The results are in….We are…

Pregnant!

I’m feeling slightly obligated to write this post. Not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I’ve been so open about our infertility and IVF journey up till now. I told the world about egg retrieval and then about transfer and then kind of went silent. We got the news about 2 weeks ago that our transfer had been successful. It took a little while for us to process what that meant. Both Drew and I felt…odd. We know how to handle the disappointment of failed cycles and month after month of disappointing news. But good news…well we haven’t had that before. It took a little bit of getting used to. I had a lot of feelings that I needed some time to process. Yes I’m excited. But I’m also not lucky enough to have a naïve pregnancy. I know that things go wrong all the time. I started to work through some of those feelings but I still wasn’t feeling quite right. Something was bubbling up and it took a bit to put words to it. Going to Montana and giving my brain some space to process always seems to help me. This weekend while enjoying nature and talking with Drew I finally put my finger on why I haven’t made a public announcement about being pregnant.

I’m afraid of people’s reaction.

I know that the majority of people will just be excited (which is great). But inevitably there will be some of those comments that are accidentally quite hurtful. I’ve written lots of posts in the past about how people are so uncomfortable with grief that they say silly things to make themselves feel better (while telling themselves they are actually comforting you!).

One of the big comments I used to get a LOT was something along the lines of “just keep trying, I know it will work out for you” or “God has a plan”. Here’s my fear; those same people are now going to say “See I told you there was a plan! I knew it would work out!” I don’t know how to react to that. I spent many years figuring out how to politely tell people to fuck off when they said hurtful things about infertility. How do I politely tell them that frankly no they DIDN’T know it would work out. No, they don’t get to say that. They don’t have the privilege to claim my pregnancy as their prophecy coming true. They aren’t the ones who spent tens of thousands of dollars and stabbed hundreds of needles into their body to get this far. See, I know that people aren’t trying to be mean or rude or arrogant. But that’s how it comes across. It didn’t feel loving at the time they said "I know it’ll work out” and it won’t feel loving when people say “I told you so.”

Something that’s occurring to me is that maybe a part of why I’m upset because when someone claims their prophecy is coming true, it feels like they are saying they played a part in getting pregnant. It takes away the massive effort that my family (who provided funding) and us went through to get where we are now.

Another thing I’m worried about is that not everyone’s story turns out the way that ours currently is. Lots of people go through IVF and have failed transfer cycles, little or no eggs retrieved and/or little or no embryos survive to be able to be transferred. When someone says “I knew it would work out for you!” how to do I gently remind them that the average says 30% of transfers fail? We got lucky but not everyone does. How do I provide education so they don’t hurt other people’s feelings while also encouraging their enthusiasum?

I’m cautious to put this post out, but I’m also excited. I’m nervous I’ll get negative reactions saying that I’m just playing the victim card. I have lots of new feelings and it feels very vulnerable to put them out there BUT we want to include everyone on the happy part of the journey too.

There’s a lot of unknowns right now. It’s unknown how people will respond. It’s unknown how I will respond to their response. It’s unknown how I will emotionally or physically feel during the next few weeks and months. But what we do know is that we are 5 weeks right now with a baby girl. The beautiful thing about IVF is that we know her gender and we know it’s a viable pregnancy due to genetic testing.

Our first ultrasound is on June 12th. Inland Imaging hasn’t let Drew come into any of my appointments so far, hopefully they let him come into this one!