I was never big on having children. I mean, there was a part of me that wanted them IN THE FUTURE, but a) it was never absolute, and b) I kept moving that “future” farther and farther in front of me. And then I turned 32. I, literally, woke up on my 32nd birthday with the idea that it was time to have a child. Keep in mind I still wasn’t exactly gung-ho about the idea, but I’ve learned to listen to my body and do what it’s asking of me.
We tried for a little bit to no avail, but we soon learned my mother’s second battle with breast cancer would be a losing one and took a break. I took care of her and then took care of things after her death, and I’m grateful there wasn’t a pregnancy to deal with during that time.
Fast forward a year and a half, still grieving, dealing with the loss of my husband’s job, and moving from Ohio to Connecticut, we decided to try again. Nothing. We had every test done that our insurance covered, and nothing was wrong with either of us.
I decided that if I was not pregnant by the age of 36, that was it. I would accept my fate and know we were not meant to have children naturally.
In the meantime, my morale was slowly fading away. Sex, for me, became routine and (baby) purpose-driven only. I cried a lot. I ate my way through life. I asked my mirror image why I wasn’t getting pregnant just about every day. I avoided my friends with children. People around me seemed to be announcing happy pregnancies every day, and it became too hard to fake my excitement for them. Yes, I was happy for them, but the joy was not greater than the personal pain it caused. Facebook and social outings where children or pictures of children might be involved became a giant source of pain.
Overly hopeful, I bought countless pregnancy tests – even though I wasn’t late – but never saw more than one line. Many a sad night was spent on the bathroom floor crying over my own pee. I was actually having chest pains due to my distress, and I reached the point where I considered I was my own worst enemy – the anxiety of not getting pregnant was probably why I wasn’t getting pregnant. But how not be anxious about that?
This was when I started to see a therapist. I won’t get into what we talked about, but needless to say, I was holding onto a lot of stuff. I saw her once a week for almost a year, and while I was becoming better at understanding myself, there was still no pregnancy.
At about the one-year mark of seeing her, I likely had a miscarriage. I hate calling it that because there are so many women who have a true loss with a baby they have known and bonded with. I would have been, at most, three weeks pregnant. I’m not 100% positive I was even pregnant as I didn’t go to the doctor until a few days later, and there was nothing to be checked, but now that I know what labor feels like, I can tell you this was a mini version of that. My therapist said one thing when I saw her that week. One thing and that was it. “At least you know you can get pregnant.” Holy crap, what a revelation that was.
