Anna Réka, 37, New York, USA
And today I again got my period. This was the 22nd round of having sex on the right days (tired, sick, angry at husband, doesn’t matter, you just do it) and then waiting for two weeks, analysing every single thing your body does to see if the magic finally happened. The magic did not fucking happen.
It’s called unexplained infertility. We are both 100% healthy according to tests. Which sounds great, just sometimes I wish there was something I could do, because like this, it feels like a never-ending lottery. I am facing the first thing in my life I have absolutely no control over. This experience is very new to me and since patience is not my strongest, it is often very challenging. I try to think about this journey as the necessary lesson I have to learn in order to become a great and patient mama (writing the word mama made me tear up, nevermind, read on), and I do believe that everything happens when it has to happen, I just really would love to have a baby, that’s all.
My life does not revolve around TTC anymore. I got used to it. The wait, the disappointment, it all became a part of my beautiful, fully regular cycle as well. I am not obsessing over it. Sure, this lottery is about my most profound reproductive instincts, but honestly I can’t keep up the obsession for so long. My own failure doesn’t prevent me from feeling true joy when I hear about a friend’s pregnancy, I am truly happy for every baby that is being born around me and it’s amazing to see how great parents most of my friends turned out to be. What I can’t get used to is the questions and the advices. The “and..? How are you guys doing with the baby stuff?” - I don’t understand how people dare ask me this month after month. Dude. I am either pregnant, which you would know, or I am not, in which case I probably don’t want talk about this topic. If I do, I will bring it up, don’t worry. Or the jokes, when I meet someone in a bar and order a cocktail and I get a “oh ok an alcoholic beverage, I see”. And then the advices. The “just relax and it will happen” - if I hear this one more time that person dies. Or when they bring up IVF before I would get there. Thank you, I didn’t give us up yet. I want my child to want to be born, I don’t want to force together eggs and sperms in a glass cup. I don’t have any expectations from this kid, but I want them to make it. Just make it.
Last time I visited my brother and his girlfriend in Europe, they gave me my nephews first little jumpsuit as a present. I felt so awkward that I left it on their coffee table. My brother came to meet me later and he gave it to me again. He said I will need it. I brought it home to NYC, it sits on the top of my bookshelf, wrapped in soft paper and I didn’t open it since. Sometimes I want to lay it on my chest but it’s so empty.