Learning to Sit in the Thick of Infertility: Megan’s Infertility Journey
For years Megan had gastrointestinal (GI) issues, struggled with eczema, and a handful of other issues but was told that her bloodwork looked great and there was nothing of concern. Looking back, she feels like she gaslighted herself into thinking there was nothing wrong and that everything would work itself out. It was after trying to get pregnant naturally for a while that she mentioned the struggle to her friend and coworker at the fertility clinic they both worked at and her friend suggested she just talk to one of the physician assistants, have a consultation, and see what they say. Megan’s immediate reaction was denial, thinking she didn’t need to talk to anyone, but the more conversations she had with her infertility patients the more she couldn’t ignore the idea that maybe there was something she needed to address.
“[Infertility] is disenfranchised grief that others can’t see so it’s hard for them to fully understand what you are going through or the pain you are feeling physically and emotionally.”
When setting up the operating room (OR) one day with a Fellow Physician in her fertility office, Megan brought up some of her issues, noting specifically how she had not been able to get pregnant naturally. The fellow suggested that it could be an issue with their timing and suggested ovulation kits. Megan originally didn’t want to do ovulation testing because no one wants to try that hard to have a baby. But to her dismay, they ended up doing the ovulation kits and once she started, she was consumed. That was the start of Megan’s infertility journey that she never thought she’d have to walk.
FROM OVULATION KITS TO IUI’S
“After we started tracking ovulation and seeing no results, we moved on to medicated cycles. We ended up doing six medicated cycles and one included Clomid, which I did not do well with. My blood pressure increased to 170/110 at one point while I was working, and it was my anesthetist who put me on the OR table to check my blood pressure and immediately encouraged me to get off Clomid given how high my blood pressure was.
Unfortunately, none of the medicated cycles with Letrozole or Clomid worked, and I was faced with having to do an intrauterine insemination (IUI), which I wasn’t looking forward to doing. There was also the factor that I worked at the fertility clinic with the physician assistants, fellows, and doctors who would perform the IUI and when going through infertility all of you feels so exposed, physically and emotionally. Working alongside those individuals who are also on our personal infertility journey was interesting. There were some elements that were hard, but at the same time, I was thankful to have people beside me who I was comfortable with and trusted.
Working at a fertility clinic while you’re also a patient is not easy though. There were days when I would get my ultrasound done, run over to another room to post op a patient, and then have my coworker draw my blood so I could drop it off. For my IUI, I would be in my scrubs, working with my little scrub cap on, run over to the ultrasound room to get my IUI done, and then I’d get right back to work. Working within the infertility space while living my own version of it provided me with no escape.”
“My goal is to be your nurse who you can call to come inject your medications, but I can also serve as support to anyone going through their infertility journey who has questions or needs to vent. My clients can lean on me.”
NEEDING A BREAK AFTER 10 MONTHS OF NOT GETTING PREGNANT
“It had been 10 months of consecutive attempts at either medicated cycles or an IUI and each one failed. Each month, I would get a cycle, do a baseline on day three and start all over and we reached the point where we needed a break. It was a lot having to live through our own journey and having to work in the same space and I felt like I couldn’t detach myself from fertility.
Because of our own infertility struggles, I found myself wanting to do more work in the patient advocacy space, while also utilizing my nursing background. Hence, 412 Fertility Services was born during our own break from infertility treatments. Pressing pause on our treatments helped me launch the business where I now can support others in their infertility treatments and while it wasn’t intentional, my clients have helped me personally. It was after starting the business and helping my clients walk through their own IVF journeys that I found myself ready to jump back in with our own treatments and start IVF.”
FINDING A NEW FERTILITY CLINIC ON ACCIDENT
“I set up a business visit with the Shady Grove fertility clinic in our area and wanted to introduce myself to them and share how I could provide support to their patients. I brought Crumble Cookies and brochures and met most of the staff working that day and it turned into a 30-to-45-minute conversation that left me thinking I might have found our next fertility clinic for our own journey. I walked out of the clinic excited that I put myself and my business out there, but I also left with such a good feeling about the support they could provide to us and our infertility struggles. While I didn’t intentionally try to switch clinics, it happened organically and just felt right.
