This morning I woke up simply so I could write – for the next few days I’ll be writing to my heart’s content – get the grief on paper so to speak and then plan my way forward.
The journey has been an endless, fraught with disappointments and indeed a painful one. It started like it always does with hope, optimism and perhaps even naiveté: a fumbling, cautious start in beautiful New Zealand and no idea of what lay ahead of us. We looked at babies all around – golden, cherubic dimpled smiles and knew ours would be on his/her way soon. Both of us always wanted a boy, for perhaps the same reason – more about it later. Then the first round of obstacles presented themselves. We found out we did not have the right insurance and once we upgrade our plan we need to wait a few months before we can avail of it’s benefits. We blamed ourselves for not doing enough homework but figured we would be wise and ensure we were financially stable when the time came. A few months of wait zipped by quickly and we re-started with renewed optimism and almost a certainty of things to happen, carefully planning maternity leaves and travels. A few months later still nothing, and I started reading up on blogs and forums, trying to get some hints and tricks – wondering if we were doing ‘it’ right, if certain days and positions could help. The first few disasters quickly struck with my husband losing his job and us facing another forced break from our dream. Even at this point, it felt like we could pause, resume and one day it would just magically happen. Disaster quickly struck when one morning, absolutely doubled over in pain my husband needed to be rushed to the ER. His appendix had to be removed and he took a fortnight to recover and more for us to continue our journey. And yet we soldiered on thinking that wonderful moment couldn’t be too far ahead – we just need to try a little bit harder. My forums told me about this wonderful contraption the ovulation monitor – and every morning religiously – I would hop out of bed and try and decipher ferns and other patterns. Secretly I was so glad that unlike all those other women in the forum – my body was like clockwork – 28 day cycles on the dot and ovulation with beautiful ferns right smack in the middle. All we needed was a tiny bit luck, seems like my health would not be an issue.
Well meaning friends and family had started asking about the “news” and we tried to wave them off saying we weren’t even trying yet – just so that I wouldn’t get another barrage of questions. Then one day and I am convinced, we almost conceived – I felt funny driving to work – butterflies in my stomach feeling is all I can recall – something strange but also familiar. I sort of knew this would be “it”. The same day though, I took a flu shot and in a few days was greeted by my period – to this day I think the flu shot had something to do with it: besides I was never early or late before and this cycle was significantly. I had slowly started to worry and stress and inched and then leaped headlong on the infertility roller coaster
Now fast forward many month of obsessing at the end of each cycle, growing desperate, trying to add a dozen vitamins to see if they can do the trick – I knew it was time to see the doctor. It had been nearly two years with some pauses but a long enough time to start wondering if there could be anything wrong. On our India trip that December, I went to see my Mom’s gynaecologist – she took one look at me and figured I was a prime candidate for PCOS – given I was slightly overweight and mainly because most of the women in my generation have PCOD. She even asked if we aren’t doing it enough and then asked me to get my tubes checked – I felt an instant dislike for her – the way she had pronounced me as a PCOD candidate straight off – despite the fact that my cycles were regular and all those blogs and books told me there was no way I could have PCOS. I ignored her suggestions of getting my tubes checked and quickly dashed back to Australia, determined to do more of “it” and timing it just right. I came back to Australia and spoke to my GP who then referred me to another Indian lady doctor – another quick dash out of the door.
Life of Pri 