How to Survive Infertility: Our Fertility Story- Part One
How It Started
February 14, 2018. The day our fertility journey began. The day I had my first miscarriage. They called it a “chemical pregnancy” because it happened so early. It had barely been a week since I got a positive pregnancy test. Chemical Pregnancy is just a nicer way of saying miscarriage if you ask me.
Devastated does not even begin to describe how I felt. I was numb.
Levi planned a last minute trip to the coast to get us out of town, get away. On our way we got the call from the doctor to tell us what we already knew. She said “I’m so sorry but it does look like a miscarriage” I responded flatly “it’s okay”. Dr. Gonzalez replied “No it’s not. It sucks, and it’s not okay.” Honestly that couldn’t’ be more true.
There is no comfort in the fact that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage when it’s happening to you. You feel completely alone.
Moving Forward On Our Fertility Journey
We started looking for a house at the beginning of the year, so I buried myself in that process, doing anything to distract myself (I also bought a Cricut that year, turns out I’m not as crafty as I’d like to think).
They said that the odds were the next one would be a healthy pregnancy. Chances were I would not have another miscarriage. So I tried to focus on that.
Months went by and we kept striking out on houses, and just kept getting negative after negative pregnancy test.
*Side note* I am one of those people who (up to this point) believed that if I just worked harder things would work out. But month after month my way of thinking was proven wrong. It was incredibly frustrating.
That July when I started my period, something was different. Frustrated that I had started, I called my OB to get an appointment to talk about why I was having a hard time, and what our fertility treatment options were.
Then, just for the heck of it I took a pregnancy test. And it was positive! I called my doctor back, and said “Just joking, I’m pregnant all is well”.
Well… all was not well… just a few days later I started bleeding again. I was back in the lab for serial blood draws (blood draws every other day at least three times) to see which way my HCG levels were going. It was another chemical pregnancy, aka miscarriage. We were crushed. And frankly at this point I was pissed. I was so frustrated! Why?! Why was this happening to us?!
