Sunday, September 9, 2007

Doesn't Matter Why My Arms Are Empty

It's been over a year and a half since my first miscarriage plummeted me down the Trying To Conceive rabbit hole. I know there are a lot of people out there that have been trying for a lot longer than I have, but I am starting to consider myself a veteran. Lucky, lucky me.

An interesting question was posed to me some time ago, by another IF veteran. She was about six months pregnant with her twins conceived through IVF when I had my third loss. She asked me if I thought it was harder to have miscarriages or never conceive. I said that I wasn't sure, having never really experienced challenges with conception, but that I knew that miscarriages were pretty darn awful, that it really isn't a matter of which is worse, because it all sucks. About a week later, a coworker who was also having difficulty conceiving told me that she would rather conceive and then miscarry than never conceive at all. I've got to be honest, at the time, that really pissed me off, and I told her the same thing, that both are awful. And when she finally did get pregnant, a very small, very mean part of me wished that her words would come back to haunt her. Her baby was recently born healthy, and I really am sorry for my mean thoughts, but she just wasn't a very nice person, and I was jealous.

So, now I am four months into TTC. This time, we have a lot of help. And it's not working. So, I can answer my friend's question now. It is much harder to TTC and never get those double lines than to miscarry. This is a bold statement, I know. But the thing is that when you never get pregnant, then you never known the pure joy of seeing those double lines, of showing your husband, of seeing your baby's heartbeat on ultrasound. No matter how much I have cried, how much I have hurt, when I lost each of my sweet angels, the moments that I had with them are some of the greatest that I have known. Miscarriage sucks. But in the spirit of the old adage "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," it sucks more to never get the chance to love that baby so much.

However, I still come back to the same answer that I gave my friend and my coworker last year. It really doesn't matter what our infertility looks like, there really is no "worse". Me, who has been pregnant five times, or someone who never has gotten there. We are both still in search of our dreams. None of us have babies in our arms. And I hate it for all of us.

6 comments:

Shelli said...

It's all relative, as they say. I have experienced both ends of the spectrum, and for me, the repeated miscarriages sting the most (also, they sure put a dent into the TTC process when you are on the sidelines waiting after each occurance). It's really just an awful thing all the way around.

Polka Dot said...

I always thought I'd rather not ever get pregnant than to get pregnant and lose it - to me, miscarrying had to be far worse.

And while it's horrible and I pray to never relive it, I am grateful that I did get that bfp. I had a couple of weeks of bliss and happy like nothing I'd ever known.

Anonymous said...

I'm in my fifth month of TTC and I think it sucks!

Beautiful post, by the way.

jenna sais quoi said...

I think both are horrible. How could you ever choose?

I'm one of those who has never had a positive test, and I feel like I am unreasonable for grieving every time AF rolls around again.

Debby said...

There is so no comparing any of the faces of infertility. All of them are full of suckage and no one could ever be worse than another. I like you have had no shortage of BFP's and then loss on the flip side. And at this point, as much as this sucks, I feel like I know how to handle this. If m/c happens again it will hurt so friggin bad, but I know I'll be ok on the other side. Now, if I were to this time around of TTC never see a BFP, I don't know how I'd do with that. That's foreign to me. Something in me is comforted by knowing I will be pregnant again and is hopeful that the next one will work out. To me, for some reason, being pregnant again and having loss again is a better option for me than to never see those 2 lines again. It's amazing how "conditioned" I've become to my situation. I'm sure it's not a good thing, but I think it's my defense mechanism to try not to be so hurt by next loss. Although in reality I know I will be.

Ok...this was a total ramble and not sure it made sense. But that's my stream of consciousness for the morning.

moosk said...

i'm in the no bfp category, and like everyone has said... it sucks. i think the way in which each sucks is slightly different... no bfps = feeling like you will never be pregnant, ever. mc = complete and total heartbreak (i can only assume) and the fear that you will never carry to term. so i guess, i would agree that you can't really compare the two. though i have to admit i am a little jealous about seeing that bfp (no matter what happens next).