The Irony of Pregnancy After IF

We all begin this journey with the same end in mind: a baby. We want to add to our family, to be parents. For some of us, though, there comes a point in time where the goal seems to shift. Perhaps because the elusive endpoint seems so impossible to achieve. Somewhere along the line, the goal of parenthood shrinks and we focus on the short-term: getting pregnant. The battle for parenthood becomes a personal vendetta against infertility. The desire to raise a child is still there -- but even more so is the desire to WIN, to not let IF beat us. Ask me two months ago what I wanted more than anything in the world, and I would have told you it was to be pregnant.

But (and here is where some of you may want to ship me off into the IF underworld), now that I'm here, there's a part of me that wonders if it was worth it. Not the baby part -- like I said, that's the ultimate goal, and I KNOW that will be worth it in the end, no question. But was my focus on being pregnant, on carrying this child myself, really worth all the heartache we endured to get here? In the past 8 years we've spent more money on treatments than we would have on adoption. Certainly we've spent just as much time planning (and mourning) and worrying over cycles than we would have on paperwork and homestudies. And in the end, there are still no guarantees that come January I'll be left holding anything at all.

There's this myth out there that, once infertility is conquered, we should be utterly grateful to be pregnant. And I am, don't get me wrong. If everything works out, and a live baby results from this, I will be the most grateful person on the planet. But, perhaps my expectations were skewed. Eight years of planning for a pregnancy can do that to you. You see, I've discovered that I'm not such a fan of pregnancy.

It may seem a bit pre-emptive to say that, being still in the first trimester, and I'm not ruling out the possibility that I may yet turn into a glowing, joyful, momma-to-be. But, so far, that is SO not the case. I feel wretched, and have for at least a month. I no longer have the energy to complete the most basic of tasks, I hate food for the first time in my life, I can't sleep more than a few hours at a time, and I'm gassy and nauseous and generally uncomfortable 24 hours of the day. And those are just the physical symptoms. There's also the mind-numbing anxiety, the inability to pee without having a heart-hammering psychological meltdown, the sheer terror that I might lose this baby, too. In a word, pregnancy SUCKS.***

I didn't expect to feel this way. Yes, I KNEW that pregnancy wasn't easy. I KNEW that pregnancy after infertility, and especially after loss, would be even more difficult. What I didn't realize was that I would start to question whether or not I would be willing to do this again. Because, right now, I seriously wonder. Perhaps in time I'll discover I love being pregnant. Perhaps when my baby is born I'll be willing to do anything to have another one. But right now -- I just don't know. If, God forbid, something happens, I don't know if I have it in me to do this to myself again. I'm not saying that adoption is the easy way out -- it's not, and it brings with it a whole different set of emotions and difficulties to handle. What I am saying is that, somewhere along the way, I lost sight of the goal. I became so focused on getting pregnant that I forgot that there was an end to all this madness -- being someone's mom. And, having done everything we've done to get here, while still being thrilled to be pregnant, I just don't know if, given a chance to do-over, I would make the same choices all over again.

And that makes me feel like an outsider, both in the real "fertile" world we live in, and in my cyber-world of fellow infertile friends. I don't fit in with the other happy-pregnant-people, nor do I mesh with those still so desperately seeking to be where I am. Even in the club of "Holy shit, we've finally made it!" I find myself much more pessimistic than everyone else. I've finally got what I always wanted -- and it is nothing at all what I expected it to be.

***(I know that this not what those of you still in the trenches want to hear. I'm probably risking a great majority of my readership by posting this, but these thoughts are abundant in my head lately. And since I blog for myself first, I thought I'd put it down here in hopes that I can get it OUT of my head -- and maybe, just maybe, help one or two of you feel like you're not alone. )