I Get To Have To
IVF. Oof.
After 2.5 years of actively trying (and failing), we were finally faced with this next step. A year earlier in one of my therapy sessions where we were discussing our infertility struggles, my therapist asked me if we were open to the idea of pursuing IVF, and I immediately shut it down with a firm “absolutely not.” She looked at me somewhat surprised, and I, too, found myself quite taken aback by my knee-jerk response. It was a perfectly fair question considering our many attempts with various medications, three failed IUI’s, and two naturally-conceived miscarriages. But for some reason, I found just the thought of IVF absurd and promptly dismissed it. And after unpacking that with myself and with my therapist, I think it was because a part of me felt that by pursuing IVF, I was giving up—having to admit that my body had failed me…failed us…and we truly could not make this happen on our own.
And when I say “giving up,” it sounds silly considering the act of pursuing IVF in and of itself means quite the opposite. I guess what I mean is that it felt like I was having to give up this idea of what I thought our path to parenthood would look like…my dream of how we would expand our family and all that goes with it would be just that…a dream. It was a reality that I was struggling to accept. More than struggling if I’m being honest. It was yet another thing I had to grieve in this journey to motherhood, and as it tends to do, with that grief came so. much. anger.
I had been grappling with all of these feelings for weeks, trying (and failing) to pinpoint the axis of all of these emotions I was experiencing enough to articulate them. It made me begin to wonder if I really had any reason to be this upset. I mean, we were fortunate enough to have made and saved quite a bit of money the past year to where we could afford this option. Aside from the fertility issues, I was in good health and a good candidate for IVF. And although being unemployed is normally not ideal, for our situation it allowed me the time to actually relax my mind and my body (for the first time in a very long time) and the space to take on this effort fully. Then one night I was having an especially emotional moment while discussing this ordeal with my husband, and it just came out: “I’m so incredibly grateful that we get to do this…but I’m so fucking angry that we have to.”
And that was it. That one sentence perfectly encapsulated every emotion that I’ve felt throughout this entire journey and why I was resisting this next step so hard. Then the guilt comes—guilt over the fact that we have the opportunity and privilege of this option when it’s so far out of reach for so many, and yet…I’m still furious that this is our circumstance. But then I’m reminded that as humans we are a spectrum of emotions that can and do coexist: we can be sad and also laugh…we can grieve and also have hope…we can be angry and also be grateful. We must.
I don’t subscribe to the sentiment that time heals all wounds, but I do believe it gives us perspective. Now that I’ve had time to process this next step and move through the anger, I’m ready to take it. And I’m going to take the advice of the ever-enlightening Elyse Myers and her fresh take on the Nike slogan: “Just do it scared. Just do it anxious. Just do it overwhelmed.” I am going to just do it angry…and that’s ok. Because all that matters is that I’m going to do it. For myself. For my family. For this little life that deserves to be fought for. And dammit…fight I will.
