My fertility story

Posted on September 09, 2021 by Rituparna Ghosh, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

I had a plan, an idea of how my life would look like, get a job at 25, get married at 27, get a car at 28 a house at 29 and the first child at 30, second at 32, get back to work full throttle at 33 and be a CEO at 40. Did you laugh? Yes, I laughed too as I wrote it.

In all seriousness for the first few instances the plan worked, I got a job, I even convinced a poor bloke to marry me, managed to save enough for assets. Honestly, I felt pretty invincible, felt like I had conquered life. Then something unexpected happened, my 30th birthday came and went without any ‘Good news’. Life was moving away from the plan and I could do nothing to bring it back. And the reason for it was nothing else, no circumstances, no people but my own body. My own body refused to fall pregnant. For the first year, we were not worried, we had a lot going on, getting a mortgage, moving in. We moved into our own place just over two years after we got married, I was still on the trajectory, it was just taking a bit of time and I never lacked patience. But then, things sort of snow-balled.

‘So, when are we going to hear the news?’
‘You’ve been married for so long, what are you waiting for?’
‘A house is only a house if you have kids running around.’
‘It is because you work too hard.’
‘These things take time, take it easy, you are too obsessed’
‘Aren’t you worried at all?’

Wherever we went we’d be interrogated with questions or opinions. To this date, I don’t know if it was actually the case or it was because we were trying and failing but everywhere I went the conversation turned to conception and how important it was for me to procreate. For a while, it felt like every well-wisher was personally invested in us reproducing, but it was nothing compared to the pressure I was putting on myself! It seemed like everyone around us was falling pregnant. Soon another year passed and we decided we needed help, and so started the cycle of ovulation monitoring, having sex on the clock while fielding more direct and intrusive lines of questioning from friends and family. I was frustrated, angry and felt a bit betrayed that my own body was not following the plan. Every week there would be cutest announcements via dinners, calls, social media, while I would be looking desperately at my tests with a single line or stuffing myself with yam or wheatgrass hoping it’d get me lucky the next month. It was like the latest new app, which you could enter only with an invitation and no one was inviting me!

It was the second year of trying when we realised this wouldn’t happen the plain old way and we’d probably need intervention, so we started doing the rounds of fertility specialists and getting ourselves enlisted. By this time, I was so consumed by the whole idea of having a child that I was triggered by anything and everything, any critic or question aimed at unrelated topics like my work or even my choice of a series was enough to trigger me, I was plagued by this constant question of why me? Slowly my confidence crumbled around me, this was not the first adverse situation that I had faced in my life, but this was the first time things were not in my hand, I couldn’t come up with a step-by-step solution to it, nor could I work hard for it!

By the time the third year rolled in, things got a bit more serious. We started more invasive procedures, there was a world out there that we didn’t know anything about. You never think anything like this could happen to you. Anyone I spoke to had only kind words and advice, food-related, workout related, sleep-related, sex-related, God related, they were concerned and they wanted to help, but for a while, it sure felt like no one understood me. No one understood why it was difficult for me to go to baby showers even though I was happy for the pregnant moms. Nor could they comprehend my reluctance to hang around in kiddie birthday parties, something I would be the life of, earlier.

Slowly, yet steadily, I started shutting people out, stopped picking their calls, stopped meeting them and just locked myself up. The only outlet was the numerous ‘trying to conceive or TTC boards that I was part of. I talked to the nameless faceless people, deriving comfort from their stories, shutting out the only other person who was in this with me.

By the fourth year as we started talking about the likes of IVFs, we left our loving home which we’d built with so much love and affection and moved to a rented accommodation to be closer to our doctors. The good news was it was out of our hands, there was a twisted relief about not being forced to have sex on the clock or do a headstand for 15 mins after. The bad news was no one knew why we didn’t have a baby; it was named unexplained infertility. The worst news was there was no guarantee of its success, even after all this, after going through countless injections, medicines, monitoring we might still not conceive. We took things in our stride and went through the motions and the stick turned positive! If you felt relieved after reading that, I am sorry, because we lost junior at 6 weeks, he just never grew. Our trials were not done yet. So, from a week hoping for the ‘beta’ to rise and double, I moved to praying beta goes down quickly so that we can get on with our treatments. Between, relationships, fertility treatments and my work I was so desensitised that I didn’t even take time off to mourn junior. All he got was a short blog, that’s when I realised it had to change, that things had to change.

I was running for a while and it was time to stay put and face the truth. This might not happen, my dream of having a child (I wanted a baby since I was 10) might never succeed. Somewhere when I imagined the worst-case scenario, it didn’t look so bad. True I would be devastated if I could never be a mum, but I wasn’t exactly the repository of happiness now! Another good thing about the treatments was, now the pressure was off for a bit, the husband and I were talking again and together we decided on next steps, we came up with an exit plan. It took me a while to realise but eventually, I did, I needed to know when to walk away before this consumed anymore of my life. The hormones were playing havoc with me and my body, so we decided to give it another three attempts, I was 33, if, by the time I was 35 we still weren’t able to, we’d make our peace with just the two of us. It was one of the hardest decisions we’d to make, but we made it to claim some of our life back. I quit my job and made the treatments my primary role – I researched, learnt, spoke to countless women who’d been through it, I got down to the basics. I am still not sure what worked, was it because I was in a much better place mentally having realised the very worst won’t kill me or knowing that I’ve given it my 110%. It could simply be the medicines finally took pity on me and decided to work, we were pregnant with twins through our 3rd IVF cycle. We lost one along the way and one came prematurely, but that’s a story for another day. It has been six years, and this journey made me relook at a lot of things I take/took for granted in my life. To all of you who are struggling and feel like there is no end to it, I promise you, you are not alone. There are others who’re going through something similar. I promise you; you are enough, your body is enough. Take back control of your body, of your life at your own pace.