In Your Words, Susan

Sometimes, the best advice comes from those who have walked the same path. There’s a strong sense of understanding, and an immediate bond that’s felt when someone understands your feelings, purely from their own experience. This is why we’re launching “In Your Words” a place where you can offer advice, give support, share your feelings and frustrations – all in the hope that you’ll help someone else who is experiencing and feeling the same thing. In Your Words, Helen. We are the 1 in 6. The problem with infertility, besides being the most emotional, horrendous & turbulent thing I’ve ever gone through, is that hardly anyone talks about it. People don’t put on their pregnancy announcements that it took them four months, seven months, twelve months or they needed medication to conceive or they needed IUI or IVF or they’ve been on a journey for five years and still don’t have a precious baby in their arms. Our experience with infertility is short, so far, compared to other peoples and I completely admire those that keep pushing ahead and never give up on their dream. After a year I was ready to throw in the towel to try and salvage my mental health, my relationships that I was neglecting and to try and wade through all the shit, to find the person I was before infertility turned our world upside down and took a away a big chunk of “me”. You only ever seem to hear how people got pregnant on their first try or their “honeymoon” babies. Once you get past the first month of trying, the brag factor seems to disappear. This makes you feel that when you don’t get pregnant on the first try, you’re some massive failure because everyone else was able to or that is your perception, this was definitely mine. We started trying to get pregnant long before we got married. Month after month I sunk deeper and deeper into a hole. I got white girl wasted on our wedding day. I’m not normally a drinker; but I felt it was the only way I could forget, forget about the pain for just one day…. It worked fortunately and I was able to have the best time I’d had in months, because for a few hours I didn’t have to think about infertility. Five times over a twelve month period we got positive pregnancy tests before starting any intervention and we never made it to an ultrasound. So early of a loss, you don’t even get the dignity of calling it a miscarriage. I just had to carry on normally, like that tiny little blastocyst inside of me that tried so hard to stick, didn’t make it, but you pretend like nothing happened. You already had hopes and dreams for that little being as soon as you saw two lines on that stick. The self loathing of my own body was so deep. Why can’t I do the one thing the female body is made for? I became a shitty wife, friend, colleague, daughter and sister. I didn’t want to cook, clean, exercise or do anything except eat my feelings. I started forgetting important events, losing my things and just being generally scattered, which is completely not like me at all. My husband really picked up so much slack over the last year, I am so grateful he is so supportive and isn’t put off by my extreme emotions and mood swings. I’m sure this is not how he pictured his first few months of married life. Socializing also became something I dreaded, because so often we got asked about kids…. Or our lack of kids. I kind of cherished lockdowns because I didn’t have to face anyone or face the questions or comments. Pregnancy announcements became something I also dreaded. How can someone else’s happiness, become your absolute misery? Then you feel like a shit person/friend for feeling so terrible about someone else’s joy, which adds to the self-loathing. I felt humiliated, pitied and defective as people had to tip toe around me with their pregnancy announcements, trying not to hurt my feelings. I appreciated people were being sensitive and kind to us, but I also felt embarrassed at the same time. I also felt terrible people had that worry of feeling of guilt or upsetting us, when it was the happiest moment in their lives, I felt like I was tainting their moment. I struggled as people who started trying well after us, were giving birth to their babies and I still wasn’t even a little bit pregnant and we were about to start the gruelling IVF process with no guarantee it would even work. In 2021, we had nineteen… yes nineteen pregnancy announcements in our lives. One particularly brutal week there was three over a five day period, the same week we found out our first medicated cycle failed. So not only was I not getting pregnant or staying pregnant, I felt like literally every single person around me was. Add some more to the self-loathing. Every time something else popped up on social media about babies or pregnancy, I would cry. I’ve cried in the toilets at the football, in my car, in the toilet at work, in the staff room at work and privately in more places than I can remember. I’ve probably cried more in the last year, than I have in the rest of my life combined. I had to learn to suppress my emotions when I was completely dying on the inside. If I didn’t I wouldn’t have made it through a single day without breaking down, because it is on my mind 24/7. Once you realise this probably isn’t going to happen the way it’s meant to, you go and seek help. There is so much waiting, so much poking, prodding, speculum’s, internal ultrasounds, blood tests… more waiting. Between us we have over 30 pages of pathology results. Unexplained infertility… Great. There’s no reason why this isn’t working, it just isn’t. Desperate to try anything, we both started to rattle when we walked. I had us both on a pretty intense supplement regime. I ate pineapple, drank