Do my complications mean I had no business getting pregnant...?

I’ve been questioning this for a long time, maybe even since that first realization that getting pregnant wasn’t going to be so easy for me.  I’ve been questioning it even harder every time something tough has come up in this pregnancy, which I’ll admit has been often.  I’ve never written a post on it because I didn’t know how I felt, not until I read this post by S.I.F. 

Now most of you know she is my friend in real life, and I will be honest here and say that her post has probably shaken our friendship a little, but I don’t feel like it’s broken it.  She wrote the post about her self and her future and we’ve touched on this subject in real life, but it was hard not to read between the lines and see that the outcome she fears is the reality I’m in.  It’s funny, in a way, that I didn’t know how I felt about the whole subject until I felt like I needed to defend how I felt. 

Truthfully, reading her post hurt and infuriated me.  I mulled over the post for days with a sick feeling in my stomach and then a light blub went off, I am totally confident in my choices, I would do it all over again.  So, like a wounded Mama bear, I feel like I need to stand up for the existence of Marek and my choices to bring him into this world, here is my attempt.

The ability for humans to get and stay pregnant is a miracle.  The more you know about the intricacies of the process the more you realize that it is incredible anyone gets or stays pregnant.  There is no such thing as getting pregnant because you deserve it, if that were the case we would have all been pregnant long ago.  People get pregnant when an amazing number of biological factors all align, people who have infertility just have a hard time making one or more of those factors get in line with the rest. 

Thankfully, the science exists to help those missing pieces fit, for me that was IVF and there were a lot of pieces: endometriosis, sluggish tubes, diminished ovarian reserve, thin uterine lining, autoimmune issues, and alloimmune issues.

Does having more than one issue affecting my fertility make me less deserving of a pregnancy?  I don’t think so.  It was more to go up against but it was worth it.  Just because I had problems didn’t mean I deserved a pregnancy any less than my super fertile sister or friends did. 

S.I.F. talks a lot about the use of progesterone in IF pregnancies, I think I struggled with this topic as much as any other in her post.  Does taking a supplemental dose of a hormone that our bodies are not producing yet mean that we are risking our children’s health?  I believe that if it did it wouldn’t be prescribed.  I would like to see the statistics of pregnancies resulting in birth defects and the proof that progesterone supplementation was the cause.  If we read and took to heart the warnings on every medicine we ever took we’d never take another medication.  Just because it’s listed as a potential worst case scenario doesn’t mean that it’s a credible threat, if that were the case IVF wouldn’t have been around for the last 30 years.

I’m a big supporter of doing your own research and being an advocate for yourself with your doctors, but at some point you also need to trust your doctors.  You know your body, but they know the science and they have the historical evidence.

Now on to pregnancy complications, of which I’ve had many: blood clotting disorder, placenta previa, and irritable uterus, just to name a few.

If a fertile woman has pregnancy complications does it make her question why her body is failing her?  Probably. 

Does it make her question if she is any less deserving of that child?  No. 

Why do we, as infertiles, expect more of our bodies and question if we are deserving just because something isn’t going perfectly?  Life isn’t perfect so why do we put so much more pressure on ourselves and our bodies to give us that unachievable perfection? 

A lot of women have pregnancy complications.  For example my sister, who got pregnant her first month trying found out, by chance, at 32 weeks that she was 3 cm dilated.  She spent 4 weeks on bed rest, then, in 1 week walking around, dilated to 7 cm and delivered at 37 weeks.  She never once questioned if that meant she wasn’t supposed to take her child home, she never once thought maybe she wasn’t supposed to get pregnant in the first place.  Another friend had a placental abruption at 26 weeks and now has a healthy 3 year old.  Do you think those thoughts went through her mind?  Nope, she was just concerned for the health of her child and did what the doctors told her she must to keep her and her baby alive.

Somehow going through IF makes us question everything our bodies do.  It makes us stop trusting ourselves and our doctors, it convinces us that anything bad that happens is our fault because we tempted fate by forcing pregnancies that never should have been.

Fuck-that.  Our pregnancies should have been.  If anyone has a pregnancy that should never have been it’s the crack addict or alcholic who’s choices before and during her pregnancy make it so.  None of the shit we go through is by choice.  We were all forced into the positions we’re in and deserve these pregnancies as much as any other mother out there and we’ll be better mothers for it.

So lets unite ladies, lets stop letting one bad hand we’ve been dealt define our sense of self worth.