My husband and I scheduled an appointment to see if we felt the same vibe with the doctor and it all happened so fast. When I called for a consultation, they happened to have a cancellation the next week, getting us into the office within a month of first reaching out. The ease that it all happened made me feel like it was all supposed to happen this way. After the first consultation with the doctor, my husband and I looked at each other and immediately said, ‘Yep, we are 100% going with them’.”
“One step at a time, not the entire staircase. You need to take the small wins!”
STARTING OUR IVF JOURNEY
“We started with our new clinic in September, and we immediately started doing blood work to establish new baselines, completed a sonohysterogram (SHG), checked on my Hashimoto’s and thyroid and everything looked great. In late October, I started my first round of stims (aka ovarian stimulation) and simultaneously had two patients of my own starting their own stims in the first few days of my round. I would drive to one client’s house and help with her injection and would not have time to go home in between appointments, resulting in my first few nights of stim being in the parking lot of Home Depot. I’d pull over into the parking lot, do the shot in my car, and move on to my next client. I didn’t have time to think about where I was or how I was having to do the shot and I just needed to get it done.
Our egg retrieval was on November 12 and the wait after the egg retrieval was by far the hardest part of the whole process. I always knew for me that the injections weren’t going to be the hard part. It can be difficult and mostly because it’s a foreign experience for most if you’re not in the medical field, but for everyone, the wait after the retrieval is intense. My husband and I decided that we’d take another break before moving forward with a transfer.”
INFERTILITY IS DISENFRANCHISED GRIEF
“I pride myself on the fact that I can stick anybody given my skill set and my experience working in the emergency room. However, when I started my own injections, it brought with it a new level of anxiety and fear because of the unknown. My anxiety was so big and took over to the point where I had my husband inject my first trigger for IUI years ago. That’s why I started my business! My goal is to be your nurse who you can call to come inject your medications, but I can also serve as support to anyone going through their infertility journey who has questions or needs to vent. My clients can lean on me.
Infertility is such a hard concept for people to grasp if they are not going through it. It’s disenfranchised grief that others can’t see so it’s hard for them to fully understand what you are going through or the pain you are feeling physically and emotionally. I understand the heightened emotions that come with going through infertility and can be the calm in the hard moments, like when you need to stick yourself with a needle.
The mental aspect of infertility is the hardest in all ways and I think that’s why injections can be so hard. I don’t think it’s the physical mixing of the liquid and powder for the individual shots. Yes, that can be confusing, but it’s the anxiety and fear of messing it up, using the wrong needle, or miscalculating the dose and the potential impact it has on your results. The emotional aspect behind the injections is what make them scary.”
“If you share with friends who have not experienced infertility, also share with them how they can support you.”
FINDING SUPPORT THROUGH INFERTILITY
“I have found the biggest support from others who have walked their own infertility path. There were nurses from the first fertility clinic I worked at who had gone through IVF around the same time and they provided me with so much support. There was one in particular who was more familiar with the clinical protocols, and I could text her any time about what something meant or how I was supposed to do something and she’d respond immediately walking me through it step by step.
I also started going to a support group after our last IUI failed and it has been incredibly helpful being able to talk to others with similar experiences. The lady who runs the group always talks about how hearing your story within someone else’s story is validating and I find so much truth in that.
I can talk to friends, but it can be hard when they don’t fully understand. My advice now is if you share with friends who have not experienced infertility, also share with them how they can support you. Just as you are new at experiencing infertility and treatment, your friends are also new at supporting somebody who is going through it. I’ve learned how to be upfront with my friends and when I share that we’re getting ready to do a transfer, I also ask that they refrain from asking me about it. When we’re ready to share, we’ll reach out. It’s about asking for the specific support you need and establishing boundaries.
The Instagram community has also been a support system for me. I’ve met women through the platform who I’ve never seen in person, but you can believe that our message threads are lengthy! Nobody truly understands what we go through the way somebody going through infertility understands it. Those women provide support with no judgment, and they never try to fix anything but simply know how to hold space. If I can’t be hopeful, they hold hope for me. If I’m annoyed, they’re annoyed with me, and it provides validation for what I’m feeling. I’m humbled and honestly honored to be able to help other people through the connections I have made on the online community.”
