Infertility Changes Your Life, Forever

In my forthcoming novel, Child of Mine, my main character, a midwife named Katie, goes through infertility treatment to try to conceive a child. Her life is turned upside down, and she stops being able to enjoy all of the things she once loved -- biking, her family, Yankee games, her work, and the people most meaningful to her: family and friends. 

Infertility treatment -- and miscarriage -- was one of the most life defining experiences I ever had. Though I went through it twenty years ago (for my older daughter) and sixteen years ago (for my younger daughter) I still strongly remember so much about it.

The antiseptic smell of the elevator as I rode up to the second floor of the building, and the desolate hallway I walked at seven in the morning when I had to be there for my blood draws.  The long line of patients waiting at that hour to get in appointments before we all dashed off to work, the stick of the needle and the one time I almost passed out and had to lie in a room for a while until my blood pressure came back up, the shots my husband gave me in my rear end every night for months (back then, yes, that's where all the shots went) while I leaned over the ironing board, and most painfully, the February afternoon I had a D&C after finding out my eleven week old fetus had not survived.

I remember wondering if it would ever work, and how many more cycles I had to endure. I remember wondering what kind of procedure was next and why was this happening to me. I dreaded baby showers and baby namings and wondered if that would ever be me. I wondered a lot.

I didn't sleep well in those months. I was always on edge. The hormones made me crazy and the treatment made me forgetful. I screwed up at work a lot, but I didn't tell anyone there I was going through anything.  I wondered if I would get fired before I could quit, and I could only quit once I no longer needed to pay for treatment. 

Fortunately for me, I was able to conceive my two girls and carry them to term.  I look back and have no regrets, glad I did it; I simply can't imagine my life without them.  But during that bleak time in my life, I didn't feel a lot of hope. Only a lot of pain. 

You get through those difficult times, though. But you don't forget them. They stick with you forever.