pomegranate juice, ate different seeds at certain points in my cycle, did months of expensive acupuncture, waved moxa sticks all over my uterus, stopped wearing deodorant, wouldn’t touch alcohol or let my husband drink it either. Anything I could find we would try. I don’t even want to calculate the amount of money I wasted on trying anything Google told me might work or all the money I wasted on birth control pills I obviously never needed in the first place. I became really angry about the fact we were having to pay thousands of dollars just for a shot at parenthood, when most people at least get the getting pregnancy part for free. Then people start to get wind of your struggle and the well-meaning, but also useless/untrue & hurtful comments start. “You should go on a holiday” “You should stop stressing” “Have you tried tracking your cycle?” “Be POSITIVE” “Stop trying” “Just a do IVF”. We went on two honeymoons, while I was ovulating and no successful pregnancy. It’s scientifically proven that stress has no bearing on your ability to conceive and to ask someone who is seeking help at a fertility clinic if they have thought about tracking their cycle… my foot desperately wanted to make contact with a few throats. Then comes the added level of being infertile in a pandemic. Infertility sucks at any point but adding the level of anxiety and uncertainty of a pandemic just makes it even harder to bare. Then the isolating for treatments due to the fear of catching coronavirus. Making sure you don’t leave the house during a cycle in the fear your work or supermarket becomes an exposure site and all your hard work of injecting drugs into your body is all for nothing because they cancel your cycle and won’t allow you in the clinic for fourteen days. I started using food as a crutch. Every time I would feel a bad emotion…I would eat. I was also stuck in isolation, not able to distract myself in a healthier way and I wasn’t eating carrots. I was gaining weight rapidly, because in the world on infertility, good news is rare and bad news is common. So I also started hating myself for that as well. So why am I writing this long private story and posting it in a public forum? Infertility & miscarriage still feel like a taboo topics. I never thought that I would be 36 years old and still not have been able to have a successful pregnancy. I realised the more I started to talk to people other people about our struggle, the more I realised a lot of people struggle. Conceiving on your first month is rare, but they’re the people who will talk about it, so it seems more common than it actually is. Miscarriage is sadly also very common, more of my friends had miscarriages than I had ever realised. I would love normalise the subject of infertility and miscarriage so other women don’t have to feel alone. I don’t want a single person to feel like they have to hide such deep shame the way I did and still do. Having open and honest discussions about fertility, infertility and our road to starting a family, normalises what a lot of people are going through . Let’s also talk about it in a sensitive way, let people come to you and before you open your mouth and say “When are you having kids?” “You shouldn’t wait too long to have kids” “You should really think about having a baby” “How old are you? You need to get moving soon if you want a baby”. Just shut your pie hole. You have no idea if that person has been trying to conceive for seven years, they had a miscarriage last week, they’re currently injecting themselves with hormones every day, maybe they would rather lick cat vomit off fluffy carpet than procreate, they haven’t met the right person to start a family with yet or they have been told that it will never happen for them and they are still coming to terms with that. Be kind, because you never know what’s happening behind closed doors or the smile that is masking so much personal pain. Helen, thank you for sharing your story!

Sometimes, the best advice comes from those who have walked the same path. There’s a strong sense of understanding, and an immediate bond that’s felt when someone understands your feelings, purely from their own experience. This is why we’re launching “In Your Words” a place where you can offer advice, give support, share your feelings and frustrations – all in the hope that you’ll help someone else who is experiencing and feeling the same thing. We are very lucky to be able to share Amy’s story with you, and we hope that those who are considering going through this alone, or are currently going through it, get something out of this incredible woman’s journey. In Your Words, Amy. PART 1. My journey to have a baby. Part 1: Here I am Gainfully employed. Financially stable. Loving supportive family and amazing friends. What a life right? In fact, my friends often said I am on the side of the grass that they often dream of. Single, freedom with no responsibilities. What a perfectly green grass side I live on right? But as the years ticked by into my thirties, it became clear to me that something was missing from this near perfect life. There was a hole of discontent deep down inside of me. But I kept it buried there…. I wasn’t sure what it was and I powered through my thirties focusing on my career, family and friends, whilst on that never ending quest to find true love. Over that time, relationships and men came and went. Some held on for longer than others but at the end of the day, none of the men were right for me. It was ok at the time. Eventually that perfect guy would come for me…right? Did I make some wrong choices? Absolutely. I had donut glazed eyes because I love love and I love being loved. Probably why I let