Unbearable: I’m Not Pregnant, But I Need Alcohol And Sushi To Prove It To Myself

infertilityHaving a child is usually a happy time in a woman’s life. Unfortunately, as we wait longer to have children, infertility and trouble conceiving can become a part of the family making process. Unbearable addresses these difficulties.

There is an amazingly heart-warming story of a woman with a misdiagnosed miscarriage over at Offbeat Mama this week. This woman went to that horrifying first-look ultrasound and found an empty sac with no traces of an actual fetus occupying it. After blood tests, the doctors informed her that her HcG levels were multiplying as fast as they should. To the medical professionals, she was having a miscarriage. Her second in less than six months.

But instead of taking medicine or having a D & C, the writer chose to wait for her miscarriage to happen naturally. She tried to stop thinking of herself as pregnant, while still giving her body time to process the situation. She drank a couple beers and a little coffee. She stopped following all those pregnant rules, trying to persuade herself that she wasn’t carrying a little one anymore, because that’s what the doctors told her. But her miscarriage  didn’t come. In fact, a month later, still no miscarriage. When she went back to the doctor, they found it. They found the baby right where it was supposed to be. The author gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

I read this amazing story and my eyes teared up. I felt thrilled for this woman that everything worked out in the end. I loved knowing that happy endings occur.

And at the exact same time, I wish I could wipe it from my memory. Even though I know that it’s unfair and self-centered, I wish I didn’t have to hear stories of hope and happy endings after a presumed tragedy.

This story is magical, and it tricks my mind into thinking that magic happens. It makes me wonder if the baby caught in my Fallopian tube could’ve magically worked its way down to uterus, even though none of the doctors believed it could. I feel guilty for not trusting my little one, even when I know that refusing to act could’ve killed me.

These unbelievable stories play into the fantasy in my head. It’s the dream that I’m pregnant, even when every bit of logical evidence says that I’m not. These stories are the reason that I don’t trust a handful of negative pregnancy tests, maybe my hormones just aren’t up yet. And I can’t trust my period, some people bleed all the way through their pregnancies. And perhaps I have been feeling nauseous and exhausted lately, of course I must be pregnant!

But I’m not. And in my head, I know that I’m not. I start doing exactly what the author did. I have coffee and sushi. I drink a beer, simply to prove to myself that I’m accepting reality. I go back to life-as-usual, trying to pretend that I’m okay with another month of failure. Then I go read websites with magical babies that appear in once-empty amniotic sacs and I start the whole process over again.

I was discussing my struggles with these stories with a friend who is going through infertility issues. She made a statement that summed up my problem perfectly, ” I will hinge the greatest hopes on the craziest of anecdotes.” It’s true. I’m so desperate to hear that I really am pregnant, that I finally will get to have the child we’ve been praying for these past two years, that I cling to the smallest bit of hope I can find.

I’m so happy that the author at Offbeat Mama got her happy ending and her healthy little girl. And I know that her story is amazing and deserves to be shared. But at the same time, I wish I didn’t hear it. I wish I didn’t know that it worked out for her. Because if I ever have to go through another miscarriage, I’m afraid that this story and this hope will make it impossible to move on, no matter what my reality is.

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