The message to “keep going, don’t ever give up!” is the one we always hear. What about that small quiet voice that says “enough, it’s ok to stop”?
This is one of those rare articles about a couple who went through IVF, experienced failure and loss, and eventually decided not to pursue parenthood. No need to scan the piece for the baby picture at the bottom – it didn’t happen. It’s eloquently written and heartfelt.
The writer offers some poignant insights:
Saying ‘no more’ changes the way other women perceive me; I cannot possibly understand their life. I envy the mess, the learnings, the struggles, the joy, the laughter and the love they have. They envy my clean sofa, beautiful artwork and long lie-ins.
I wish I’d been able to articulate the following when a couple of friends almost congratulated me on having a miscarriage at 38:
For those on the outside, miscarriage can seem like a stepping stone. “You can get pregnant, this is great news! You can try again and next time it’ll work!” For us, miscarriage was different. Our only option for having a family is fertility treatment. Relaxing, letting everything go and trusting in the universe will not result in a pregnancy for us.
It isn’t too common in Ireland to read a story like this: huge respect to Ruth McKenna for putting it out there.
I wanted closure… I was so, so tired of waiting and hoping and praying for a life that might never be realised …. I’ve chosen to share my story because I want to shake off the taboo, the shame around infertility and miscarriage. It doesn’t serve any of us. My hope is that my story offers comfort to those who have been in my shoes.
From Irish Independent May 16 2017 10:20 AM
Ah god my heart is in my mouth, I can relate to this so much. As we left the hospital I was told to ‘try again’ as if it was that simple. Thank you for sharing this. I think so much advice is to keep trying, stay positive, you will get there, to believe in some higher power or something along those lines, I hear this and it makes me angry, i don’t personally feel this advice if helpful and it breads false hope…
Fantastic article.
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It’s so well-written, isn’t it
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It really is! Very powerful
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These days many are being open about miscarriage, even Facebook’s Mark Zukkerberg opened up. But, as far as I know infertility problems is still in the dark and people feel ashamed to admit it.
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There is some shame still, I think
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There is but I also see that if people end up having a baby after going through IVF and or miscarriage, they are often much more willing to talk about it and tell everybody around them that they should never give up because it worked for them (eye roll). Like Jimmy Fallon who has that notorious quote about never giving up because they were able to pay a surrogate to have their baby. Me? I don’t have an extra $100,000 sitting around to afford a surrogate.
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Oh god – did Jimmy Fallon say that when he’d used a surrogate? Huge empathy bypass.
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Yeah here’s the exact quote: https://www.google.com/search?q=jimmy+fallon+quote+infertility&client=ms-android-google&prmd=niv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwil_83iqPfTAhULyGMKHbETAesQ_AUICigC&biw=412&bih=604#imgdii=-jWLxajgN3fvZM:&imgrc=PGfZlzdzB0DUwM:
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Awful. I wish people would have the grace to acknowledge that it doesn’t work out for thousands of people; express your own joy by all means but keep a dignified silence as regards other people’s trials.
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I was never ashamed to admit my infertility or my one miscarriage. The problem was, I was treated by people like I should be ashamed. No one ever knew what to say, so they just wanted me to shut up about it. I received NO support or empathy from anyone in my life at the time. The only support I received was from strangers who I met online going through the same thing. Those days are long past for me now, but reading this woman’s story brought it all back again. I’m not sorry for my decision, but sometimes, remembering how horrid people were to me during those days gets me angry all over again. To me, the lack of empathy is where the shame lies.
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I admit I did feel some shame; I think because I was older (36,37) and I felt people were judging me for waiting until post-35. Even though most of my friends had their kids in their late thirties. I genuinely did feel embarrassed about it – no thanks to media like The Daily Mail and co..
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My husband and I were married for 7 years before we started trying for a family. I was thirty. I’m sorry you felt ashamed. That’s an awful feeling. I also think the media which emphasizes that women are nothing if they’re home raising children, make it sound like they can postpone having a family for their careers, but they don’t give the biological facts. We’re supposed to have it two ways…a career and children. If women don’t have children in our late 30’s after a career, well then society makes it sound like we’re worthless. Choosing a career or choosing to stay home with children are both worthwhile choices, even if we don’t choose the other. I think we’re brainwashed with all the mass media these days. This is one of the reasons why I’m grateful for my infertility. It helped me to look inward, to find myself and my own truths…not the “truths” that society tells me I have to believe.