so many of these men stick around longer than they needed to and why none of them were ever the ‘one’. As the seasons rolled on, the tinder dates went from bad to worse, and it kind of just did not happen. Dating was not fun anymore. I started to worry that I had not found my person, my soulmate. I gave up. Did I miss my chance? Was I too picky? How did I not find anyone? What kind of messed up single underground world have I found myself in? Time passed and the sadness and realization that I was not where all my friends were, set in. I thought I had more time. I thought it would have happened by now. The dark hole suddenly started growing bigger and louder. The older I got, it started to become clearer and clearer to me what I wanted. I have listened for years, at coffees, brunches and drinks of my girlfriends’ telling stories of their own families. As much as I love listening to the stories of poo, spew, and no sleep, it starts to become harder to be in a conversation where you are not technically in it. A conversation where you have no input, no one asks you for advice, and no one cares for your opinion. As much as I am ok about hearing the fear of pooping yourself while in childbirth, I long to have a story of my own to talk about over a latte. A story about my own family. I longed for a family, one where I had a beautiful baby. My own child. The dark hole suddenly became clear. This is what I want. This is what I have dreamed of. I always knew I wanted to be a mum. There are so many kids in my life, and I am called Aunty Amy by most. It is amazing to be an Aunty and watch little lives grow up before me, but I still wished I had my own. This is what I am missing. I realize what I had longed for was not always the perfect partner, but a baby. To be a mother and to have my own family. I had come to the realization that I could go the rest of my life without a partner, but I couldn’t not be a mum. It was time and my lady clock was ringing louder than ever. My ovaries felt it every time I was near a baby, got a sniff of that amazing baby hair smell. It was like catnip! But, how was I going to do this? How was I going to make this happen on my own? Could I do this myself? And so started my long, emotional journey to create my own dream, my own story and ultimately create a life. The Journey begins For years I said to myself, if I get to thirty-five and still have no prospects of a partner or family, the least I could do is go and get checked out. My doctor sent me off to get the AMH blood test. A normal woman my age (thirty-five at the time of the test) should get a result of fifteen-thirty follicles, if not more. My results? Five. Five follicles. Where were they all? What had happened to them? Where did they go? I was then told that the number of follicles will significantly drop in another year. This became very real, very quickly. I cannot believe the thoughts about being a solo mum just became a hard and fast reality. My doctor told me I should take the next steps and to consider all my options. So, an appointment was booked to visit a doctor at IVF Australia. It is now or never. Strap in big girl this is really happening. Of course, the next thing to do was tell my parents. ‘Hey, I’m wanting to have a baby, buy some unidentified man’s sperm, and spend a ridiculous amount of money to make this happen. What do you think?’ I mean, hit them with a strong opener I thought. Thankfully through a lot of conversation, questions, and googling, they both understood the burning desire I had to have a baby. The rest of my family were also amazing and with no judgment, they all agreed to jump on the baby dream with me, with hearts full of love, minds full of openness and lots more support than I ever thought was possible. I told a couple of my best friends, and their messages were the same. They all supported me. Then it was time for my first visit to IVF Australia. Terrified, anxious and unsure of what this was going to be like. All I had in my mind was this was the right decision. Mum came to the first appointment with me. She would not have had it any other way. And honestly, I needed someone there with me as my anxiety was through the roof! I was naive to think this would be a 10min consult – it went for nearly 2hours of overwhelming information. My doctor is amazing. She is kind and so very reassuring. There was no judgement towards me wanting to do this alone. She told me it was now or never based on my AMH results and everything we discussed. If this is what I wanted now is the time. If I wait another year or two, there will be a strong possibility that my chance will be near to nothing. No options left for me to have my own child naturally . My doctor explained the process once more and that the best option was that I do IUI (intrauterine insemination) first. It is less invasive and there are less needles and drugs involved. As a single independent, financially stable, confident woman, I get minimal to no benefits while doing most of these procedures. If two IUI’s don’t work, we will bring out the big guns and try IVF. But for now, turkey baster method it is! The next thing to do is get on the Sperm Donor wait list. The realness of the situation took over fast and I was soon on the very small, and exceptionally long waiting list for sperm. SPERM!!! I have never even been on a list this exclusive before. I am told the wait is 8-12 months. I’ve waited this long, why not a little longer? And with that, a couple more blood tests and an extremely uncomfortable pap smear later, I was walking out of there realizing I had really started my journey. The long wait before finding ‘The One’ I had already been on my journey for over 8 months when