close
close

Apre-salomemanzo

Breaking: Beyond Headlines!

    • IVF, a baby incompatible with life. And then joy.
    aecifo

    IVF, a baby incompatible with life. And then joy.

    Umito Posted on

    play

    Friction is necessary for expansion.

    For three and a half years, this has been my guiding principle: *friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When the pills, injections, timing and assessments didn’t work. When I felt like my body was failing me ― Again. When the test showed a single line, another confirmed the same result, and another, and another, and another. A failure. Not pregnant.

    I said to myself: *friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When friends announced new additions. While despite genuine joy for their growing homes, my own disappointment and sorrow throbbed like an open wound. A guttural desire that rises. Why not me?

    Don’t answer. Simply put the cage back around your heart. Just let the pain fade into the background like a predator returning to its cave, waiting for the moment, waiting for the hunger to strike again.

    *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When the ultrasound at the fertility clinic showed something… disabled. This appointment, the nine-week check-in, was optional. My choice, they said. Two weeks earlier, my scans gave a picture of my health. No problem. The heartbeat is so strong. Hearing the rhythmic pulsations for the first time seemed heavenly, supernatural.

    I held the black-and-white screenshots by their edges, with the tenderness of an archivist. Could this be true?

    I wanted to celebrate with the nurses one more time. After months of treatment, they felt like friends. Callie had danced—the kind of wildly pumping, jumping up and down arm that is manifested happiness—as she delivered my results.

    Pregnant – finally.

    But now we spoke hesitantly, the lump in our throat too much of an obstacle to more than a few words at a time. The examination room seemed colder, the angles and instruments sharper than before. *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When the diagnoses piled up in the appointments that followed. So, so much for someone so small. At first I was told the baby might be small. Maybe have a wide neck. May have vision problems. Maybe high blood pressure.

    Fate was not inevitable. And we still had to fight: Are you bringing a life into this world that doesn’t have every opportunity? Are you starting your child with less? *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    As the sonographer pushed and squeezed his wand, jostling and dragging it forcefully across my stomach, in a last ditch attempt to get a healthy heartbeat back. Ultimately, a vain attempt. Looking up at the dusty vent in the ceiling, I was grateful for this pain, this sting of the wand. Physical pain finally gave shape to the misery that had taken up residence in my heart.

    The magic inside me was a mirage – just as I had feared. How could I allow myself to dream that this could be true? How could I allow myself to hope? *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When the doctor said, “She is very ill. » The “she” landed on my ears like a thud. A girl. A girl. I took notes, unsure whether I would remember the horrible realities: Malformed heart. Halo around the brain. Fluid under the skin. Swollen. I won’t be able to be born alive. *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    I “survived” infertility. But not before it shaped my outlook on everything.

    When the doctor told me that the baby in my belly – the baby we prayed for every night, the baby we so desperately wanted – was “incompatible with life.” How clinical this language is. How impassive. *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    Was there anything I could have done? Or you shouldn’t have done it? Was it because of me?

    “You are not powerful enough to have caused this problem,” the doctor said.

    At home, I have a Post-it note hanging on my wall with this new psalm: “You are not powerful enough to have caused this problem. » *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When we took medical advice to plan an “evacuation” for fear of waiting an indefinite amount of time for a certain miscarriage. I might show it when it finally happens. Obvious enough for people to comment, assume I was planning a new life.

    What are the right words to say to someone: no, I plan to die young.

    I wanted our story to end in peace, his and mine. Or at least a patina of peace – a papier-mâché calm that betrayed the storm of despair, anger, jealousy, desire that raged inside.

    When the nurses at the outpatient clinic – where people usually go to get better, get a knee done, repair a tendon, bandage a shoulder – stopped, searching for the right words, as they read my file. I’m so sorry you’re here… *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When I climbed into Scott’s arms and cried. Sobbed. Until my cheeks were raw from the humidity. How it became our routine throughout the winter, like eating dinner or brushing our teeth. The suddenness and completeness of the void was a presence in itself. A gaping maw, created to devour the spirit. *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When we made the choice to try everything again. The pills. The blows. Early morning appointments. Surgical operations… Hope. *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When I did the active choice to let myself hope again. *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When Scott and I called the answering machine, holding hands and holding our breath, the nurse said in a sing-song voice that we were pregnant. When memories of what happened before quickly extinguished all joy, like the wind extinguishes a flame. How difficult it was to hold on to happiness when anxiety stood sentinel in its shadow. As I wondered if fear would swallow me up. *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    And when the expansion finally came. Love when we announced it to our families at Christmas. Love as, one by one, I told it to my loved ones. The love made evident in texts, calls, showers and good news – how that love extended from me to the baby. *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    When I just realized how love my baby already was. *Friction* is necessary for expansion.

