Category Archives: Pregnancy After Infertility

Pregnant After Infertility: Out with the guilt and on with the symptoms!

25 Monday Jun 2018

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You know that guilt we carry around while going through infertility treatments? The part where we second guess each choice and worry that we’ve messed something up? I wrote about one of my guilt stricken moments a while back during who knows which round of IVF. That guilt doesn’t simply go away with a big fat positive (BFP), I think it just morphs into something new. Maybe even something similar to survivor guilt.

Let’s talk about that.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a woman who is pregnant after IVF express guilt over complaining about anything pregnancy related. Just the other day I was reading a post from a woman who was struggling with guilt because she felt bad over the fact that she wanted to complain about throwing up multiple times per day, everyday. Let me repeat that. This poor woman is vomiting her guts out repeatedly every freaking day, and she felt like she was being ungrateful if she let on that she wasn’t loving “puke fest 2018”. Wait, what?!

So I’m just going to say it. Just because we are pregnant after struggling long and hard with infertility, doesn’t mean that we should love pregnancy symptoms. And just because we don’t like nausea, vomiting, exhaustion, etc., does NOT mean that we are ungrateful to be pregnant. We are grateful. And we are so very sad and empathetic toward all the women continuing to fight the infertility battle.

But still, pregnancy symptoms are just as hard for us as they are for our fertile sisters. And they get to complain without the added guilt. In fact, they get sympathy for their symptoms. And so should we. Throwing up is not fun for anyone, regardless of how badly you wanted that baby or how long you tried.

It’s okay to not like this part. So let’s let the guilt go, ladies. You can be miserable during the first trimester, and any other part if it fits. You earned it. In fact, you went to hell and back to get here.

abdomen active activity belly button

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We spend so much time, effort, and money chasing that BFP that we sometimes begin to idealize what it will finally be like when we become pregnant. We paint this pretty picture in our minds filled with rainbows in the sky, glitter raining down upon us, our baby bumps growing round while the rest of our body  glows like a magical earth goddesses, while we hold picture perfect yoga poses, and lovingly chuckle at our partners as they struggle to assemble the perfect crib. Oh and we’re craving nothing but veggies and fruit.

Yeah, that’s probably not going to happen.

So when early pregnancy isn’t quite what you imagined it would be during the years you were trying to conceive, please don’t beat yourself up over it. Let the guilt go! You have the right to be heard and to feel what you feel. Guilt free. Yes, you definitely earned it.

Pregnant After Infertility: The first ultrasound

19 Tuesday Jun 2018

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Last week I had my first ultrasound just after 8 weeks. I was terrified. While I hadn’t had any cramping or bleeding, I simply couldn’t let myself off the hook. I mean, women have missed miscarriages right?!  Oh and if you are wondering, a missed miscarriage is when the baby stops growing but you don’t know it because you didn’t bleed or cramp. Since old habits die hard, I googled all the symptoms of missed miscarriages, like any good infertility patient.  Apparently, it might be a missed miscarriage if all of your pregnancy symptoms completely stop. Or you can still have all of your symptoms and still find out that you’ve had a missed miscarriage. Just lovely. My symptoms had decreased, but I guess it could happen either way.

So with trepidation, I went to my clinic and my husband met me there. I swear it was like I was approaching the stage for a big presentation or race. All eyes were on me. As I walked down the hall, every staff person stopped and smiled at me reassuringly, wishing me luck, but it almost looked like they were nervous too. My clinic is relatively small, I think, with only 2 RE’s and everyone discusses the cases together. Each nurse or tech has been involved with me multiple times over the past 5 rounds of IVF, 2 FETs, 3 ERAs, and lots of tests and procedures. They’ve all had a hand in my reproduction. Strange, but also oddly heart warming.

My RE did my ultrasound and right away he found one tiny baby. He quickly assured me that the baby was measuring right on time and had a heart beat. Relief flooded me. The nurse handed me tissue for my tears. Then my RE measured the heart rate and it was right on target at 155. More relief.

After we were done, each and every staff person, from my RE to the receptionist at the front desk, came and hugged me. There were cheers and tears. It had been a long road. And the caring support felt great.

So here we are. Pregnant with a singleton and off to a good start. But still I think about the worse case. Infertility seems to wire us to think this way, and it’s something I try to let go of. Still, I had heard from the grapevine that once you confirm a healthy heart beat in the ultrasound, the risk of miscarriage drops to 5%. I asked my RE to verify if that’s true. He said that at this point, 8 weeks, the risk drops to 10%, then once you still find that things are going well at 10 weeks the risk drops to 5%, then gets even lower at the end of the first trimester. So I guess I have a 90% comfort level right now. I was hoping to be 95% confident, and yes that extra 5% seems like a big deal.

When the anxiety comes up, I logically remind myself that my chances for a successful pregnancy are great. Sometimes I mindfully let the negative thoughts float past me. Acknowledging them, but simply letting them float by without judgment. Most of the time I can do this. My husband said he wished he could spray me with a “dumb spray”. I know it sounds bad, but his heart is in the right place. He wishes he could take the fear away and turn me into one of those blissfully naive women who don’t worry about early pregnancy and can enjoy it. He knows the toll infertility has had on me, and how hard it can be to let the fears go and celebrate the moment.

