You are not alone.

I opened the bill and looked down. “This can’t be right,” I said in a low voice, my heart starting to pound so loudly that the thumping shook my small frame.  We had only had a consultation with the infertility specialist.  He had done some blood work to figure out if I was ovulating.  Too many numbers were staring back at me.  The bill said we owed over $10,000.

A few weeks earlier we had traveled several hours to meet with a specialist at an infertility clinic.  Our goal was to gather enough information to make it past the impasse of whether to pursue IVF or not.  Blood work, the doctor assured us, would be the first step in making a decision.  We took a gamble and agreed.  But we also made a mistake: we signed our names to a piece of paper that hadn’t been fully explained to us.  Without our informed consent, the blood work was sent to assess more than estrogen levels.  It had been sent to assess the risk of our baby having a genetic disorder.  If we were to have a baby at all.

The moment I saw the bill was devastating.  Everything hurt.  I felt victimized and violated.  Robbed.  We had spent hours deliberating on where to spend the precious little we earned.  Should we divert money away from paying down our student loans to focus on building up our family?  I felt so guilty and alone– we had unknowingly signed away our savings and yet we weren’t any closer to having a child.  Innocence drained out of me.

Casual questions about how my day was going would result with tears rolling down my cheeks as I told them about the terrible bill.  The story poured out of me, as if it had a life and purpose of its own. But the story, as traumatic as retelling it was, saved me. People listened, ached, asked questions, gave advice, and then – the healing balm – they shared.  People shared their stories of victimization, injustice, heartache, and loss.  I stood still as they shared, silenced and mesmerized by their stories.  Several had lost a similar amount of money:  One woman’s ex-boyfriend had stolen her credit card, forged her name, and racked up thousands in debt.  Another couple paid $10,000 to a fraudulent adoption agency.  Others had suffered enormous personal losses: one woman's only child had died in a fiery car crash. Another woman anguished over the news that her son had committed murder.  Yet another lost her health in a drunk driving accident and another barely got her suicidal daughter back from the edge.

I was not alone.  Because no one is spared tragedy, I was surrounded by survivors.  Everyone made it through their dark times and I would make it through mine.  I thought I would feel isolated because others hadn’t experienced infertility, but instead I felt embraced by warmth, understanding and concern.  All had experienced pain.

• I am blogging about infertility under the theme of "You are not alone" because I care about others going through a similarly difficult time.  Please check out the links below to become a little more familiar with infertility and what we can do to help each other.  
• http://www.resolve.org/about-infertility/what-is-infertility/  (Basic understanding of the disease of infertility.)
• http://www.resolve.org/national-infertility-awareness-week/about.html 
• About the National Infertility Week  (NIAW) www.resolve.org/niaw

Reserved for Expectant Mothers

“Reserved for Expectant Mothers”

The sign was effective, the way it dissuaded others from claiming the row of seats at the front of the bus.  I so badly wanted to sit there.  I counted backwards from the day the ovulation kit showed the two precious positive lines.  It was possible, I estimated, that a pin-sized blastocyst was making the journey to embed.  Or maybe it had already nestled in.  I decided to take the seat.  If anyone asked, I would tell them I was newly pregnant.  And maybe I was! 

That’s the thing with infertility.  It puts me in a perpetual state of anticipation.  I am optimistic, by nature, and so the two-week wait - post-ovulation and pre-menstruation - is a place where I believe anything is possible. I infuse my life with maternal meaning.  Stomach aches from over-eating become cramps from implantation.  Headaches, a sign of early pregnancy.  I proudly hang every discomfort on a pre-pregnancy peg.   They bolster my case that I am, indeed, a woman, capable of doing something that so many women do.  I take my seat at the front of the bus.    

But then, the game is over.  Just like that my body announces that nothing took place.  I see the headline in my mind, “No news here. Nothing to report,” and like a wave of the hand, my hopes are dismissed.  A new month begins. This is the part of my self-deception that is pointed and painful.  The glow of pregnancy was a guise.  I get that now and feel ashamed.  The stomach aches were only stomach aches and the headaches only headaches. 

But then a few weeks pass and I see the glint of possibility.  I can’t help it; I indulge. I want so badly to sit where only expectant mothers are allowed.  

Reproductive luxury.

I am not pregnant. 

And I am not welcome

to talk about infertility.

“Enjoy your first years of marriage without worrying about getting pregnant,”

she told me, after I confessed my struggle to conceive. 

Her seven years of infertility overshadowed my inexperience. 

She doesn’t ask what is wrong. 

Her words pat me on the head, putting me in my place. 

You haven’t earned your badge yet.

I haven’t done my time,

I haven’t earned my stars

to be fully infertile. 

After two, six, eight, or eleven years of TTC (trying to conceive, you see), women I don’t know pee on a stick and two pink lines appear. 

In disbelief, they post the picture of the positive pregnancy test.

“Can you see the two pink lines?” they ask Facebook followers.

When I have two, six, eight, or eleven years under my belt of TTC, then I’ll be deserving of my two pink lines too. 

When can I come out of the infertility closet? 

I peek out, my fingers counting the months of unprotected sex. 

“It takes most people a year or so to get it right.”

“Don’t stress.” 

We have met the diagnostic definitions, but others call my grief inexperience or ignorance.

What I want from my body is pregnancy. 

What I want from you is presence. 

Not words about how “it” will happen. 

What is happening is here.  Here in my reality. 

My heart, not your measuring stick.    

I am a researcher.

“What is your line of research?” colleagues ask.

Infertility. 

It’s not welcome here. 

Well, they say, you are welcome to talk about it, but no one will listen. 

We’ve got bigger problems

…overpopulation, birth control, reproductive rights,

and by rights, we mean the right to prevent pregnancy.    

So, then, infertility is a luxury. 

I can afford to be infertile in my industrialized world,

full of needles and pills and reproductive assistive technology. 

But the problem is,

I’m still not welcome here.