What it's Like Having My Pregnancy Reach Full-Term After Having a Miscarriage and Having IVF

From a beautiful blastocyst to a fetus that's reached full term, this has been an incredible journey . . .

When I reached 38 weeks pregnant, four weeks ago, all I could think was I can’t believe it. I know I keep saying it, but I can’t believe I managed to make it this far. But I approached this from a different angle than many pregnant women who had not had trouble conceiving, who had not suffered a miscarriage (after only managing to conceive after six years of trying), and who had not then paid thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars for fertility treatments and drugs to become pregnant again (and I had it easy compared to other women who have more than one miscarriage and/or undergo more than one round of IVF treatments to get pregnant or are unable to get pregnant at all even after all of these costly, stressful, and uncomfortable interventions).

No one dreams that making a baby will be like this . . .

I’m not saying that “regular” pregnancies don’t come with fears and worries, I’m just saying that going through the above things changes you and puts you into a different category of fear I think. That twinge in the abdomen could be the start of a miscarriage, not feeling the fetus move for a while could mean that it’s dead. And with IVF treatments, after shelling out all of that money, even if you do everything perfectly, you still might not get pregnant, the fetus might not survive, etc.. It has been very stressful over the past year and a half having consultations with an IVF specialist, finding out we were pregnant without IVF, suffering a miscarriage, undergoing IVF, and then finding out that we were pregnant from the first round of IVF. It’s been hard to enjoy most of the pregnancy worrying that this might be the last week that I’m pregnant or that something really horrible will go wrong (again).  There has been no planning a nursery, buying baby clothes and supplies in the second trimester, or prattling on in excitement about baby names. My husband and I have been holding our breaths and just hoping and hoping that we will actually make it through this pregnancy. Whether or not we have a proper theme for the nursery or fabulous outfits for the baby have been the least of our concerns.

Strangely, I had actually had absolutely no pregnancy complications (until the minor ones pointed out at the end in my post at 38 weeks which led to a recommendation that I be induced before 40 weeks), which after the prelude to this pregnancy I found really amazing. I have not had gestational diabetes, I have not had preeclampsia, I have not had placental problems, the doctor has not had concerns about the fetus’ size or placement or heartbeat or anything. It’s been almost eerie after the last year of hell (June 15, 2016 is when I started miscarrying my first pregnancy).

The fetus in stargazer position at our last ultrasound.

There are times when I feel upset thinking about how I have not allowed myself to enjoy much of this pregnancy at all and have not reveled in the excitement of imminently becoming a mother, but there is nothing that I can do to change the past, my reality, and would I want to? Adversity make people more resilient, empathetic, and gives them a different perspective to others.

Our first ultrasound where we found out we were pregnant from IVF.

People have looked at my husband and me strangely when we’ve referred to the fetus as “the thing” or “it” even when we knew the sex, but it’s been our way of surviving the uncertainty of whether or not the fetus will actually survive. Being once removed has been a coping mechanism that we have employed to try to avoid as crushing of a heartbreak as we had with our first pregnancy that turned into a miscarriage. There is no way to avoid that crushing heartbreak, but this is just how we have coped.

Our "babymoon" was the first time we really let ourselves believe that things might work out and that was entering the third trimester.

Yes, it would be nice if I could join in in vacuous conversations about what theme to make a nursery, what the “in” colour is for a boy or a girl baby in 2017, and what is a hip name, but when I really think about it, maybe ruminating on how lucky I am to be pregnant at all is more valuable. I will never take for granted that I have a child. That child will never feel that he or she was an afterthought, not wanted, or was just an effortless sort of life stage. This child will feel that they were wanted more than anything and will know that my husband and I did everything that we could to bring them into this world and that we would do anything for them. If their nursery is not as themed or their clothes are not as matched as they could be that will be less important than them knowing that they are loved and cherished.

