We Can't Make a Baby Naturally

Let's be honest, when you're trying to conceive, the process of making a baby is far from glamorous. Sex is a chore. Romance is hard to keep up. Emotions ride high. For infertiles (and even most healthy couples), it's not like the movies, folks. Each cycle begins with hope, met with doubt halfway through, and concludes with defeat as yet another CD1 begins. Some will go on to get pregnant, and others will be left wondering, "what the fuck is wrong with me?!".

I unfortunately fell into the latter category. My faith and self-confidence dwindled with each failed cycle, only to be capped by a (surprising) severe male factor infertility diagnosis and the following few words I will never forget hearing for the first time..."You have a 1% chance of conceiving naturally".

Suddenly, what seemed impossible all along, is proven impossible, and all your dreams of "making a baby the old fashioned way" are stripped from you. Though you may have secretly guessed this was your fate, hearing it seems unreasonable and accepting it...unfeasible.

It took me a while to wrap my head around that fact that our only chance at having a biological child would be through IVF/ICSI. I was angry that I couldn't get pregnant the way I am supposed to be able to. I was sad that what started as an exciting step towards our next milestone as a couple, turned into a nightmare. But most of all, I was sad (very candidly) that conceiving our child meant my husband ejaculating into a sterile cup, combined with my eggs in a lab, and then transferred into me in front of a room of doctors and nurses, without my husband even by my side. Was I really about to sign up for this? I had no choice. I knew the journey wouldn't be easy, but I managed to find comfort in the idea that we could become parents, through assisted reproduction.

So we jumped in, with both feet, and held hands all the way through the emotionally, financially and physically taxing experience of our first IVF cycle. It was the most challenging thing I've ever been through in my life and there were many moments where I wondered if it would all be worth it. But when we finally arrived at the day of my scheduled transfer, the most amazing thing happened...

I finally came to the realization that the magic of making a baby naturally, which is stripped from you through the IVF process, is replaced by the magic of seeing your baby, that tiny little life that you created, in its earliest forms, right before your eyes as it's transferred into you. THAT is something that those who are lucky enough to conceive with ease will never know, and is one of the most emotionally powerful moments I've ever experienced in my life.

I did conclude my fresh IVF cycle with a BFP, which unfortunately failed at six weeks. It crushed me, but at the same time proved to me that I am stronger than I ever knew, and gave me hope that becoming a mom is a possibility for me. I have chosen to hold on to the photo of my perfect 6AA embryo as a reminder of a little life that pushed me to limits I never thought possible. A little life that has empowered me, on a mission to beat this. 

Though IVF would never have been my first choice, now having gone through one round, I am nothing but thankful that these technologies exist. In roughly two weeks I will be starting round two, and I'm praying the only lesson this baby wants to teach me, is how to be a mother.