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Thanks Lori. So true. Myself, I had no career to speak of, I just didn’t feel ready before then and had other psychological stuff going on… I wish I had had a career!
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I get it. Me too. No real career, and needed to grow up before I started trying. The reason for waiting 7 years.
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Thank you so much for sharing! Want to connect with you about a new international effort that fits this narrative …building it out slowly at the moment : http://www.reprotechtruths.org — still in the formative stage…more to come. Let me know if you’re interested.
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Definitely: let me know how I can help
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I also had a neighbor congratulate me when she found out we had a miscarriage which blew my mind. Since when is a baby dying inside of you ever good news? After 6 rounds of donor egg IVF, those nine weeks are the only nine weeks I’ve ever had to say I was pregnant. As another quote I saw out there a few months ago said, “there’s no ‘at least’ in pregnancy loss”.
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It’s never a decent thing to say, but when people think it’s a ‘good sign’ to have a miscarriage after fertility treatment – that’s gobsmacking
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Thanks for sharing. I could relate to a lot of what she went through. After our last failed IVF we were also told there was no real reason for why it didn’t work and we could just ‘try again’. I like the last line she wrote “Please, instead of telling us about your friend’s success story, simply say “I’m so very sorry. I can’t imagine how it feels for you, it must be so hard.” I’m getting very tired of hearing all the stories about so and so who had a baby after X number of years. Those stories don’t give me hope as I everyone is different and you just can’t compare.
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Hi Dubliner I know what you mean; I remember I always seemed to be saying to people “yes but everyone has different factors and different prognoses…” *sigh*
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So true. Even my RE is trying to guilt me into “not giving up” and has the balls to use the “we had a patient once who tried 20 times and was successful on the 21st” bullshit story – of course that wasn’t with donor eggs and he’s made a crapton of money off people who try that much, so it’s in his financial interest to want us to keep going.
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20 times!! Would he do that? Gah.
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Thank you for sharing this article! I savor everything I can read written by women who tried to have kids and are living their lives without parenting. Everything I read helps me just a little bit more.
Like the article’s author, I also wanted closure. All of the “waiting and hoping” was taking a severe toll on me.
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Awesome – the more stories shared, the better. I’m tired of this ridiculous pile of invisibility we are forced to carry around with us.
I love her sentence “Relaxing, letting everything go and trusting in the universe will not result in a pregnancy for us.” Way to debunk that dismissive myth!!
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Thank you so much for sharing this — drawing that line is hard when so many people feed into the “never give up” or “the next time could be IT” — not just with IVF but with adoption, too. I was told my ectopic pregnancy was good news, because it meant I could get pregnant, but then the next time I got pregnant (in the right place) I had a miscarriage, and then I never got pregnant again despite donor eggs and then donor sperm. But everyone had a story about getting pregnant on that last cycle, or holding out hope and just when they felt hopeless with adoption that’s when the call came in… It’s so interesting that the people who say these things the most are the people who were “successful.” Maybe they want you to have what they have. Maybe it’s like every person I knew who got pregnant through infertility treatments and then told everyone it was the acupuncture, or the pineapple core, or the CoQ10, because that’s what they were doing when it worked. It’s rare for someone to go, “I got pregnant because I was lucky” or “I got picked because of a roll of the dice.” I definitely have a sense of shame that somehow I didn’t hang in there long enough (even though rationally I know that’s a big steaming pile of BS), and I am so nervous to go public with the news that we’ve ended our adoption journey without a baby because I fear the judgment (real or imagined) of the “miracle” people, of those who tell me not to give up on my dream while they tuck their children in at night and I develop autoimmune flares. I loved Ruth’s message. It is so empowering to hear/read other women who drew that line and are unapologetic about it. That need for closure, for ending the endless waiting and hoping for what turns out to be a figment… I so get it.
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Aw Jess I know what you mean about being nervous to go public – people generally have no inkling of why you have to stop and get your life back on track. Perhaps the trick is to be brutally unapologetic, hopefully people will be educated that way.
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This was a great article — thanks for sharing it! There were many parts that I could have written myself, verbatim or with small tweaks — our stories were so similar.
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