A Story of Infertility: A Childless Ending

This wasn’t the way I had envisioned my story ending.

I was just six years old when one of my fallopian tubes became entangled in itself and turned gangrene. I was too young then to understand what it meant or to even care.

I was eighteen years old when a cyst burst on my one remaining ovary and fallopian tube and it had to be removed. I was still too young to understand how much that would affect my future but old enough to know that things had changed drastically with my body. 

Fast forward a few years when we finally picked our first egg donor. The excitement yet nervousness that I felt was unforgettable and I couldn’t believe that we were actually doing it. We had taken a major step in our process and it felt like we had gone from baby steps to this huge milestone in a matter of seconds when really it had been a long few months.

I had no idea what to expect with IVF but I remember wanting to tell the world what we were doing and why. I wanted people to know that not everyone’s story to parenthood was the same, I wanted people to listen. 

I got pregnant the first transfer and I remember feeling so lucky and grateful that it had worked. We shared the news with everyone and made plans for nurseries and themed baby showers. 

It never once crossed my mind that I could lose my baby.

I miscarried on Christmas Eve at 8 weeks.

We tried again six more times. Four pregnancies, two donors, several embryos and all we were left with was exhaustion and heartache (and a lot of IVF weight gain). 

I remember asking myself out loud after the third loss when enough was enough and hearing this voice in my head say “You’ll just know”.

After our second loss, I started to feel it; the exhaustion I had read so much about. It was emotionally, mentally and physically draining but I kept going because I wanted a baby. I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to be pregnant and that’s all that mattered to me. Infertility had consumed my every thought and not much else mattered.

After my last loss, I knew. 

My heart had been absolutely shattered for the last time and I just felt so certain that I couldn’t do another round of IVF. 

Life feels so empty now. It feels like you’re putting together a puzzle and that one last piece goes missing and no matter how hard you look for it, it just isn’t there. So you accept that your puzzle will forever be unfinished. 

This wasn’t the life we had envisioned but it’s the life we had to choose for ourselves.