I will never forget the year 2017.
The year I lost the most important person in my life, my father, and the year I heard, for the very first time, YOU ARE INFERTILE.
The year my existence was reduced to only one label, “being infertile” and it continued that way until 2021. 4 long years in which my very being was questioned a thousand times; my life was filled with grief, misunderstanding, and there was nothing I could do to find comfort.
Even though today I get to celebrate a rainbow that is almost turning one, I can’t help but remember the past failures. My identity got dissolved in this powerful knowledge and all I could relate to was “I am not a mother.” The state of affairs in the struggle was diminished to countless tears that I have never been able to recover from. Infertility is a sneaky bastard that not only pathologizes your reproductive system but also the torment and agony of having unsung lullabies.
My story starts with one clinic, big important name, one doctor from an extensive group, and the first failure. IVF 1 left us with a lot of questions, confusion and zero embryos.
The second clinic was the host of our next 3 IVF procedures; this doctor brought understanding, hope, warmth, and three viable embryos. One didn’t want to stick around and the other two ended up in a miscarriage. Two years have passed with countless injections and we were still empty-handed. The pain and grief came to stay; and stayed to what I felt was perpetual.
The procedures, surgeries, failures, and shots were not nearly as painful as people’s words were. These words would perpetuate the agony and cause an emotional injury which, I found, impossible to recover from.
You see, people get very uncomfortable when you speak about pain, but are completely oblivious that their words are a big part of the discourse.
“When the time is right you will get pregnant”
“Relax, it’ll happen when you relax”
“Thank God you lost your baby at 7 weeks; it could’ve been worse”
“I have a friend who had a cousin that did IVF 7 times but got pregnant naturally eventually, you just have to quit”
“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing by pushing something that, for a reason, is not happening?”
There is an active exercise to forgive and forget but I can’t help it and still be bitter about it.
After 4 IVFs, we finally made the decision to change clinics once again. In here, we finally felt that we moved away from this rigid and narrowed diagnosis and we were able to be seen as individuals struggling with a monster instead of positioning the problem in us. Because, yes, infertility is the monster of darkness and you are in an abusive relationship with it.
For four years, and still from time to time, I feel like I am screaming but it feels like I am screaming under water; nobody is there and I just can’t seem to be saved.
I truly find strength in the validation from reading other’s people stories. It is in the collective pain that I see myself better and with more clarity.
Keep talking about it,
Tell me more,
Gracias totales,
Valeria Lindenfeld.
