She Has That “Fertile Feeling”
A friend of mine once told me that she only found out at six weeks that she was pregnant because her wine started to taste funny. Mind you, she had gone off the pill a while before. She just hadn’t really thought she’d get pregnant so soon.
As a Type A control freak, it’s unimaginable to me that someone can have such a laid-back attitude to conception. That doesn’t even have to do with the fact that it’s taken me over a decade to get pregnant through IVF. When I decided to start trying to conceive all those years ago, the first thing I did was get on my bike and cycle to the pharmacy to get some folic acid. When I got home, I racked my brain to see what else I should be doing now to get pregnant (beyond the obvious of course).
I was so used to the notion that if I wanted something, I just needed to work hard to get it, and I was going to apply that same approach to conception. My friend’s strategy of just letting life take its course was completely foreign to me. Yet as my own fertility journey progressed over the years, I’ve been thinking about her story a lot. Because all the doing, all the trying so hard, all the timed intercourse and taking supplements and tracking my cycle – it really drained me. It took the spark out of the magical process that is two people coming together in their love for each other to have a child.
I was even a bit relieved when we first started fertility treatment. Finally, we could take the baby-making part out of the bedroom and rediscover the intimacy that had once existed between us. I thought I could stop working so hard and let science take over. It was a hard pill to swallow, the fact that I couldn’t conceive without medical assistance, but it also felt like I just had to get over my pride and accept that this was going to be our only shot at having a child.
Yet fertility treatment was obviously a whole new ballgame. Now there were doctors, dark procedure rooms and uncomfortable internal exams to contend with – while all the while I felt like a small cog in a huge baby-making factory. The doctors were nice, but they always seemed pressed for time. It was more doing than before, with appointments at fixed points in my cycle and hormones to be taken and follicles and sperm counts to be tracked.
After a year, I was completely over it. If this was the way it was going to be, I didn’t want to try any longer. I resigned to just let nature take its course – whatever that course might be. That is when doing slowly started to shift towards being. I started hosting women’s groups, including one for women facing unwanted childlessness, to slow down in the company of others. It was so healing to create a space where we could just share our stories and be heard – without anyone trying to fix us.
In the end, I did end up going back into treatment – but I brought with me a whole new attitude. As counterintuitive as it might seem, I realized I could not go in again with the goal of doing everything I could to get pregnant. I had come to accept that I ultimately had no control over that outcome. Instead, I went in with the understanding that the only thing I did have control over was how well I would take care of myself in the process. So, I made my own well-being my ultimate goal.
What that means is different for everyone of course. In my case, it meant I stopped obsessing over my diet and supplements. I had a glass of wine every now and then. I stopped taking pregnancy tests obsessively and I learned to embrace the fear of failure and the uncertainty of not knowing during the dreaded two-week-wait. I learned to surrender.
I also found out that if I spoke up about my needs and boundaries in the hospital, so much more was possible than I’d ever imagined. I could get longer appointment slots so that there was enough time for me to relax before every procedure, I learned there were different speculum sizes and that I could ask for a smaller size if that was more comfortable for me. I also made it a habit of inserting Wanda or the speculum myself to take back a bit of control (as you can never get fully rid of that control freak…)
The thing that was most special to me is that I even found a way to bring a bit of magic back in the procedure room. I decided I didn’t care for all that doctor talk – I wanted our transfers to be profound moments that I shared with my partner in silence.
Two years ago, I was lucky enough to get pregnant through IVF. Now that my husband and I are trying again for a second, I again turn back to all the lessons that I learned in the past. It has helped me create some very dear memories, such as our last embryo transfer. I spent the morning in the bathtub, scrolling through Spotify to find the song that I wanted to be listening to the moment that our baby entered my body. I wound up picking an instrumental song that conveyed all the hope and beauty I wished for in that moment.
It was a bit scary to ask my doctor whether we could put on some music – but she was pleasantly surprised by my suggestion. She also allowed me a couple of minutes to relax and connect to my body before she started the transfer. My husband turned on the music and we locked eyes throughout the procedure. I cried with the overwhelm of it all.
The doctors and nurses were touched by it all. ‘We should do this during every procedure’, one of them remarked afterwards, ‘music makes everything so serene. It even calmed US down.’ My husband and I left the procedure room all giddy. We stood in the hallway, with big grins on our faces, united in our emotion. We’d taken back the moment.
When I listen to that song now, it still brings tears to my eyes. I imagine that, if this transfer turns out a success, this will be the song that we’ll listen to when I bring our child into the world. But most of all, I savor the fact that we managed to bring some beauty and connection back into our lives.
About the Author:
It took over a decade for Françoise and her partner Remigius to conceive their first child Benjamin through IVF. They are currently trying for a little brother or sister. The journey has been such a life-changing one that Françoise quit her job at a prestigious international affairs think tank so that she could dedicate all her time to sharing the lessons she has learned along the way with others. She now works as a researcher, podcast host and meditation teacher specialized in (in)fertility and mindfulness. You can find out more about her work at www.thatfertilefeeling.com