    How could I forget: love is a higher force. Love will always be a superior force. And love will guide you home forever – physically and figuratively.

    In May, Scott and I welcomed Clark Graca to the world and to the tribe who helped me overcome friction and welcome expansion.

    The doctor who gave me the shocking news was the same one who delivered the baby and put the pieces back together, which felt like a cosmic turnaround, a course correction away from rough waters for the first time for years.

    Clark was two weeks early, charging all the Taurus energy. He’s so curious. Eyes searching with curiosity, arms searching in a way that ignites and inspires and, yes, exhausts. And he’s a dreamer: he moves and meows in his sleep.

    Sometimes I cry just looking at him because I’m sure the heat in my heart is strong enough to burn a hole in my chest. Most of the time, I let those tears fall over and over again, until my cheeks are irritated from the humidity.

    Fear did not engulf me. I have borne fear with longsuffering – knowing that I will not just tolerate difficulties, delays and setbacks, I will know they are coming, I will see them on the horizon and I will carry the burden of their pain for that I’m waiting for. And wait. And wait.

    I now know that fear is like tension on an archer’s bowstring. Fear pushes back with the same force. Even harder force. But the pressure is necessary, it intensifies before the instantto make the trajectory of the arrow straighter, to make the trigger even faster.

    Fear is a prerequisite for courage.

    Don’t back down. Wait long enough to see what all this trouble reveals.

    Fear strengthened me. It clung to my bones like a metal skeleton. Prepare myself. It allows me to become the person I am now. The mother I am now.

    It revealed to me that having a baby is an act of hope – a deep belief in the principles of optimism, the principle that tomorrow will be better because we make it better. Fear has not stolen my hope, as I once worried. The will to survive what was frightening restored him, stronger and more powerful than before.

    I always rely on my principle: friction is necessary for enlargement.

    When my eyes burn with fatigue. Deciding whether to let Clark sleep or get him up for a bottle seems like a life or death decision. When I spent the night at that fourth brand of pacifier because he’s still figuring out how to spit them out.

    Friction is necessary for expansion.

    But there are two other mantras I find myself saying now: What is meant for you will not pass away.

    And: Victory is approaching.

    Clark is proof.

    Courtney Crowder is a columnist for the Register.

    Facts and figures about infertility

    Infertility affects millions of Americans each year, forcing many to resort to assisted reproductive technologies, including in vitro fertilization, commonly known as IVF, to expand their families.

    • 86,146 infants born in the United States, or 2.3%, were conceived using assisted reproductive technologies in 2021, the latest year for which data has been published.
    • Approximately 413,776 assisted reproduction procedures were performed at 453 reporting clinics in 2021, resulting in 112,088 pregnancies.
    • In Iowa, 823 babies born in 2021 were conceived through fertility treatments, representing about 2.2% of the state’s 36,835 total births.
    • Nearly 10 percent of married women ages 15 to 49 suffer from some form of infertility.
    • Nearly 10 percent of men aged 15 to 44 suffer from some form of infertility.
    • An estimated one in eight women aged 15 to 49 have received infertility services in their lifetime.
    • The average number of cycles needed to get pregnant through IVF is 2.5.
    • Costs for a single IVF cycle can range from $15,000 to over $30,000.
    • Two clinics in Iowa offer these services: Mid-Iowa Fertility Treatment Center and the University of Iowa, which has several locations throughout the state.
    • More than 69 percent of the 120,000 people of reproductive age diagnosed with cancer in 2018 required fertility preservation procedures, which are now considered a standard of care.
    • The use of assisted reproductive technologies has doubled and the number of infants born using these treatments increased by 50% between 2012 and 2021.

    — Data and statistics as reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

    Umito
    View all posts

    You Might Also Like