I think it gets a tiny bit easier each day. This time around I’m more prepared for how this works. I’m grateful to be pregnant after IVF and I’m trying my best to enjoy the moment. I still don’t feel particularly connected to this baby, as I have this lingering notion in my mind that my pregnancy isn’t secure until after the first trimester. I know that horrible losses occur after the first trimester, but I’m not allowing myself to go there.

bookI have a book called, “Spiritual Pregnancy” that interestingly was written by an couple who both happen to be OBGYNs. I find this book unique in that it is written from a spiritual perspective, but authored by MDs. Not to say that MDs can’t be spiritual, but it’s not often what you find in sterile, clinical settings. The book contains lots of meditative practices and journaling ideas for connecting with your growing baby, yoga poses to support the different stages of pregnancy, info on baby’s growth, as well as many other topics to support connection and a mindful pregnancy and birth. I think anyone who has a spiritual pull, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof, could enjoy this book. I started reading the beginning section for the first trimester, but I find myself not really engaging in reading much while I wait for the second trimester. I guess I’m still afraid to connect with the baby in case something goes wrong.  I suppose I have some reading to do.

The Liminal Space After A BFP

11 Monday Jun 2018

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It’s only been 3 weeks since finding out that my FET actually worked, but it feels like a lot longer. Since my initial HCG beta, I’ve had 2 more betas and each had doubled appropriately. Each beta brought temporary relief and renewed confidence. All in all, I’ve been maintaining a decent level of calm, right up until about 3 days ago. Since then I’ve been beating back that feeling that, I think, goes had in hand with pregnancy after infertility. It’s the feeling you get when you know just how fragile something is. When you know how easily it can be lost. And how frequently “bad things” happen. How I wish I could be blissfully naive.

When I see women posting pictures of positive pregnancy tests, as they announce to the world that they are having a baby, I cringe in silence and hope that they really do end up with that baby. Or I roll my eyes and spat out, “idiot!” You know, it depends on how my hormone cocktail is affecting my mood that day. The reality is that those of us who struggle with infertility have a deeper level of understanding about what all can go wrong. And that makes the early weeks, even months, of pregnancy after infertility a peculiar time.

I feel like I have to pause to state specifically how grateful I am to be pregnant at all after my FET. So let me be clear – I am grateful. I would rather be riding in this anxiety boat than preparing the ships for another turbulent round of IVF, no contest. We all work so hard to hopefully get here. But I do want to acknowledge the strange liminal space that comes after a big fat positive (BFP).

The psychological impact of infertility does not go away with a positive pregnancy test. Sometimes, it doesn’t even go away when you get the baby in your arms. Trauma, depression, sadness, anxiety, fear, anger, guilt – these emotions can be carried forward. Sometimes their faces changes, but in some ways they may go with you. At least for a while. This concept caught me completely off guard when I became pregnant after IVF 4 years ago. In fact, it wasn’t even until the second trimester that I even realized how numb and detached I felt. That’s never how I imagined I’d feel after trying so hard for so long to get pregnant. And I was too ashamed about that to tell anyone.

The problem was that no one talked about it. So that’s why I’m bringing it up, because I know my experience isn’t unique. The infertility community is a wonderful support resource. But it can be hard to share anxieties and fears with those who are still struggling to get their BFP. And rightly so – I get that. Assumptions of happiness also come from family and friends, sometimes from our partners too. But I think it’s important for women to know that it is normal to not feel ecstatic after a positive beta. You don’t have to feel guilty for that – we’ve felt guilty about enough crap, haven’t we?

So what can we do when we are standing at the threshold of pregnancy land but we still feel like an infertile imposter?

First and foremost, I think just knowing that these feeling can happen and are normal is a huge step. I was literally blindsided, and when I realized what was going on I wondered why no one talked about this. As a psychologist I’ve worked a lot with trauma survivors, and I realized that there’s an analogy there. When you take a person out of a traumatic situation, we all know that there is going to be carryover effects. For example, when a soldier comes home from war, we know that simply being home and no longer being shot at doesn’t make all of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) go away. Not by a long shot. I’m not saying that all women who go through infertility have PTSD, although some may. But, we can’t simply remove a woman from infertility and expect that she is going to be all smiles and have no remnants of the pain that she went through. Yet, a lot of people kind of expect her to.

When women talk about the unique experience of pregnancy after infertility – and not just the side with rainbows and kittens – we create awareness, normalize the whole continuum of the experience of infertility, and foster honest support. I’ve found some Facebook groups specifically geared toward pregnancy after IVF, but honestly they were harder to find than the infertility groups. I think these groups can be valuable since it provides a space for opening up about these feelings to women who can likely relate, without being insensitive to those who are still in the IVF trenches.

Lastly, I just want to say that we need to be kind to ourselves. That is true no matter where we are in this process, and it doesn’t end with a BFP. And this is particularly relevant to me today as I sit here anxiously awaiting my first ultrasound tomorrow. I’ve reluctantly analyzed every symptom in a futile effort to determine whether this pregnancy is still progressing – whether we’ll find a baby with a heart beat in there tomorrow. It doesn’t feel real. I don’t feel connected to this baby. I’m scared to, because what if… But I know that right now this is out of my hands. My body will do what it intuitively knows to do, and if this embryo is healthy then it will still be growing. If not, I will find a way to cope. I hope I don’t have to, but I will. If infertility has taught me anything, it’s how strong I am.