Uncertain Path to Motherhood — Notes from My Journey

When you are a young girl playing with dolls, imagining and perhaps even dreaming of having your own family one day, no one ever warns you that the longing may never be fulfilled. Instead, you’re often encouraged to dream of being a mom, only deciding the number of children you would like to have.

Then, when you think you are ready to embark on the journey of motherhood, people rarely tell you that the path to become pregnant may be difficult, or that the path to get there is so uncertain.

We began our journey full of hope. After we ’started trying’, we thought we might get pregnant straight away: we were both in our late twenties, healthy and eager to become parents. And in that very first month my period was late, feeding the excitement and expectations only to realize a week later that we weren’t pregnant after all.

Months went by and I distinctly remember thinking that we would receive the good news any moment. We took note of my ovulation cycle, exercised and lived as healthily as possible. But the good news didn’t come. Instead, after a year of trying, each period started to haunt me like a broken dream only shattering to ever smaller pieces as the months went by.

It was at that point that we decided to seek help. This was mainly due to the fact that we had witnessed many others struggling to get pregnant and wanted reassurance that everything was ok. This also led us to have a closer look at the initial test results that were initially misinterpreted by our doctor who incorrectly suggested that everything was fine. Instead, the results were worrying and little did we know that this piece of paper with a complicated analysis of my husband’s sperm quality would lead us to have numerous medical appointments and, in the end, to pursue IVF.

I still remember the afternoon we realized that there might be an issue. The sky didn’t seem dark immediately, but that was the first time the grey clouds appeared and that having a family one day seemed no longer a certainty. Weeks went by and more tests were conducted. To process the complex feelings I was experiencing, I started writing notes about the journey we were on. I wrote this one afternoon as I was waiting to see a doctor at the UCL Reproductive Medicine Unit in London:

I am sitting in the reception of a reproductive medicine unit as I am writing this. Even though there is no reason to worry at this stage, my heart is sinking deeper and deeper into the sea of questions with every minute that passes by. These questions relate to the very existence of life and its purpose — and whilst in the past I’d have loved the theoretical arguments of whether creating new life into this world of chaos is ok or not, now every cell in my body longs for that very thing. Some call it a biological clock, others something innate that women in my age go through, but my experience feels so incredibly personal that I am no longer sure whether those all-encompassing statements could actually be true. As I sit in this reception room, my heart aches, my body senses the emptiness in my womb, and my mind questions the very purpose of life. My eyes would fill up with tears if I’d not be surrounded by others who are on this same journey.

The journey we were on took me by surprise. Nothing had prepared me for its multiple dimensions and the heaviness of it reached every layer of my being. Physically, going through multiple tests and internal scans was draining. Emotionally, the uncertainty felt unbearable and I sometimes struggled to get out of bed in the morning. Spiritually, as a practicing Christian, my faith and trust in God’s goodness was tested — I felt completely empty.

Following multiple tests in London, but without clarity on the next steps, we moved to Cairo for our jobs. We had hoped that we would move abroad with children or at least pregnant, but that was not how our story went. Instead, we moved to Cairo in the midst of deep uncertainty about whether we could ever have a family. I started a new job with the UN — a dream job some would say — yet those grey clouds around me were turning darker as the desire to have a family grew stronger and stronger.

We were fortunate enough to be able to continue the efforts abroad. Following the earlier tests and discussions with our doctor in London, we knew that we had three options: continue trying and hope for a miracle; pursue IUI; or start an IVF cycle. Knowing that having a baby naturally would be fairly unlikely in our situation, we decided to try IUI — even though we knew that there was only a small chance it would work. And it didn’t. We tried it again. And it didn’t work.

We were broken. I have often tried to describe the type of pain one feels when an infertility treatment fails — but there is no easy way to explain it — the feeling of sadness is almost physical, reaching the very innermost parts of your being. I remember moments when we were on a weekend away with friends and their children, but finding it too much at times, returning from ‘a nice walk’ with red teary eyes and a soul piercing silence: even time with our friends was no longer a way to push away the pain; the emptiness seemed to have become a part of us.

Having been trying to get pregnant for over two years, we decided to move on to IVF. We took three months ‘off’ from fertility treatments, went on nice holidays and spent time with close friends (with no kids) before reaching out to an IVF clinic in London. We scheduled our first cycle for April 2018 and carefully timed our leave from work. As many who have gone through this path might know, the timing is not always predictable: we had to postpone our first cycle because my period was late. The waiting was so painful as we drifted between hope (perhaps I had somehow got pregnant naturally pregnant!) and despair (worrying that my period would never come and that we would have to seek further medical assistance).

In the end, my period did start and we were able to go ahead with our first IVF cycle. We got over thirty eggs and four embryos — all of which suggested that we had a high chance of being able to start a family. Instead, none of the transfers worked and we lived that year in a limbo between hope and despair and started to feel more and more nervous every time we had to do a pregnancy test.

There were so many tears.

I was struggling to process the various emotions. Each failed embryo transfer felt like we were losing a baby, yet I felt unable to grieve for the loss. My notes from that time period reflect the confusion I was experiencing:

Now when we have lost the embryos I can only trust that You have kept them with you God. Please don’t lose them. Don’t let them get lost in my body.

And you, my unborn children, I have loved you before you even existed. And I will always love you. And I will remember this journey when we have your siblings with us here.

I would lie if I would say that we were filled with optimism when we embarked on our second IVF cycle. We were more familiar with the process, yet so exhausted and fearful that it wouldn’t work. There was very little of us left. We were struggling to have hope.

The waiting after the next transfer seemed never-ending. And, after the two week wait, we had to do another pregnancy test. I still remember that Friday morning in Cairo when neither of us wanted to get out of bed and face the prospect of having yet another negative pregnancy test. We were afraid but we knew that we were in it together. My husband was the brave one and checked the test strip result that morning — for the first time ever, it was positive.

After our 12 week scan appointment, I wrote only one line in my notes. The only line that mattered.

Your heart is beating. It is beating faster than mine.

Our baby girl was born six months later. Over four years after we had ‘started trying’.