You know that feeling you get when you learn a new word and then hear it like 20 times in the next week? It's amazing how much information passes us by on a daily basis that we do not process until there is an anchor to which we can attach meaning. Many of you are probably not aware that today is the last day of National Infertility Awareness Week in the United States (April 24-30, 2016). Until this past year, I would have been right there with you. Infertility is a word that I most often associated with the private and painful struggles of a few close friends, but not one with which I could personally identify. That is not to say that I had any illusions of smooth sailing to motherhood. For no particular reason at all, for many years now, I have harbored a deep fear that I would struggle to get pregnant. I think many women feel this way, and are joyfully proven wrong. Not so for me. Perhaps the worst thing about struggling with infertility is that our society has collectively decided that it belongs in a class of taboo subjects. And so we don't talk about it. And I don't want to talk about it today, especially as a person who prefers to deal with personal issues quietly and move on. But at some point we have got to start leveling with each other and talking about the things that our parents and grandparents refused to discuss. So today, the last day of a national week devoted to raising awareness about infertility, it's time for me to suck it up and be honest about my own journey over the past year. Read on if you're up for it. If not, tune in next week when I return to a lighter topic like springtime in Paris ... When Michael and I got married, I had just turned 32, which is twice as old as my grandmother was when she had her first child. There were different expectations for a different generation, for sure, but girls are still told from an early age that we are baby-breeding machines until the magic age of 35, at which point the pipes start to dry up and we are far more likely to have problems getting (and staying) pregnant. Or at least that's how many of us interpret the advice. The annual pilgrimage to the OBGYN doesn’t help either. During the exam, the doctor always asks whether or not you want to have kids, checks your age on the chart, and says something like, “you’re under 35, so there’s really no rush.” And so the countdown to 35 ticks on, inevitably building anxiety about whether or not you're waiting too long to start a family. It's probably unsurprising to learn that when Michael and I decided we wanted kids as part of our life together, I set a goal to have our first before I turned 35. All too sadly predictable, right? So at long last the time came when I tossed out the birth control, ordered a huge jar of prenatal vitamins, scheduled a prenatal OB visit, took a smattering of blood tests (they are huge fans of blood tests here in France), bought a fertility monitor, and read the aptly-titled book The Impatient Woman’s Guide to Getting Pregnant. That was me in a nutshell – ready to begin the kids chapter in life, and doing everything I could possibly think of to ensure success. The first few months passed with no results. It was disappointing, but not at all unusual. There is such a feeling of excitement and hope in those early months. After six months, the tears came freely as disappointment settled in, and my deep-seated fears returned with a vengeance. There were so many small moments along the way where I allowed myself to think that maybe – just maybe – I could have been pregnant. On the morning of my 34th birthday, I woke up with a feeling of dread mixed with panic. The fact was that I only had a few short months left to meet my goal of having my first child before turning 35. Recognizing the insignificance of arbitrary goals does not make the pain of missing them any easier. When my husband posted a photo of me at dinner that night with a glass of champagne on Facebook, nobody would have guessed the sadness I felt at still being able to drink it. A few months later, we decided it was time to visit the GP to make sure nothing was physically wrong. The prescriptions for our respective lab tests noted “infertility” as the diagnosis, which we were told by our doctor to not let bother us; it was simply a necessary description for the insurance company. One test after another came back showing nothing wrong with either of us. I actually think that unexplained infertility can be more difficult to deal with than when an obvious problem exists - to disappointment is added helplessness. The final test for me before declaring a clean bill of health was the hystersalpingogram (HSG), which the doctors told me was just a box they needed to check so that we could move on to options with a fertility doctor. The word for this procedure is different in French, which made it difficult to find information online I could understand, and my English-speaking doctor failed to tell me exactly what the procedure entailed. While women report different experiences when having an HSG, I found it to be a highly-invasive and painful experience that I was totally unprepared for. On top of the physical discomfort, my radiologist was a forceful French woman who did not speak English, even though it was at the Franco-British hospital. The test has to be sequenced and performed quickly in order to capture the x-rays, so she yelled orders at me from behind a mask with words I didn't always understand. It honestly felt like I had been abducted and was being prodded by aliens for a procedure that wasn't even necessary. But then came the results, delivered by the radiologist while I sat alone in the waiting room thirty minutes later. She spoke to me in French, but I understood perfectly that she found a problem. The image above shows the delicate lines of a beautiful, yet flawed system. Blocked fallopian tubes are only fixed through corrective surgery or bypassed altogether with IVF, those three little letters that strike fear in the heart of all couples trying to get pregnant. When our fertility doctor reviewed the images a few weeks later, he told us that the chances were about 50-50 that the blockage shown in my x-rays was the result of involuntary cramping due to the traumatic nature of the procedure. That was the first shock for me, as I had mentally come to accept the diagnosis. The next shock was that in order for him to know what was