My mother threw me a baby shower. My face hurt from smiling.
This photo shoot was healing. I wanted proof. I wanted to show our baby that, yes, you grew in my belly. I sang to you. You came with me to photograph buildings & we made lots of construction guys very nervous when we were on ladders.
I wanted to say, "your story began in my uterus and my body worked."
We planned to be extremely open with our baby & our family about her conception & our use of donor eggs. There are several children's books introducing the concept. They made a good Christmas gift.
I guess I got a pomegranate and chicken marinade?
I was a solid week late for my due date & extremely uncomfortable. Still, I wanted so badly to give gifts to my niece and nephew while they were visiting. I went into labor the moment they left.
I brought this onesie to the hospital and the stuffed bear to focus on during labor.
I had to have a c-section despite my four-page, single spaced, super-natural birth plan. It was such an impersonal, invasive group-project getting me pregnant that I was desperate to do something on my own. I was in labor from Friday AM until Monday at 11PM.
I remember the team pulling her out, my guts on my lap & being so upset I could not hold her. I remember saying, "Just get her to Stephen. Give her to Stephen."
We couldn't get pregnant on our own. I couldn't follow my birth plan. But my baby was here & I was her mom. I gave her my maiden name, Tierney. She was perfect.
And she got perfect-er. She brings such joy to this world it is hard to remember that there was a time that she wasn't here. I like to tell her she was hiding from us.
Ok, so that was easy.
After a few years, we were ready to try again with the second embryo which had been frozen.
We went to dinner after the transfer and told the waiter we were pregnant with our second baby.
We weren't. It did not take.
We had no more embryos but I had a big family with lots of cousins. We asked Kelsey, my creative, thoughtful, and funny cousin from the other side of my family.
She selflessly agreed to help.It was hard to believe we were so lucky - twice.
Kelsey and I went through the preparation again. The shots, the patches the anticipation. Everything went well, eggs were retrieved, embryos created & we went for the transfer.
It didn't work. We were crushed.
I remember taking this photo two days before I got a call from my step-mother. My father had a seizure & couldn't speak clearly. It turned out that he had a brain tumor that needed to be removed. He was 62.
I was at the hospital waiting for his surgery, I was mid-cycle, & I realized there was an issue with my medication. A pharmacy rep met me on a side street with a paper bag. I returned to the hospital medication in hand & found a nurse to administer the intra-muscular injection.
I was pretty much out of my mind here. We did a frozen embryo transfer.
After being so obsessive about getting pregnant, it was surreal to experience joy & despair simultaneously. My father's prognosis was dire.
This was taken before my cousin's wedding in Maine for which I was so scattered I left my dress at home. My father traveled to attend the wedding but due to the cancer treatments he wasn't well enough to make it to the reception.
I had Elizabeth weeks shy of my 43rd birthday. She was healthy & beautiful.
My father rallied to visit us in the hospital despite his exhaustion. I had not seen him so happy since his surgery. This photo means the world to me.
I have a hard time recalling this time in my life. We finally ended our maddening search for parenthood. We had the babies that we had always dreamed of. But we then dove right into the reality of a parent quickly dying of cancer.
Meanwhile, my husband began his own business & traveled part of the week.
I remember more than once when I managed to find a babysitter for Elizabeth while Tierney was in preschool and I had a few hours to help care for my father.
It was when was pumping breastmilk as I drove to his house & nearly crashed the car that I realized I was falling apart.
My father died a week after Elizabeth's first birthday.
So that is how this family came to be. It was painful, messy and utterly unpredictable. We cannot imagine a life without these small people.
Both Stephen and I are happy to meet with couples who are wrestling with the donor egg decision. We are very grateful for the couple who offered the same to us.
We support Resolve New England at their annual walk with the team name "From Western Mass and Kicking Ass".
I lead a RNE peer support group here in Western Massachusetts because research shows that while infertility can be traumatizing, having support makes a meaningful difference.
I often think about what I would tell my younger self if I knew how this would end. I wonder what I would have liked to hear; honesty, I suppose. Maybe something like...
Dear Younger Self,
I am sorry.
This journey to parenthood is going to be more difficult than you can imagine. It will take ten years. You will feel alone and confused and empty. You will never find answers about what is wrong with & there will be times when you will despise your own body.
You will feel demeaned and humiliated and embarrassed. Additional losses in this journey will lead you to a place that feels like you are unable function but you will never, ever stop fighting. Even on that darkest of days, you will never lose your ability to get up again.
You will not have many companions on this journey but Stephen will be by your side - always.
When you are at the point where you are so lost & begin to think you live in this rotten place, you will make it to the other side.
Both strangers and family will help you in ways you never could imagine. Your path through is one you never even knew existed and the light at the end is brilliant like none other not despite but because of that darkness.