It's a fitting day to start this blog -- my pregnancy test this morning confirmed what I already knew. That lonely little single pink line stared up at me from my shaking hand and confirmed that, once again, I'm not pregnant.
What hurt more than the negative result was the realization that this has all become par for the course for me. I'm disappointed when another month passes and my pregnancy wishes aren't realized, but I'm not devastated. I'm numb to it all by now.
I should caveat all this by saying that this isn't a blog about my inability to get pregnant. I've been pregnant before. Four times. Unfortunately, I am still not a mother. Four times I've been pregnant, and four times pregnancy has been lost.
I wish I could at least say that the "getting pregnant" part was easy, but I can't even say that anymore. I used to be able to. At first, we were one of those couples who got pregnant quickly. My first two pregnancies happened on the third month of trying. My third pregnancy took only one cycle to click. Getting pregnant wasn't difficult... it was staying pregnant that was the challenge.
Since then, though, to add insult to injury, even getting pregnant has been an elusive task. Our last pregnancy (a chemical pregnancy) took seven months to achieve. And my negative pregnancy test this morning came after four or five months of trying -- though I can't say for sure if I've been through four or five cycles since our last loss. Shockingly, we've been at this for so long that I'm starting to lose track.
I tell myself often that, as crazy as it sounds, we're not that bad off. We've been trying to start a family for only (only!) two years. I know there are couples out there who have been struggling for much longer and have suffered many more heartbreaks than we have. And we're still (relatively) young -- though not young enough to take much comfort in.
However, our hopes and dreams are often (always) stymied by the fact that we're on the wrong side of the statistics. Only about 1% of couples experience three or more miscarriages without the joy of a full term pregnancy somewhere in between. We are that 1%. It's one of those unfortunate circumstances where being one of a chosen few is not something to be celebrated.
I decided to start this blog on New Year's Day. For people like me, whose lives are dominated by a sole purpose or mission that has, so far, been elusive, new beginnings are just disheartening reminders that we still haven't gotten where we're trying to go. I woke up on New Year's morning feeling melancholy, dejected, and hopeless (plus, a little hung over). So I decided to start the year in search of the hope that I lost long ago. Naturally, I turned to Goo.gle.
My search for "success after four miscarriages" turned up a surprising number of hits. Tucked in the list of links were two blogs chronicling the struggles of women who, like me, had suffered multiple miscarriages. Unlike me, though (so far, anyhow), their stories had happy endings. One of them had recently given birth to a healthy baby girl, and the other was blessed last year -- with twins!
Their ultimate success raised my heart up a few small notches from its seemingly permanent residence in the pit of my stomach. And I realized that maybe my story could help someone, too.
I really have nothing to lose. Even if our quest to start a family is never successful, maybe this blog will offer a small bit of comfort to a couple who is experiencing the same painful journey, and will let them know that they are not alone (no matter how small of a statistic they are). If our prayers are answered and we're finally blessed with a baby, then sharing our story could mean offering a little glimmer of hope to a couple who are trying hard to stay optimistic in spite of their empty arms.
