Work in Progress
An essay inspired by the author’s photo series
In the same examinination room where months ago, we talked about the new baby plan, my legs are reaching toward the fluorescent light. Camera in hand, I take the shot. A distraction and realization that I am not alone in this modern-day science of trying to conceive a child, I am documenting my journey, and this ritual of sorts.
***
I was 40 when I had the realization that I was running out of time to have a baby. I sort of told this to myself many times in the past, but at 40, it was time to listen. At 32, my mom told me to enjoy the first few years of marriage before having children. (I think that is the only advice of my mom’s I followed without a second thought.) I never craved to have a child, but thought I’d eventually want one, maybe even two. I thought I wanted a family; I just didn’t want it to define me. Yet.
So, I waited.
My mother died about two weeks after my second Wedding Anniversary. I was 35. That was one year after I finished up my second degree and was promoting my photography. That year or maybe for six months leading up to her death, I wanted to get pregnant, but truthfully, I think it was my attempt to give her something to live for.
Four months later, I lost someone close to me to suicide.
I was in the death time warp. 2005 and most of 2006 was not the right time to make a baby.
In 2007, I started a grad program in New York City.
So, those two years in grad school were just more years that I wasn’t ready to make a baby.
Finally, at the end of 2009 we were settling into our new home on the west coast and I was looking for work and curating locally. We were back in a honeymoon stage of our life and things felt calm. I thought about having a baby. But the thought was background. The foreground was my career.
Suddenly, it’s 2010 and I’m turning 40. I enjoyed the milestone. But then I realized, ‘Whoops! Holy shit. Wait. We need to seriously think about having a baby.’
…..
We kept track of my ovulation but without any luck. Each month we became more and more obsessed and worried and discouraged. We met with my gynecologist and started a plan to do IUI and regular old sex. After two IUI’s and regular old sex we got pregnant in 2012. Wow, the relief! But at 11 weeks we got the news many women get: the heart had stopped. I scheduled a D&C- Dilation& Curretage (the same procedure performed for abortions.) I was devastated. The Shins new album had just been released and it helped me get through it while I spent a few days in the desert. After I mourned, I pushed on and started trying again.
We all process grief differently. In this case, I felt I had no choice but to push past the grief.
We tried six more times with IUI and regular old sex. Anyone who gets on the schedule knows…. how… sexy this is not. We were all in bare bones factory trying to make a baby. I finally got the positive. But at 5 or 6 weeks, there was no heartbeat.
I had my second D & C in six months.
***
We finally connected with a fertility specialist who got us. “You have been pregnant twice in under a year, you can get pregnant, we just need to get you the eggs that will survive.” And he didn’t refer to me as geriatric, which is always a plus?
(Side note: I am a 42-year-old women; the word “geriatric” floored me. Can we take that term away? When, as a reproductive specialist, you are the embodiment of hope for a couple struggling with fertility and you are planning to profit off of them, could you please rebrand the term “geriatric” in relation to their ovaries?)
We had a plan. But if this IUI with aggressive shots and acupuncture didn’t work, we’d move onto Plan IVF.
It worked.
And while I would love to say that the day we created our twins was sunshine and rainbows, it was not. My husband and I fought that morning- the emotional rollercoaster had worn us down. But we persisted- our doctor, my husband and me. We hung out in that fluorescent sterile room, the two of them sitting on stools and me with my legs in the air. Visualize it, the doctor said, as he smiled.
This now common ritual in science worked, and yes, we got twins.
Looking back, I have no regrets, I love the people my husband and I made. Time could have kicked us in the ass, but we pushed through our grief and were fortunate enough to have the help of science. Under that bright fluorescent light of the examination room, this geriatric girl made two incredible humans.
~Beth Chucker