in March 2020 everyone’s world halted. Covid-19, the first pandemic many had ever experienced in their lifetime. Everything in Australia and the world literally shut down. It was terrifyingly scary. But nothing was going to stop me, I was on a mission. Even in lockdown I forged ahead to my 1st session of mandatory counselling. There are two sessions in total to be had. I imagined they were trying to see if I was mentally fit enough to do this. Gosh was I? The call was fine, and I just talked about myself for an hour. Something I am perfectly fine with doing. All cleared by the counsellor, and she assured me that I was the not the first woman to do this on my own and I will not be the last. I still think about today, what she said. I am not the first solo mum. I feel less alone. I feel like I am apart of some secret coven of women that have something special to share with one another. What came in the next few months was a loooong, loooong wait. When was I going to reach the top of that exclusive wait list? I felt the anticipation and nerves every single day that I had to wait. The next 9 months were painfully slow and started sending me stir crazy. I felt like I rocketed off to a great start now each day ticks by slower than the one before . Closer to the end of the 9 months I had another counselling session. This was to talk about how to pick a donor. I had not thought that much into it, just knowing I was looking for a donor with similar features to my own. But then just when I thought all hope was lost for 2020, two days before Christmas, I reached the top of that very exclusive waitlist! I finally got access to the Sperm Donor list. What a great Christmas Present! That night I went to my best friend’s house, and we sat outside with a cuppa and trembling hands. I opened the iPad, logged in and, BOOM. There it was. The list. I had many months to think about what the list would look like. The endless options. The days it would take to scroll through and decide. How would I choose? I always thought it would be like a big book. I would rip out the prospects and line them up. Then I will have a big donor party with my closest family and friends to help me choose. That vision was quickly squashed when we opened the list to see only around fifteen donors. I then had to filter down – IUI, in NSW, etc., That left me with three. THREE donors to choose who would father my child. I thought there would be endless options that I would not be able to choose. Now I only have three to choose from. And in that 3, 1 was American which came with an additional $10k price tag. No thanks. The other two were not quite what I was looking for. It was quite underwhelming and to be honest not at all what I thought this moment would feel like. I shut the iPad, finished my cuppa, and I left feeling deflated and disappointed. For the next 5 weeks I checked the list ten times a day to see if anyone new had come on. Waiting to see if anyone ‘my type’ was there. It was starting to look like I wouldn’t find anyone. Cannot find a boyfriend in the real world and now finding it hard to find a donor. It seems like I would never find anyone. That dark hole felt like it was opening and swallowing me hole again. But just as I wiped away the tears and forced myself to remain positive, my donor turned up. ‘The One’. His profile was minimal, but funny, quirky and a bit weird. (Perfect) His photo that was provided will be one that is forever burned into my brain. I send the profile quickly around to my family to view, discuss and approve. I had 24 hours to let the donor team know if I would like to select him. Having a time limit on such a major decision was painful and stressful. Although great on paper, and my family reassuring me he was great, I was flooded with thoughts of “maybe he is not the one. Maybe there’s someone better out there? Maybe I need to hold out a bit longer?” But I was snapped out of these thoughts by the slap in the face I gave myself when I realized this is how I was with men in general. He’s not my boyfriend, husband, or partner. This Donor is providing me with something amazing. The chance to be a mum. He is ‘The One’ for me. Let’s get this party started – IUI Routine genetic testing, several blood tests and getting orientated at the IVF clinic was next. It was almost time to start. I am scared, nervous, anxious, excited – all the feelings that this was now very real. This was now really happening. I can’t turn back now, even if I wanted. I didn’t want to. This is my journey now. I am ready. My first night of injections was here. I am still scared of needles (says the girl with a dozen tattoos) and I am not sure what to expect. My best friend comes over to perform the first injection. My sister is taking notes and filming. And then, just like that, the needle goes in and out. It pinched. Didn’t totally hurt. Ok, I can do this! For the next 10 days my brother-in-law steps up – he is going to be a pro at this. He may never understand what he has done for me, and I will be forever grateful to him for stepping up to the plate, not only to give me the injections but to be there every night with support and making me laugh somehow even thought I was in pain. The needles started to hurt more every day and over the next 9 days I felt bruised, bloated and like a pin cushion. The emotions and hormones kick in somewhere around day four, and boy is that fun! Every few days there is an early morning blood test to see how those follicles are growing. By the end of the first week, I feel bloated and have a sore stomach. I struggle with feeling so fat that no clothes fit or look good. I am tired. I feel physically sick. I feel overwhelming emotion. After 9 