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Transcript

Hope Through Life's Transitions · The World Knowledge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well, good evening, listeners. Thank you so much for coming
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: on and taking time to listen to Lamenta Vogue podcast,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: another episode for you. And today, it's a special one
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: for me because my mom, she was a mom in
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: her late 30s, early 40s because she struggled with infertility.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: So it took her 12 years to have me. And
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: then shortly after me, she had my sister. And that
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: journey as it started out, you, how long did you
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: start doing that? Was that like a method that you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: tried for another year? And then you were kind of like,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: what do we do now?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was probably around the two year
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: mark that we started trying with medication, if I remember correctly.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: So we were trying naturally for just tracking, tracking my cycle.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: And I remember thinking, oh, well, like, okay, well, if
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I track it, obviously it'll work now. No. So then
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: around the two-year mark, we started doing medication. And I
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: was on Clomid for a while. My body did not
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: react very well to Clomid. So then we moved to
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: letrozole with Femara. And we did that for probably, I
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: was on letrozole, I think, for like a year and
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: a half, maybe two years straight, trying to conceive. just
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: doing those. And then that's when we moved into doing IUIs.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: And we did two IUIs. But I guess I'm one
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: of the lucky ones in this group. There's like 1%
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: of women that your uterus contracts or reacts badly to
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: the liquid they mix the sperm with, with IUIs. And
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: so you get an IUI and you're uterus goes into
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: full contractions. And so I was only able to do two.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: And I was like, I'm never doing that again.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: That was the only like treatment we did other than MTCs.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: So then after that, we started going into medicated time
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: cycles where we would do a trigger shot. I would
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: go and get monitored, go get ultrasounds, do the transvaginal
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: ultrasounds to make sure, you know, there was a follicle.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: you know, take the trigger shot on the right days,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: make sure you baby dance on the right times. And yeah,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: then we stopped. We took a break. I was like,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I can't, everything, it was just failed. We had multiple miscarriages.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: It was like, I don't know how much longer I
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: can mentally do this. You kind of start going in
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: a spiral. So we just, we stopped for a few years.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: It was only going to be a few months and
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: it turned into like two years and it's actually going
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: on three years now that I haven't been on any
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: medication because we were like, well, the idea of going
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: back to that mindset is so scary. I'm like, I
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: don't want to go back to who I was at
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: that point. That medicine messed with me so much.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: So what did it feel like as you were going
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: through that And then you were talking about your family
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and your extended family having children. How are you balancing, okay,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I need to grieve. It's good to grieve. It would
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: be unnatural if I didn't. But at the same time,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: you have to be celebrating and be present for people
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: who something really beautiful is happening for them. How did
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: you wrestle with that? What did that look like for you?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Those times were probably some of the hardest times in
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: my journey with infertility. And I love my family. We
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: have a very supportive family and they have been nothing
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: but supportive on both sides. We're very lucky that way.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: But watching these people that are so close to me
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: and younger than me able to just conceive so easily
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: and going to them, having gender reveals and baby showers,
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: setting up registries, doing pregnancy announcements, like doing all of
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: the things that I wished for and dreamed that I
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: could have and do was extremely hard. And I let
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: myself go mentally because I was just battling with that.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: So it affected so many aspects of my life for
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: so long. It probably realistically wasn't until around the six
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: year mark that I let go, was finally able to
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: kind of let go of holding onto that so hardly
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: is so tight and look at it as a little
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: bit different. If you know what, like my timeline is different,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: that's okay. And just starting to accept it a little
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: bit more, but it took a really long time. It
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: felt very, very hard. And I was in a dark
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: place for a in a lot of times I would
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: go to the baby showers for just a few minutes.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, I would, I would show up with tears.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I would with tears in my eyes in the car,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: try and dry them up really quick, grab the bag,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: go inside, set it down, be like, I'm so happy
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: for you. And then leave. And some of them I
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: didn't even go to. And I, I, they would message me,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: you know, personally and say things like, Hey, before they
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: announced to the family, you know, Hey, just so you know,
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: we're going to announce our pregnancy at this family gathering
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: just so you can prepare. Like, we love you. We're
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: thinking of you. We want to let you know beforehand
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: so you can decide if that's something you want to
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: go to. And they gave me that option, which was amazing.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Because it was never like a big surprise. And it
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: was really, really helpful. There was only one time that
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: it was a surprise. And I felt so bad because
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: I don't want those moments to be about me. They're
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: not about me. But I'm also very sad. I'm so
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: happy for them, but so sad for me. And that's
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: such a weird thing to juggle. And so I just
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: started crying and I was like, I'm just going to
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: remove myself from the situation. I went downstairs and I
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: felt so terrible that that was my reaction, but it
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: was my genuine reaction of like, man, you know, and
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: that was only probably around like the three or four
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: year mark of us trying. Well, you know, it's.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Interesting because I was talking to an individual the other day,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and they said that, like, they do.