The WM Parenting Connection

By Dawn Bininger

Read Part One of Dawn's Story: The Mom She Should Have Been

My research on the web told me: NO I was NOT a freak. That it was more common than people think. But why then, amongst my friends and family, was I the ONLY one unable to have a child?

And here is a very dark confession dear reader….When a friend or family member DID struggle getting pregnant, there was a part of me that was relieved. Yes. I know. I am not proud of it, but its true. I felt like FINALLY I would have company on the “other side”. But inevitably every single one of them that wanted to get pregnant did.

I became more than a tad bitter.

I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t get my answers. So I did the only thing I could. I cried myself to sleep for many nights wondering what I must have done to be punished this way. Surely I must have been a very bad person in a past life to have to deal with this in this life.

At some point in my journey I sat down with the husband and told him straight up that he could leave me if he wanted to. That I would understand. That if he wanted to have children, then he was free to go. I did NOT want to be the reason this man did not have a child. That guilt was eating me up.

To those of you who have never had to have this conversation, consider yourself lucky. For I was more than sincere. I wanted to give him his free pass to have the life I could not give him. If he stayed with me his only chance to have his own child would also come to pass.

To my relief, he declined my offer.

Years went by. Nieces and nephews came. Every birth announcement and baby shower invite was torture to me. Holidays were a nightmare. Simple things like trips to the mall were painful. Not because I was a mean spirited person. Quite the opposite really. It was because my heart was breaking, healing, and re-breaking almost monthly it seemed.

Let me go on record as saying it‘s difficult. It’s hard to be happy for people when you are feeling so very sorry for yourself. You start pulling away from everyone because you feel that no one understands. And sadly, many don’t. I had mother after mother offering me advice and comfort. When all I wanted to do was yell and scream “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!”

And how could they really?

I was so jealous that it happened so effortlessly for them. But I plastered on my smile and did my best to hide the pain in my heart. Remarkably, this was probably when Steve and I were at our closest. What could have easily torn us apart, actually made our friendship and bond grow. We were in this together. For better or worse. I had no idea than what “worse” would be.

At my final breaking point, I had just come home from another visit to my fertility specialist. I was just about to move on to the next step in Infertility Drugs. The intramuscular injections to get my body ready for Invitro Fertilization.

I was armed with a huge amount of reading material, an appointment at the drug store to learn how to give myself the shots in my thigh, and a huge book of stats that my office had given me. You know, their success rates. The percentages of twins. Triplets. Quads…The risk of multiple births was high. The cost was astronomical. And the saddest stat? It usually took at least two, or three rounds to fertilize.

I sat there one morning reading it all. Taking it all in. When I had a huge giant meltdown.

How were we ever going to be able to afford this? I am talking approximately 12-13,000 total per round at the time. With NO coverage with my insurance.

It was an overwhelming, gut wrenching decision. While we never want to think money plays into decisions like these, it does.

I think I had information overload to be quite honest.

A three day depression followed. I didn’t go to work. I didn’t get out of bed. I laid there on the couch watching endless episodes of TLC’s A Baby Story and crying.

On day three the husband and I had “the talk”. I think he truly was fearful I would never leave that couch!
Although I was not, and am not, a religious person I knew, without a doubt in my heart, that this was NOT the route for me.

I just knew this was NOT the way I wanted to have a baby. I wanted a baby. Not a litter of children. I couldn’t, in good conscious, abort any of the embryos should more than one fertilize. I couldn’t fathom leaving work every day for weeks on end to go get shots. I couldn’t fathom putting my body through all that pain. I couldn’t fathom making the natural process of having a child into some sort of strange, surreal, science experiment.

Please. Do not get me wrong. I have NOTHING against people who choose to go that route. On the contrary, what I learned that day is that this is a very personal decision. One that needs to be agreed upon by BOTH partners. As for me, it simply wasn’t going to happen.

After three very long, very emotional days, I made the gut wrenching choice to stop all means of infertility treatments.

I was 27 years old when I realized that I was walking away from my only chance to have my very own child.

Guest Post: Coming to Terms With Infertility, Part 2