The Bright Side of Waiting to Match

When we were struggling with infertility, the two-week wait (TTW) felt like an excruciatingly long time to find out if your life was about to change forever. We’d hit that tiny window for conception around ovulation with all the hope and expectation in the world. At least during the fertile period, there was something you could do to feel like you’re being proactive about the process of having a baby. At this point, I was peeing on those ovulation sticks two to three times a day to make sure I didn’t miss the LH Surge which presented itself as either a thick pink line or a static smiley face on the digital testers. Each time I’d see that pink line or smiley face, part of me would pretend that I was looking at a positive pregnancy test. I’d think, “This is how it’s going to look…Maybe if I pretend hard enough and throw enough “good juju” at these ovulation tests during my fertile period, it will manifest as a pregnancy.” Long story short, that didn’t work despite how hard I willed it to.

Soon enough the fertile period would end and we’d enter the two-week wait. Those two weeks would always be grueling. Every little twitch or cramp or “tugging” feeling I’d feel in my uterus seemed like a sign of something growing inside me. I’d convince myself during every wait that that was the month. I could feel it. Somehow, something would always feel different and I’d be certain. I would track my Basal Temperature on an app on my phone that I’d convince myself was a great way of understanding my body regardless of the outcome (yeah right…I have since “lost” this thermometer and am not too worried about the exact date my period shows up anymore). I also had an app on my phone that detailed the stages of conception through to pregnancy so that I could visualize that my egg had split into a blastocyst, then a zygote, then an embryo throughout the wait—whatever gets ya through, right? And then, inevitably, I’d get to 10 days past ovulation (DPO) and figure, “Well now is the time to start peeing on sticks again!” Every month I would think I could hold out until my “missed period” to check, but I don’t think I ever once made it that long. I just kept hoping that every day I tested that I would be able to see more and more of a faint line until I missed my period. There were a couple times when I did some real mental trickery and almost thought I could see something. I’d hold it up to a window or shine a flashlight behind the little screen to see if there was any sign of what I was looking for. I was fooled by a faint evaporation line more times than I’d like to admit. I’d sit on the bathroom floor like a crazy person searching for something so desperately that wasn’t there. I’d even periodically go back to the test in the trash hours later and check again, so sure that this time if I looked more critically that I might see something. It’s amazing the things you can convince yourself of when you want something so badly that you have very little control over.

And then my period would come and the cycle would begin all over again--the amping up, the optimism, the insanity, the denial, the forfeit, and finally the disappointment. It’s friggin’ exhausting. Not to mention throughout all of this, people like to tell you, “no to stress”. Yeah right.

What does this have to do with the adoption wait? The wait that can take months or sometimes years? How could this possibly be better than two weeks you might ask? Well, in a lot of ways, yeah, it sucks and it’s hard not knowing when you might get that call. BUT when you’re trying to conceive naturally on your own, you only get one chance a month to successfully conceive and then only a handful of days when you think there could be a chance it was successful. When you’re waiting for a match call in an adoption, it could literally come at ANY time. There isn’t a set time of the month when you have a chance and then you have to start from scratch again. You could go active and get a call the next day. You could go active and get a call a month or two later, and it’s not in anyway dependent on your period. In a way I find this so liberating. At this point, it’s out of my hands. I don’t have to blame myself or put pressure on myself to create a pregnancy. And I find that the process includes my husband much more than I did when I was curled up with all these negative tests quietly crying on the bathroom floor. It’s like your part of a team suddenly—you, your partner, the agency (if you’re using one), the birth mom, your family and friends/support systems. Just knowing that at any moment, your life could change is such a great feeling. For the first time since our infertility began, I feel a sense of surrender to the process of becoming a parent. It’s out of my control (which is hard in some ways as I am a control freak) but it is also so freeing to know that I’ve done everything I can already and I can finally just let go and let it come to me. And to know that it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” also helps immensely. It’s cool to think I could be at the grocery store or driving around or with family or friends when we get the call and that an ordinary moment could become so extraordinary and memorable. If anyone reading this has already been matched, I’d love to hear your stories about where you were or what you were doing!

So hopefully thinking of it this way helps some of you who are in the thick of the wait with me right now.

Goodbye Fallopian Tubes, Hello Adoption!

