What Is an IF Pregnancy?

I've been thinking a lot about how a pregnancy after IF might be different than normal pregnancy. It seems that so many of the formerly infertile bloggers who do get pregnant have quite a hard time accepting their good fortune. It just doesn't seem real for the longest time and it's a struggle to believe that everything will turn out okay.

I have a good friend who got pregnant with IVF. It was a high-risk twin pregnancy. The combination of IF and high-risk meant that her pregnancy was hard on her, from what I could tell. It seemed that she just couldn't bring herself to believe in it. She is a lovely person and hardly ever complains, but I could tell that the chances of something going wrong weighed very very heavily on her. She didn't buy anything for the baby until very near the end of the pregnancy, when the weight finally seemed to lift as real live babies seemed - at long last! - to be an actual possibility.

In my first trimester of being pregnant, I felt an insane amount of joy and gratitude, but I was also very very scared. The kind of bone fear that makes it difficult to breathe some times. I know that every pregnant woman feels some degree of anxiety during the first trimester, but mine was excessive and I attribute it to IF. When you get used to the doctor's office calling with bad news for so many months, it's hard to believe that you won't get another one of those calls again. When your body has been so mysterious and uncooperative for so long, it's hard to believe that it won't manage to sabotage your lucky pregnancy in some way.

As the first trimester came to a close, my intense fear thankfully began to subside, but there was still the amnio to worry about. I didn't feel too horribly anxious about it, but there was that nagging doubt that this couldn't possibly all turn out okay. I'm abnormal, right? So it stood to figure that my abnormality might rub off on my child in some way. Getting the amnio results and knowing that the sprite has no major defects was thrilling, and seems to have lifted that last bit of infertility neurosis.

And that's what surprises me. After reading others' blogs, and talking to my IF friend, I fully expected to spend almost my entire pregnancy waiting for the other shoe to drop. But amazingly, unbelievably, I seemed to have turned an important corner. I am simply not subsumed by fear and disbelief at my good fortune. Of course, I still worry. If I didn't, I'd obviously be an alien. But I think that most or all of my worries are now just run-of-the-mill pregnancy issues, that every pregnant woman probably feels. I don't think they're particularly tied to IF, they're just part of being pregnant. It's such a novel experience, and to have a creature growing inside of you feels like such a big responsibility, it would be weird not to worry about her welfare. But it feels normal. That's my point. I feel normal.

Our life at the RE's office, all that bloodwork, the lap, our multiple IUIs, the drugs, they're all there in my memory, and they do continue to shape this pregnancy. But rather than corrupting the experience, making it impossible for me to enjoy it and believe that a baby will be part of our lives, my infertility affects my pregnancy now in a postiive way. Perhaps that's because we never did have to go to IVF. Or that we managed to get pregnant before we'd hit the 2 year mark. Pain is pain, though, as others have said, and we did suffer. But now when I think about how long it took, how hard it was on me and my husband, how painful those months and months of trying were, it makes me that much more deliriously happy to be pregnant. It makes me feel like the luckiest SOB in the whole world. Not that I deserve this kind of luck, but I'll take it, with a grin. Knowing that we floundered through infertility to get here, remembering how devastating it felt, makes me appreciate this pregnancy every single day. I'm not a religious person and I don't pray. But every day, I look down at my stomach in dizzy wonder, and say a little "prayer" of thanks that she's in there.

Comments

[wavery]

Normal is glorious.

[Dee]

Amen to that...you hit the nail on the head.

[dish]

I am so glad that you have hit the "normals" of pregnancy. I only got there recently, and wish I had been able to enjoy a lot more of this time. I am milking every last moment of the last 9 weeks, though.

[Sherry]

Well said, sister. Who would've thought WE'D be NORMAL.

[Menita]

I'm with dish - it took me forever to feel "normal" and now I regret not having enjoyed this pregnancy more. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop until I hit the seventh month...
Like dish, I am milking these last few weeks, though.
So CONGRATULATIONS on enjoying this - good job : )