days my body is tired. Exhausted. Sore. Then on the 10th day I got the call. It was trigger time! The trigger needle was setting me up for my IUI transfer the next day. It’s my donors time to shine. I have fear and excitement rush over me like I never thought possible. After the two needles that night, I can’t sleep. It is like the night before Christmas. Though I will not be receiving presents from Santa but one special present from my donor. The next day I awake with the realisation that the first IUI transfer day is here. My sister-in-law is being my support and coming with me. When we arrive, we exchange pleasantries with the nurses, and they run through the procedure. I take my position on the bed, my sister-in-law near my head and well the nurses, get to the other end. After some 20 minutes the nurses tell me the moment is here, the transfer is complete! Tears of pain and excitement stream down my face. I feel overwhelmed with so much emotion. Is that it? Is it done? The two weeks wait seems impossible. The challenging thing is there’s absolutely nothing I can do now. Within the two weeks, I wait, I work, I take progesterone pessaries twice a day like a champ and I do normal day to day things. It’s almost like nothing is happening, but there is and it’s scary. I am trying to not think about the fact that the next blood test I take could change my life. I can’t wait and the Tuesday before I take the blood test, I take a pregnancy test. Negative. It’s ok, I expected that. It’s so early. The again on the Thursday night as there was still no period. If I am having a blood test tomorrow, surely the pregnancy test will tell me now? I couldn’t stop myself. Negative. I am 99% sure I am not pregnant. The blood test was fine, and I spend the day waiting for the phone call. The phone rings. It is the nurse from the clinic. She informs me and apologies that this round the IUI was unsuccessful. I froze. She talks for some time, and I’m quite sure I am not listening. I ask about going again the next month. Why wait? Let’s go again. She discusses the next steps and says yes. I start again Tuesday. I hang up. I burst into tears. Hearing the words. The shock. Instant disappointment in myself, my body, the process. I knew this was not going to work the first time. Why was I crying? I was overwhelmed. I was sad. There’s only 3 days to rest. As Tuesday needles start again. The following Tuesday I start Round 2 IUI. For the next 8 days it’s another blur of needles. Some hurt more than others. This time I bruise, and bloat quicker than I did before. I feel gross and tired, and I cry every night. Oh, the hormones. Bloods and scans like before every couple of days until I get the call that the IUI is the next day. This round was quicker than last month. I must go home and take the trigger needle straight away. I have another sleepless night. Come on. This time must work. I say a prayer and go to sleep. Round 2 IUI transfer day. My sister’s turn to come today. We head in early. I’m nervous. I think she is nervous too. We go in and I take my place on the bed that is now all too familiar. There’s pain and tears stream down my face as I squeeze my sisters hand a little tighter. But just like that they are done. I’m sore and the cramping starts almost instantly. The hormones are raging through my body and all I want to do is go home and sleep. Here we go another 2-week impossible wait. I feel different this time. My stomach was cramping, and I felt more like something was going on. I felt nauseous all day towards the end of the 2 weeks. I can’t describe it, but this all feels different to the first time. I decided that even though it is way too early to tell, I will take a pregnancy test. I pee on the stick, and I go off and come back 5 minutes later. But when I come back, I look… wait… I need to put my glasses on… is that…. A line? I realized it had been a minute and I hadn’t taken a breath. Is it a line? It’s so faint. I can barely see it. I face-time my best friend and sister and I show them the stick. They both say they can see it. It’s not just me. It’s so faint though. I decide not to get too excited and wait to take another test tomorrow. The next day I am feeling just as nauseous, tired and bloated. Work was long. And I have an overwhelming feeling to cry every second. I went home and peed on another stick – just to be sure, right? Nothing. Negative. My heart broke. I am not going to lie I took a couple more tests. Tests are your best and worst enemy. Someone should have stopped me. I was doing my own head in and spent so much money on disappointment. After another long week at work with nothing but sadness and negative thoughts. This is so much harder than everyone tells you. I am not sure I was prepared for this physically, mentally, or emotionally. Round 2 Blood test day. Flooded with emotion I go In and make small talk with the nurse. She is lovely. All the nurses have all been so lovely. Tears stream down my face. She looks sad for me. I think about how many women she has probably seen cry. She asks me if she thinks my period is due. I said ‘‘Yeah. I think it’s coming today.’’ She sighs, pulls out the needle and says sorry. I can’t even imagine what the nurses see every day. Before I even get the call to tell me I am not pregnant, I get my period and I can’t control the emotions. How do women do this repeatedly? Where does the strength, the hope, the courage come from? I’m struggling to understand. I’m sad it didn’t work. I’m sad this was for nothing. I’m sad I have just lost that amount of money again. I am sad I must do needles and put my mind and body through this again. I am…. sad. Stay tuned for Part 2 launching Tuesday, 14th December.