We began trying to start a family the “old fashioned way” around November of 2017. When we decided that we were ready to be parents, I ceremoniously threw away my birth control pills and invested in a basal thermometer so that I could better understand my cycle. There’s a certain thrill to knowing that any month could be the month that your life will change forever, but after a few months of build up and let down, it gets old pretty quick...and you begin to feel like a crazy person. The excitement quickly turned to anxiety when my period would show up month after month (often after peeing on a small fortune of pregnancy tests because I couldn’t just wait for my damn period). Everyone kept telling me the same thing, “Just relax, it’ll happen,” “Once you stop trying, that’s when it happens!” “You’re stressing too much, that’s why you’re not getting pregnant.” But let me tell you, the last thing you want to hear when you're not falling pregnant is that it’s your fault for stressing so much. As much as you may try to “let go and surrender” to the universe’s infinite wisdom, those thoughts creep in whenever there’s a dull moment. And feeling guilty about feeling your feelings is of no additional help either. So after trying for about 11 months, I decided to get myself checked out at the doctor. They started out with some blood work which all came back normal. Then they scheduled me for a transvaginal ultrasound which basically feels like an alien probe that allows you to see everything going on in your uterus. If that went well, they would do an HSG test.

It did not go well. Within seconds, the x-ray tech was astonished to find that I had a huge mass that they guessed to be an ovarian cyst. They estimated that it was about 15cm around. I was shocked. I had no idea that anything like that was going on inside of me. I thought for sure that everything was normal, and then suddenly everything changed. They got me in to see a doctor right away and he told me that I would need surgery as soon as we could schedule it in case it erupted or twisted. I felt so betrayed by my body. I’ve had Crohn’s Disease since I was a little kid, but I always felt like my reproductive system was solid. I've always had pretty predictable periods and nothing out of the ordinary had ever really happened in that neck of the woods aside from an abnormal pap about 10 years ago. And then suddenly, I was at risk of losing a whole ovary. They assured me that having only one ovary did not greatly affect my chances of conceiving and that once the surgery was finished, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

In the coming days, after telling my friends and family what was going on, I heard so many anecdotal stories about people they knew who had a cyst and/or ovary removed but then got pregnant the next month. Everyone was trying to make me feel better, but coming to terms with losing a piece of me was a mental struggle. But eventually, I accepted it and decided that losing one ovary probably wasn’t that big a deal.

Flash forward a month and half to my surgery day. We were there for 5 hours before they’re able to get me in for the operation which only furthered my anxiety and anticipation, but my parents and husband, Steven, were all there to support me which helped. I don’t remember much after they rolled me into the room, but as I groggily came to, I remember my doctor saying something along the lines of, “It wasn’t a cyst.... Fallopian Tubes.... You can still do IVF…” I must have thought I was dreaming or didn’t fully understand, because I remember contently agreeing before passing out again. When I woke up, it was to my family putting on their most reassuring faces. They told me that what they thought was a cyst was actually my inflamed Fallopian Tubes. They had become engorged and fused together in the center of my pelvis and there was a lot of scar tissue. All they could do was separate them and puzzle them back into place, but I was told I’d need another surgery to remove them completely. That was huge blow. Suddenly any chance I thought I had to conceive had been sucked out the window in one incomprehensible moment.

“IVF is your only option…” It rang in my head over and over for days. And for a while, I figured, “Well, this is it. This is how we’ll have to start our family.” For the months that followed, I assumed this would be our path, but I was never excited about it or motivated about the process. All I could think about was the medical aspect. All the additional stuff I’d have to put my body through (after yet another surgery and recovery period). And after all that time and emotional and financial investment, it’s not even guaranteed that it would work. I lost my excitement for having a child. I lost any will to progress in the process. Everything seemed so uncertain and unforgiving. So many of my friends and relatives were getting pregnant and having children in that year that it hurt to even go on Facebook most days. There were bump updates, birth updates, gender reveals, etc. and I felt more and more empty inside every day. I wondered if I even still wanted kids, because all that joy and excitement I once felt had totally vanished.

But then one day, I decided to watch a documentary about IVF as a way to prepare myself for potentially might come next. It was a hard watch. The couple tried and it failed IVF so many times, it was heart wrenching. But towards the end of the film, it featured one couple who decided to adopt a newborn baby and my heart cracked open. I started crying uncontrollably when I saw this family form out of adoption and it was so beautiful. I had never thought about adoption seriously, but in that moment it felt like the exact right thing to do to grow our family. Ever since that moment, I have never been more sure of the way that we will come to be parents. I’ve felt that sense of excitement and anticipation all over again in a completely new and novel way that I never thought possible. Knowing that it is just a matter of time—not if, but when—has given me that sense of calm that people kept urging me to feel when we were trying to conceive biologically. It’s truly a wonderful feeling when you know your baby is out there somewhere, you just haven’t met them yet. It’s just a little extra adventure!

#adoption #infertility #nobumpstillpumped #paperpregnant #adoptionjourney #IVF #family