I know that others are not so lucky. On the IVF boards that I have read, I have seen people that go through one, two, five, ten, thirteen different IVF treatments and some of them can’t get pregnant or keep miscarrying. I don’t know how someone has the strength to go for another round after than many unsuccessful attempts. I only had to do one round of IVF and I know I’m truly lucky for that, but when I describe to other people who have never done IVF how many drugs I was on, how much it cost, how many injections a day that I had to give myself (after a lifelong fear of needles too) they look on in shock and horror. It just goes to show that it’s all relative. Until one has crossed one bridge or had one experience, one can’t know how one will feel about another experience. I never would have though that I would have the strength to get through a round of IVF, but I did. I couldn’t picture having to do a second round, but maybe when one crosses that first bridge, one finds the strength to try again and again and again. I’m not sure how people decide when to give up if they are not successful. I imagine a lot of this is influenced by finances. In Canada, IVF is more expensive than in some places in the U.S. for instance, and your private insurance may or may not cover a portion of it (ours was supposed to cover the drugs, but not the procedure itself, but then our insurer tried to slither out of this too until we fought them- then they did refund the cost of the drugs). But maybe after a while, one just can’t take the stress, physical strain, and heartbreak anymore.

My heart goes out to those who are struggling with fertility issues. I think this is one of the most painful things that people suffer from in our society, particularly because it is shrouded in a veil of silence and shame. I have been vocal with people I know and meet and in this blog because I think that people need to start talking about this important issue more to reduce the stigma and perhaps create lasting change.

I feel like I’ll never be the same again after the heartbreak and stress that I have suffered on this fertility journey, but at the same time, our experiences make us who we are, and having more empathy, compassion, and resilience is probably a good thing. The key is to not let it make me feel bitter or like a victim. And part of that process is by feeling empowered, taking charge, and for me this has been in the form of speaking out about fertility issues in public and on this blog to increase the visibility of this often hidden issue. I want to try to decrease the stigma of infertility and fertility issues. In my mind there shouldn’t be any shame associated with this.

In some places, the government funds or partially funds treatments like IVF, but not here in British Columbia. The government funded medical system will fund a visit to a fertility doctor and diagnostic tests to determine what might be causing infertility or fertility issues, but our system does not fund the treatments themselves. So that means if one is diagnosed with some type of infertility, male or female or both or the more mysterious unexplained infertility or one is single or in a same sex couple, etc. and one wants to have children and a procedure like in vitro fertilization is recommended to conceive, the entire cost of this procedure will be paid for by the person having the procedure unless they have some sort of health insurance that covers some amount of the procedure or the drugs required for the procedure or potentially both (and that’s assuming that the insurance company doesn’t deny your claim for no reason). Funding of Artificial Reproductive Technologies (ART) will never change unless people are more vocal, demand it, or if it is seen to be a significant and important societal issue. I’m not advocating that it should be funded, but many think that it should be and they may complain and grumble about this, but they don’t do so in a public forum where there is actually a hope for government people seeing their dissatisfaction with the status quo so that there is any hope that it might be changed.

I must own that I was nervous about speaking out about this journey in the beginning on a blog, using my name, pictures of myself, and sharing so many details about my journey, but I felt that in order to be authentic and true to myself I had to. Yes, I could hide in the shadows like so many people who have fertility issues, but if I spoke out, maybe I could help someone else who was suffering from fertility issues. Even if I only helped one person, I thought that that would be enough to make it worthwhile. The hits on my IVF blog climbed far faster than they did on my other three blogs and since its creation, 14 months ago, my IVF blog has had over 58,000 hits from countries all around the globe. Creating and maintaining this blog has been an overwhelmingly positive experience. So many people have reached out through comments on the blog and through various social media channels to give me support and share their own stories of fertility issues. Struggles with fertility are a lot more widespread than I had ever imagined and will likely become more so as our age of marriage and childbearing continues to climb or it will appear to be so as more and more people start to speak out publicly about their fertility issues.

I would like to thank my husband and family for not attempting to censor me at all in my blogging. They have allowed me to be myself, express how I’m truly feeling, and try to convey to others what this experience was truly like for me. No doubt we’ll be back here again in the future when we try for our second child, but in the mean time, thank you to everyone who has read my blog, shared it, commented, and reached out. It is only through having a meaningful relationship with other humans that we can evolve as a human being and as a society as a whole.

This thing is ready to come out of me . . .