“My husband and I have learned that sometimes you just need to sit in the mud with your partner.”
SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO SIT IN THE MUD
“Taking breaks is what has helped me most in finding a way forward, particularly after hard moments in our journey. Breaks can be an unpopular opinion in the fertility community because there is so much weight placed on time, and you think you can’t afford to wait another two months or six months. For me though, I have had to break the process down into segments. We did our retrieval in November and we’re not planning on doing a transfer until March because we needed the time to let our results sink in. We had a high egg yield from our retrieval but went from 27 eggs to two mature blastocysts, when statistically speaking we should have had five to six. Those results were hard to swallow, and we needed time to sit with them.
Through the support group I attend, my husband and I have learned that sometimes you just need to sit in the mud with your partner. Through this experience with infertility, my husband and I communicate so well and support each other in ways I don’t think we ever would have learned had we not gone through this. But we now fully grasp this concept of sitting in the thick of things and have gotten good at it. We process things differently and we know that I am going to cry and sulk and need the time to be miserable. My husband takes the mindset that it is what it is and there is nothing we can do about it. We have learned from each other, and we now take a little bit of his response and a little bit of mine and we’ve found a way forward that works for us.
Taking a break and a step back, dropping our focus from preparation on the next step, and allowing ourselves to sit is what works best for us. We give ourselves the day to be sad and to cry about the fact that we didn’t have as many embryos as we expected and then tomorrow, we’re going to thank the heavens that we have at least a chance.”
THE WAIT CONSUMES YOU
“Walking into an egg retrieval was not the hard part for me but rather it was the complete consumption that the waiting after had on me. When we were waiting for the preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) results, we knew the clinic was going to call us but my husband and I were both checking our portals an embarrassingly large number of times. They tell you at the start that it could take two to three weeks or however long it takes for results to come back, but we weren’t expecting how consumed we would be by each individual day of waiting. They were truly some of the hardest times.”
“There are so many people who can’t afford [treatment] or don’t have the means or access to do so. I’ve chosen to see it as a privilege to take each step on this journey no matter how frightening or nerve wracking or scary the steps are.”
FOR THOSE WALKING THE PATH OF INFERTILITY
“My favorite mantra throughout our journey has been one step at a time, not the entire staircase. You need to take the small wins! No matter how small they are, they are still wins. Even if it’s that your medications arrived…that’s a win. If you inject yourself with progesterone when you’re afraid of needles…that’s a win! With each step you take, you are one step closer.
Join a community where you feel less alone because feeling alone through this journey makes it worse. When you confide in only friends and family members who don’t truly get it, they don’t mean to do this intentionally, but they can make you feel worse. You need to find people that understand, who you can share with, and talk to.
While it can be an unpopular opinion, doing IVF or any fertility treatment can be a privilege and not in the sense that we are asking to go through it or that we want to go through it. But there are so many people who can’t afford it or don’t have the means or access to do so. I’ve chosen to see it as a privilege to take each step on this journey no matter how frightening or nerve wracking or scary the steps are. One step at a time, because the moment I look at the whole staircase, I am instantly overwhelmed.
I also love the idea that if we expect the worst, that expectation will not protect us from potential disappointment. Rather, it will detract you from the joy that you could be experiencing in the present moment. I’m constantly thinking about all the ‘what if’s’ and specifically what if something goes wrong or fails. All my ‘what if’ thoughts are very negative and it’s a family friend who has taught me to flip my perspective to ‘what if it all goes perfectly?’. What if everything works out? We were upset at first that we only had two healthy embryos, but now I try to shift my mindset to celebrating the fact that we have two chances. If I dwell on the negative, that will not change what the ultimate outcome will end up being. We are choosing to wrap ourselves in the fact that we have a chance.”
Since Megan first shared her story with me, she has gone through a failed embryo transfer and she and her husband have currently decided to no longer pursue infertility treatment. Megan still feels called to her work as a nurse and is still serving and supporting those going through infertility with her 412 Fertility Services business. You can continue to follow Megan and see how she continues to support and root for others battling infertility on Instagram @412fertility.