The Writer's Journal: Baby Fever

Hello Darling,

My husband and I have been talking about having kids for years. This is such a personal topic that is on a constant pendulum with our emotions. I’ve debated sharing this part of my journey for months but realize the more people I talk to about it, the more things feel normal.

People don’t talk about the journey leading to conception enough. It’s not always easy, it’s not always just following a chart or taking an ovulation test to “get it right”. I still get questions from friends and clients who ask, “When are you going to have a baby” or “Why aren’t you pregnant yet?” and we always answer with, “Eventually” or “We’re busy with other parts of our lives”, but the truth of the matter is: it’s not that easy.

The amount of negative tests we toss are another piece of the hope we had. As much as we try to not get excited each time we wait for those little lines to show up, it’s hard to shake the disappointment when the positive isn’t there.

While the stress of 2020 has not helped at all, it is not the only issue at hand. I deal with chronic pain and a notoriously irregular cycle. In my late teens/early 20’s, I was told it would be difficult to get pregnant due to continued “abnormalities” along my cervix that were, luckily, always benign. I had to get regular pap smears moreover than typically tested for someone as they always tell me is, “this young” to test for multiple factors including if one of those abnormalities suddenly popped up as malignant.

I suffered through a painful colposcopy at the age of 21 and while I thankfully haven’t developed cervical cancer, it’s definitely been a hard journey of trying to find out what my chronic pain is spawning from, and why my body is so inconsistent. In my mid-to late twenties, my pap smears have been showing that I am abnormality free, but my chronic pain has persisted.

My OB-GYNs’ in my early twenties thought it might be a genetic abnormality or a hormonal imbalance and didn’t pursue it past dropping my birth control after the colposcopy was clear (aside from the abnormalities that were ruled benign). They told me it would take a while for my body to “go back to normal” after stopping BC but there was never really a true “normal” for me that didn’t include pain. I distinctly remember one OB-GYN tell me my pain wasn’t “that bad”, it’s “normal” and it must be “in my head” because all the tests they ran would come back clear.

I gave up on trying to find a cure or even just a name for my problem, neglected the subject altogether and accepted this fate as “this is just how it is" because I didn’t feel heard, I felt brushed off and rushed in and out of exam rooms. Then along comes the love of my life and the desire to start growing our family and the courage to speak up and find someone willing to really listen to my problem. Finding that person took years, too.

I was finally diagnosed earlier this year with a specific syndrome and there are treatments I can do to help with the chronic pain, how to manage it and how to prevent flare ups. I remember asking her (my current OB-GYN) to repeat the name, half in shock and disbelief that finally there was a name and wasn’t all “just in my head” and “not that bad”. I felt validated, relief, hope. Those feelings quickly dissolved as I watched her sigh before she continued. Part of the treatment includes a hormone treatment that I can’t start while trying to conceive. She said, it’s either pain relief now or try for a baby now and do the pain relief later when I’m done trying to have kids. Talk about a gut punch. Here I was, finally with the possibility of being pain free just to be told it’s a choice of no pain or conceiving. There are physical therapy treatments she recommended as well to help manage the chronic pain but they won’t likely reduce the pain completely.

She advised I wait a year, try to work around the pain and if I still don’t get a successful positive, we’ll talk about “other options”. I left that appointment and cried in my car for ten minutes before going back to work. At least now I had a name to my problem and I left there feeling positive and hopeful for the first time in years despite the devastating blow that I had to pick between being pain free now or trying to conceive.

But even after knowing now, trying to do both (manage the pain and try for a baby) has been just as difficult as it was before. It’s a very hard topic for me, there are many days I blame myself for this not being “easier”, many weeks of feeling broken and asking myself, “why aren’t you pregnant yet” as if it’s my own burden, my own problem and my fault, but each time I feel like I’m beating myself up, my husband is there to tell me it’s not my fault, it’s okay and we’ll get through this journey together.

The ideal that there is a “good time” for a baby has long since sailed, we’re fully focused on trying for a safe and healthy pregnancy. We’re accepting that this is all happening for good reason and when it’s our time, we will be ready.

Until Next Time,

M.E.