and I always had cramping and spotting near ovulation, so I knew when to do the deed. Oh, and we had newlywed fever – aka, humping like rabbits on a daily basis. But month after month passed with no luck.
I bought a basal body temperature thermometer. I bought ovulation predictor kits. I joined a site to track my cycles and chart my symptoms. This all seemed so ridiculous at first, after all- I had once managed to get pregnant by accident – with condoms, no less! How hard could this really be?
My girlfriends and I all got married within a year of each other. Like clockwork, we all started talking about getting pregnant around the same time, too. Now, I’m the only one left without a new baby. Everyone keeps asking, “When are you going to start trying? Your daughter needs a sibling!”
Little do they know I’ve been trying all along.
A little part of me dies inside every month with the arrival of Aunt Flo. Or when I look at my friends babies. Or when my daughter asks me when she’s going to get to be a big sister.
I never thought it would be this hard and keeping my struggle to myself has been a private hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Admittedly, it’s a struggle that I’ve chosen to keep private. For some reason, I see my inability to procreate as a shameful character defect. If women were created to make babies and I can’t, then what does that say about me as a woman? If Halle Berry can get pregnant at 46 years old, why can’t I, at 28?
I’m trying to separate myself from such negative thinking and hoping to share the next part of my journey with a group of people that I’ve been too scared to openly identify with. Not because I’m ashamed of them, but because if I associate with them, identify with infertility, it becomes real.
Newsflash, Meagan: it is real.
I don’t know much yet, but I do know that I need people in my life to whom I can vent my frustrations and fears, my dreams and hopes, without judgement or the de facto “Relax it will happen” well-intentioned but painful piece of advice. (I’d like to ban “just relax!” from the English language altogether.)
In the short time I’ve spent scouring the internet for online support groups, I know my place is here. I’m struggling with infertility, but I refuse to do it in silence anymore. I am going to struggle, cry, hope, and dream out loud from now on. Just like any other disease, this is real – and I want to be heard.
Postscript:
After meeting with a reproductive endocrinologist in May 2013 and a hysterosalpingogram, we scheduled an IUI for July of that year. In June, the fertility drugs arrived and found a home in our fridge. That month, my husband and I engaged in the most “on-top” non-baby making lovemaking we had had in years! In the back of my mind I thought, “We’re making a baby in July…” so why not give into sex with abandon?
And then. I got pregnant. Unassisted. We welcomed a baby girl in February. My journey took two years and three months. But without this struggle, I never would’ve met the beautiful women who were my shoulders, my anchors, my confidantes, and my friends through it all – who cried with my defeats and rejoiced in my victories.
I was never alone because of this community. This beautiful community.
About the Author
Meagan is a 28-year old wife and mother who has experienced the pain and struggle of secondary infertility. After two unsuccessful years of trying to conceive naturally, a laparoscopic surgery to remove a fallopian cyst, and an OBGYN who insisted that she just needed to relax, Meagan took the fertility bull by the balls to make her dreams of becoming a mother again a reality, this time with the help of an RE. She infrequently dabbles in writing, cooking, and DIY’ing.
