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As my mother used to say, "Who'dve thunk it...?". Who would have ever guessed that I would be in my shoes? Now, I'm no Polyanna ~ that same mother told me time and again that "life isn't fair". ('Course I went into social work precisely because I thought that somehow I could change that very fact...) But infertility? C'mon... me?
Anyone who knew me in high school could tell you what a nut I was for babies -- human babies, animal babies, cute little plant babies. If it was young and small and vulnerable, I loved it. Babysat constantly. Drove my friends nuts with my ooohing and aahhhing at tiny things. Worked at a daycare after school. Took every child development course offered at my public high school.
But I was determined to not end up like the few girls at my school who were moms before they even graduated. I decided, in my infinite adolescent wisdom, that good parenting would change the world, and the only way to fight for that cause was to get a college degree and become a professional. I would be a professional mom, in training for the "real" thing and helping others along the way.
My college major reflected that passion. "Human Development and Family Studies", a name that no one could remember and even fewer understood. As I found myself explaining my degree to others, I developed a stronger understanding myself of what it was I was about to do. A self-supporting, adult student (I left home immediately upon graduating high school for reasons unknown to me still), I was constantly pulled from my quest by the tedious jobs I held to feed myself. When speaking about it to others, I would remember my goal--a better world through better parenting.
Thankfully, some of my jobs were heading me in the right direction, although don't believe anyone who tells you that working as a Tech in an adolescent psyc unit is rewarding. I finally graduated and entered the professional world of social work with families. I was lucky in that I had plenty of opportunity to do what I had always wanted, and I jumped on each career rung that came my way. Eventually, I found myself being considered something of a local "expert" in my last full-time arena of social work--the world of HIV positive women and children. By that time, however, I had also found myself a husband.
We married precisely because we wanted children (we had lived together prior to being wed, and found it an agreeable arrangement), and we both knew that I was not getting any younger. Having had a checkered gynecological history, complete with cystic ovaries and cervical dysplasia, I immediately set about interviewing doctors. Working in an OB/Gyn clinic at the time, I knew too much to casually approach the matter of my impending conception. I can look back now and feel wistful toward my naiveté.
So, in the summer before my wedding, I sat in a physician's office, hearing the word "infertile" being spoken about me for the first time. No, she did not call me that exactly, but the word was spoken. I remember blinking, as if trying to focus on the word in my mind's eye. Sure, I had quit taking the pill 18 months prior to this date, and yes, we had not used any other means of contraception. But, hey, we weren't actually "trying" yet, just preparing to try. Couldn't it be that something in my body's chemistry knew that we weren't quite ready yet, therefore sending my hormones into an impregnable state? C'mon, me, infertile?
I left the OB/Gyn's office armed with a chart that was to stay at my bedside for at least the next 3 months, and some literature from RESOLVE which I quickly misplaced. The doctor had assured me that the temperature charting was strictly for insurance purposes, that I'd need it "just in case" it came down to requesting insurance coverage for infertility, that she didn't think I'd have any problems really. We just needed to really "try". And so we did...
© Tracy Morris
