Infertility during a pandemic

A Glimpse of Our Story

My husband and I struggle with infertility and miscarriages, and something I never would have thought I would have to consider is how those wounds have been exasperated by a global health crisis. Writing this post has been sitting on my heart for weeks, as we’ve all been quarantined during this pandemic.

I realize that I have yet to post about this topic, my heart just has not been ready. So a more in-depth post about my experience with infertility and miscarriages may or may not come down the pike. I have every intention of sharing more when I feel ready, but I make no promises. For today, I want to share my experience of infertility and loss through the lens of this pandemic. 

We have one living daughter. She is so beautiful and joyful and such a blessing to our lives. Truly, she is a miracle! I never thought we would have these crosses in my wildest dreams, but we do. I also never thought a pandemic would be like adding salt to my wounds. 

Without a playmate

You see, right in the middle of everything going crazy in the world, we were supposed to be welcoming a precious baby boy into our arms. So amid my already swelling emotions, as we approached and passed his due date, I had to explain to my preschooler that she could not see any more friends. She could not have any more playdates. She would have to ride this storm out alone. By alone, I mean that she has not had interaction with another child in over 12 weeks. 

Given the global health crisis, today was the first day we have been able to visit the cemetery during this entire pandemic. It’s an hour away and we weren’t sure if we were “allowed” to go on his due date, or for Easter, or any other time. Even today we were not allowed to use the restroom.  

The sting of secondary infertility during this time has been deepened by my pain for my daughter to be without a playmate. Infertility and miscarriages are painful in many ways, but the experience of also being heartbroken for the loss of a sibling for my living daughter, who so desperately wants one, is incredibly painful. Truly, it is hard to find the words and I do not know of a way to fully express myself. 

It’s painful for me to wonder about how this time will affect her emotional and cognitive development. The lack of peer interaction. Thankfully, children are resilient and she has created quite a network of imaginary friends to play with. But I know she is eagerly awaiting her first play date post quarantine, coming very soon (thank God)! 

Infertility during a pandemic

For someone who already struggles to get and stay pregnant, I’ll be really honest that it’s been really hard to take the advice to avoid pregnancy during this time due to the unknown of this virus. Not just that, but the lack of medical care we have access to during this time. It’s hard. 

It’s also hard because it takes a long time to get all my ducks in a row to have a green light to move forward. It takes lots of self-discipline with my diet and lifestyle; lots of managing my Hashimoto’s. And while I am pretty good at focusing on a nutrient-dense diet at this point, keeping other lifestyle factors in check (like sleep and stress) is a challenge for me. We had a green light. Then coronavirus squashed it. Que more salt in my wounds; less sleep, and more stress.  

Wanting to achieve pregnancy but choosing to avoid one is a cross that we know all too well. I don’t think this is a cross that even occurs to most people. The fact that even couples that struggle with infertility have to avoid pregnancy sometimes to reduce the risk of miscarriage. It’s a seemingly lonely cross to bare because it’s so seldom talked about. 

Moving forward with hope

So those are my raw thoughts and feelings that I wanted to share today. I know there have been many different experiences throughout this time, and everyone has a different cross to carry, but if you have a friend who has similar struggles, please reach out. At the first moment you feel comfortable resuming playdates, consider your friends with one living child first.

For me, I am trying to keep lifestyle factors in check and think of this time as a very long prenatal preparation period. I have been encouraging my FertilityCare clients in a similar situation to do the same. There is still hope for infertility during this time, it’s just not in the places we are likely to expect. 

So if my experience resonates with you, I see you. There are a lot of things that are out of our control, like this pandemic. However, there are also things that we can control. First, I think that it’s healthy and good to acknowledge our pain and feelings. It’s important to sit with the grief of yet another detour on our journey.

After we have mourned, or even through our mourning, we can focus on the things we can control like cultivating a healthy lifestyle and cleaning up our diet during this time. We can focus on optimizing our cycles and our health right now. Focus on tracking our cycles and digging deeper to find the root causes of our infertility. So that when we get the green light to move forward with our infertility journey, we can do so confidently! 

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