actually going on, the only option on the table would be to perform a laparoscopic surgery. And so it was that one month ago today, Michael and I took a few days off of work and I checked in to the American Hospital of Paris for my surgery. The doctors and nurses at the American Hospital are awesome, and most are bilingual French-English speakers. I'm not totally sure that is true for the operating room technicians; there were a few moments in pre-op that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Talk about feeling vulnerable. Laparoscopic surgery is generally considered to be a "minimally invasive surgery". But for a procedure that requires general anesthesia, three separate incisions in your abdomen, an overnight hospital stay with a healthy dose of pain meds, followed by a week resting at home, it kinda felt like a big deal to me. The surgery was an overall success, for which I have an awesome doctor to thank. It turned out that in addition to a problem with one of the old pipes, which was repaired, I also had several adhesions caused by endometriosis, which were burned away. As a happily-married woman in my mid-thirties, I have often been asked when we are planning to have kids. My standard response is "not sure, but I'd probably better start thinking about it soon because I'm not getting any younger!" And then quickly change the subject. It just never feels appropriate to answer truthfully, especially to women who were already mothers, who I assumed (probably incorrectly) would react with pity or misguided encouragement, neither of which I am emotionally prepared to handle. I can now also fully comprehend the pain of hearing yet another friend (or stranger!) is pregnant. The emotions of your own failure are so raw and near the surface that every happy announcement of a new pregnancy sends a lightening bolt of involuntary and irrational pain through your body. And yet, somehow, you fight back the tears and summon a big - perhaps too big - smile. And with a good deal of effort, you offer sincere congratulations. As of today, we are still hoping to get pregnant in 2016. It hasn't happened yet, but it's still early days post-surgery. The last of my stitches fell out a few hours ago, and there are so many more paths ahead of us to walk down before throwing in the towel. I would be a big fat liar if I were to say that any of this has been easy. But many go through much worse than we have, and I am thankful that I live in a day and age where tiny cameras and scalpels can fix my hidden problems. For most of this journey, I have not talked with anyone other than Michael about what I have been going through. My husband is a beautiful human being, and over this past year, I have had the privilege of laughing and crying with him through it all. This is a deeply personal struggle for most couples - certainly for us - and contrary to the public awareness and celebration of pregnancy, infertility is the absence of new life, and is not something we talk about freely or lightly in society. I think that needs to change. We need to un-stigmatize these issues by slowly integrating our own stories into the fabric of human dialogue, even if only to realize we are not alone. Allow me to end this deeply personal confession with a word on how all of this has played out in the French medial system compared to what would have happened if we were still living in the United States when I received this diagnosis. This is, after all, a blog about life in Paris.
In the United States, on top of the emotional pain of infertility, the most devastating aspect for couples is all too often the financial burden. While 15 states currently require employers to provide insurance coverage for infertility treatment (see the list here), many across the country do not. Insurance companies have argued for years that pregnancy is not a medical necessity. In France, the opposite is true. Infertility is considered a disease, and is therefore covered under universal health care. There are limits of course - for example couples here have to pay if they need more than 6 rounds of IUI or 4 rounds of IVF. But to put this in perspective, it is estimated that one round of IVF in the United States costs around $12,000. As emotionally difficult as this past year has been for us, none of the decisions we have made - or will make for quite some time - have been filtered through whether or not we can afford the next round of blood tests, x-rays, or whatever. And for this, I am eternally grateful to live in France at this moment in my life. At the same time, I am heartbroken for my countrymen and women who so often spend money they do not have in exchange for the glimmer of hope for a child. I imagine that a few of you reading this today have made those difficult decisions, and I cannot fathom the agony you have gone through to make such a difficult choice. It is time to #StartAsking more from our legislators to mandate coverage of fertility treatment. There is a clear market failure when insurance companies continue to deny affordable care for the treatment of a disease.
3 Comments
Andy Henson
5/1/2016 07:50:29 am
A deeply moving post. So brave and so right and so courageous to open up your heart and share your deeply personal journey, and highlight the usually hidden plight of others. Thinking of the two of you, and hoping that there will be a happy ending.
Reply
Jennifer
5/1/2016 06:17:30 pm
Love you, girl. Remember, this too shall pass. I hope it works out now that you have been through the corrective surgery. You would be amazed at the amount of people I know who went through IVF and it worked. But if it doesn't there is always adoption. Any kid would love to have two parents like you.
Reply
Jess
5/1/2016 11:46:20 pm
Thank you for sharing such a personal experience. I hope that the "clean up" efforts worked and you're able to move forward with building your family! And, if that doesn't work, that you know there are other options. When my cancer diagnosis meant a full hysterectomy, I, too had to mourn the loss of that option, while also smiling and congratulating those who were able to get pregnant. It cuts like a knife, but I know it will ease in time. I feel your pain my friend, and wish you nothing but the best! XO
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorBecause why not get married and move to Paris to really kick off your thirties? Archives
December 2016
|