Unexplained Infertility
I remember laying on my back on the exam table while the doctor reviewed the results of my HSG. For those who are fortunate enough to not know what that is (because you never needed one), it’s a hysterosalpingogram which is the test they use to see if your fallopian tubes are blocked. This was the last big test they could do to see if there was an explanation for why we weren’t able to conceive. Part of me was panicked that the results would show something was actually wrong, the other part of me was worried something wouldn’t be wrong. I asked the doctor if it was better to have something wrong because then you have a path forward or if it was better for everything to be fine. I distinctly recall her telling me it was better if everything was fine and clear/not blocked. Fast forward a year and I’ve had some time to think about that response. From a medical perspective it is better if everything is clear. From an emotional perspective, it sucks. Like it really sucks. When nothing is wrong…what’s the solution? When there are no problems, how do you move forward? It makes every month’s emotional cycle worse when technically you could get pregnant.
I haven’t wanted to play the comparison game and say that my situation is worse then someone elses, so I have kind of ignored the added pain of the ‘not knowing.’ It wasn’t until I listened to a podcast episode of ‘As A Woman’ by Dr. Natalie Crawford on unexplained fertility that I started to understand how much more emotionally difficult it is to have this diagnosis. It was really the first time that I let myself sit in the emotional complexity of what it means to not know what’s wrong with you.
One of the things that unexplained infertility robs you of is time. See, technically nothing is wrong with you so there will always be a smidgen of hope in your brain that ‘this might be the month’ because it COULD happen. And so I did that, month after month after month. Until before I knew it, 6 years had gone by. If, 6 years ago someone would have said ‘sorry there’s no sperm’ or ‘ya, you have an inhospitable environment’ or ‘you don’t ovulate’ or any of the other myriad of things that causes trouble conceiving, I like to think we would have saved a lot of time thinking that next month it might happen. At a minimum, with a more specific problem to solve maybe we would have been more aggressive with ART (assisted reproductive technologies). Hindsight is 20/20 right?
If you’ve ever been in the position of not knowing what is wrong with you but KNOWING there is something medically wrong with you, you know what I’m talking about. You spend HOURS researching online, listening to podcasts and trying to figure out if someone elses symptoms are similar to yours. I tried a lot of the supplements and therapies that people recommended helped them with becoming pregnant. But with unexplained infertility, there’s no way to really know if what worked for them will work for you because we don’t know what problem we’re trying to solve.
If you ever find yourself about to say a sentence that starts with ‘At least you…’ it’s probably better to just keep that thought to yourself. The ‘at least you…’ comments can be very triggering. ‘At least you are young’ ‘at least you’re able to adopt’ ‘at least you know you know God has a plan’. I know those are hurtful and I’ve had to stop myself from thinking them when it comes to people’s diagnosis with infertility. ‘At least you know what’s wrong’ has come to my mind many many times while talking to other couples with infertility frustrations. All I know is my own mindset. And in my mind, with my experiences and all the things that make me who I am, I think it would be better to know what is wrong then to have it be a big question mark. But when you say ‘at least you know what’s wrong’ it shows how I think their story is easier then mine. It minimizes their pain and their story. It makes it seem that mine is worse, because in my mind IT IS worse. But it’s not worse to them. They haven’t experienced what I have. They only have their experiences. Using phrases like ‘at least you…’ makes you sound mean and condescending to the other persons situation. At least that’s my view of it. And even knowing that I find myself thinking it about other people. Geesh Emma!
If you are diagnosed with Unexplained Infertility…I get it. It sucks.
