Written by Monica, @monicabivas
…I took motherhood for granted, I come from a very “fertile” family from both sides, my mom and dad, but from my mom’s side is very noticeable, they were 18 kids from same mom and dad, 9 girls, 9 boys and most of the girls got pregnant with “the blow of a kiss”, so I would too right? Well I was not in that group…After trying to conceive for over a year and beyond, a stepmom of a 1 year and 8 months little girl, I knew something was wrong with me. My OB/GYN eventually ordered some regular tests as usual when these things happen, and all my blood work came perfect, however we must go further and after an HSG test surprise!!! Both my fallopian tubes were blocked, go figure why I was not able to conceive, and even after doing a laparoscopy, they were still blocked, so the only choice was IVF…. Did I know what was that, not really, I heard about it but I never thought I would be one of many women that has to go through it. So when I realized I am on the line of being one of the so many IVF future patients, my world collapsed. I was not prepared for that and I felt so frustrated of not being able to build the family I wanted.
This journey has been one of the most challenging episodes I’ve faced in my life. But it has also taught me a new version of happiness, love and braveness. Sounds ironic right? For some it is the opposite, but for me, even with an extremely hard and painful chapter in my life, it was a self discovery process I must have walked.
My first cycle was a success, but when we decided to go for a second IVF things were different. It was here where the real lesson and hardship started, and it was a long path until I learned to be grateful and brave, and braveness doesn’t come from nowhere, it comes from pain, sorrow and grief, in my case. This second cycle was canceled due to a mistake from the clinic, they switched the charts of another patient and me and I got OHSS, so the cycle was gone. My RE accepted the mistake and did our third cycle at not charge. I got pregnant of a healthy baby girl, but due to a blood clot in the umbilical cord our Isabelle was a stillbirth at 39 weeks and i had to go to a regular delivery, my baby girl Isabelle died in my womb at 39 weeks, just three days before my due date, Can you imagine that pain? That emptiness? My body is ready for a baby, we are supposed to get home with a baby in our arms and enjoy this bundle along with our first IVF Girls Eliyah, who at the time was 5 years old…..How would we explain what happened to her? We had to…. And in the meantime I was a mess, physically and emotionally, I had to wrap my breasts to help my body dry the milk faster. You know, when someone loses a parent it is called an orphan. When someone loses her/his husband/wife is called widow/widower, but when someone loses a baby, a child there is no name for that, this pain, this grief doesn’t HAVE A NAME. I felt so empty that I wanted to fill that hole on and replace it right away with another baby, I did not wait enough to grieve and recover and drilled my husband brain, went to a different RE and jumped to another IVF cycle against all the odds and advice i was getting not to do it yet, and it worked, I got a BFP, but because of the emotional and mental mess I was, I miscarried at 7 weeks, one big grieve after another one, sometime I think how I made it through…..but I’m here….
Re-discovering myself
What happened to me affected all my surroundings, my marriage, my relationship with my daughter Eliyah, I felt I was drawing in a dark hole…. But love always prevails, and I knew my angel babies would not like to see their mama suffer, and would want their mama to be strong for their sister…. So I had a choice, either go deeper in that hole, or somehow pick up the pieces and start to really grieve my pain and think that maybe one day I will see the reason for all that happened.
I decided to give myself time and use this grieving phase to re-discover myself and learn gratitude, strength and more love. I can say that here is when a new me and a new journey started.
I made the decision to heal myself in order to be there for my family and therefore be able to grow our family in the future . We decided to try for a sibling one last time (our 5th cycle), and it will be the last no matter what would be the result. We did and life and G-d gave us the joy of becoming parent of our second girl Maya…once I had Maya on my chest right after she was born, I felt healed from the pain of my angel babies, and I felt something even stronger…I felt that my Isabelle’s soul was back on my little Maya’s body, back to the right time and the right moment in life, and I felt relief….
Focus on the present
So now I do my best to “Focus on the present” – that was something that I couldn’t do before, and during my IVF Journey the future became an obsession, but all the ups and downs made me re-discover a new calmer and happier me, and this has become my why and the message I want to pass to other fertility warriors – You can discover something beautiful from all that journey, that’s why we are called “warriors”.
My IVF journey wasn’t easy, but I can say that infertility has made me braver than I ever thought I was capable of being.
Sending love and light,
Monica
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