the waiting diaries
TW pregnancy, infertility
April 26th, 2022
I’ll never forget the fear I felt when I was first diagnosed with Celiac disease when I was 18. Fear that something that had been happening for who knows how long could make me sterile. It was one of the first things they told me about it. IF you don’t stop eating Gluten, it COULD make you sterile. My 6 year old self who spent endless hours playing “house” and “mom” was terrified within me. Becoming a mama was a dream. And before having a baby, I often considered being a full time mama.
When we got pregnant with our baby Yael, it was the first time in our marriage (5 years at that point) we had removed all protection and lightly followed the calendar. Like if it happens it happens. Several months later, the day before Thanksgiving 2018, I peed on the stick and was like am I more tipsy than I thought or am I PREG!? lol
I thought for sure it was possibly going to take a long time once we were being so intentional. and then surprise— if it happens it happens had a whole new meaning because IT HAPPENED. I will never know how all the days lined up, was I ovulating? I had such little awareness of my cycle those days. I wasn’t reallllly sure what was happening and when.
After having a baby, I have never lived so clearly within my own body. I feel EVERYTHING. Even all the shit I repress on the regular. I am so sensitive to everything. Sensations, aches and pains, my cycle, etc. I can trace where I am, what might be happening anytime.
In February, the switch flipped, we are READY for baby number 2. We removed all protection, calculated the days, “tried”. A few weeks rolled by and I was having such EXTREME PMS symptoms… or was it pregnancy?
My PMS symptoms have been very mild since having Yael. Very manageable. But my symptoms had become more intense. I leaned into everything. Like OMG did it really just take one try to get pregnant? It cannot be real.
Then A positive test. over the next two days came two negative. total mind fuck.
It felt like a rollercoaster.
Like this: “THAT WAS SO EASY!! No way it could have been that easy. Trust yourself, you are so conscious and connected to your body, this is different, there has gotta be a baby in there.”
I started to spot for my period, right on time, and I was scouring the internet for a full day reading everything I possibly could about implantation bleeding. What it looks like, how much there should be, article after article, with photos, comparing and contrasting what was coming out of me. My friends, it was a mind fuck. I am not exaggerating. It was all consuming.
And then, 12 hours later after the “implantation” bleeding, my period showed up with vengeance. I was heartbroken. The emotional rollercoaster had torched me. I had flashbacks to a few days earlier, chatting with a friend— “my biggest fear right now is that I might be wrong and I trusted my intuition and it was wrong.”
I was so sure.
And so I was so sad.
We tried again. March. Same intense waves of PMS came, all the same feelings, ITS GOTTA BE!
No. Again.
And I sit myself down and I have the biggest pep talks. Like do you really think it would be so easy? I have no idea if it was easy or not the first time. I can tell you it happens so much faster when you’re not trying to force or generate it. When you stop “trying”.
I have had to break up with the Chinese Gender Predictor chart. I have spent hundreds of dollars on negative pregnancy tests in the last couple months. I have had to self soothe. I have had to wait. Anticipate. Be heartbroken. And it’s only been three months.
Not to diminish that time, but the biggest lesson in all of this is the empathy I have gained for women all around the world who have been going through this rollercoaster for sometimes YEARS. I have had a glimpse into the pain of the waiting game. When I decide I want something, I am READY. And this experience has humbled me 1000 times over again. I don’t get to pick. But I do get to arrive. I get to hold space for myself as I journey through the feelings attached to wanting something and waiting. And in turn I can hold space for other women too.
I read a post the other day on FB from a Mom who recently had her first baby and had spent years trying (praise god!!), the final lines were this:
Just know, if you’re in the thick of it; you’re seen. You’re heard. You’re prayed for. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
And so I will wait.
August 1st, 2022
I remembered this draft because today was a very important day. After 6 months of negative test after negative test, today I was gifted a positive one.
When I opened this and I began to read the last few lines, I was transported back into the moments of typing that section out, and I remembered that I was in a chunk of days where I was thinking I was pregnant. I was holding my breath to test in the next few coming days and I was hopeful and fearful all at the same time. I started to write this all out as a mode of processing the heaviness of it all. This vast unknown that hangs between ovulation and your period potentially arriving.
One of my best friends approached me a month ago— “when will you share what you’re going through in your classes?” and I remember saying something like I just didn’t know how I was feeling about it all. I just came out of June, a month that I literally “took off from trying to conceive” as I felt my mental health was beginning to suffer.
July was about pulling up the boot straps, really giving it my all— oh and tracking the f out of my ovulation. Everyday multiple times a day I was peeing on a stick keeping the closest eye on anything that might be happening. Since we began trying in February, my cycle went WONKY. I have always had a routine cycle, and all a sudden I was varying between 26 -38 days for a cycle!!! Like WHAT. It was, as you can imagine, extremely hard to really know when I was ovulating and I had several moments throughout each month, working to trust my body, learning to watch for the signs, etc.
Using a kit to test ovulation was a threshold for me, I can still trust myself AND use a tool to help me. It doesn’t change how in-tune or out of tune I am. I can receive guidance. EGO STEP ASIDE PLS !
And today, shock, happiness, sheer JOY, relief— one of each and so much more.
Today I cried feeling relieved that my body is not broken and I have thought she was for many months. She is intelligent. She is capable. She is not my enemy, she is my partner.
Today, I still grieve for all the women who are getting negative tests, holding their breath, will it happen this time, I want it so bad moments that are so real and can feel so dark and lonely.
I also celebrate all the women who’s bodies have trembled with joy at the instant POSITIVE test when they have waited, what always feels like eternity.
I am both of you.
Knowledge is power, you can STILL trust yourself, and thank you GOD for this blessing. This Gift. Holy baby. We are ready for you.
October 1, 2022
Im 13 weeks and feeling so called to come back to these writings this week. Maybe it’s the cloud being lifted, feeling like I am finding a groove finally. I have been in a fog for three months in many ways. I have been holding space for myself unlike any other time in my whole life that I can remember. My motto for months has been “one day at a time”.
I forgot a lot of the anxieties that come with the first trimester. There is radical joy paralleled with all the unknowns of growing a baby bean. Every week I was googling, “what is the chance of miscarriage at week _”. I felt a bit of relief at week 10. Soothing myself as I typed it in… hey maybe you don’t need to check that this week. I want this so bad, I am terrified it isn’t true or it won’t work out or that something might be wrong along the way.
We got to see baby week 11 at a second ultrasound and he was wiggling and rubbing his face and had grown so much in the 2.5 weeks it had been since the first time we saw. It was reassuring and it provided me a lot of peace, theres a full baby in there! A whole baby with fingers and toes and he was smacking his head and my heart leaped.
And yes— HE. The majority of my close loved ones and I were CERTAIN it was a girl. No doubt in my mind. No chance it was a boy. Everything pointed to girl. My symptoms were the same as Yael, Chinese calendar was girl all year for me.
And maybe all the support to my feeling was really just me in denial lol. Finding evidence that supported the thing I wanted most. My forever lesson.
November 10th, 2022
We told the world about baby boy two weeks ago today.
I woke up on week 17, lump in throat, like I have to get this off my chest NOW. It was the first time I felt like that.
I proceeded to feel the utmost relief afterwards. Like I could finally breathe again but I didn’t realize I wasn’t fully. Only having had a good handful of my closest confidants knowing my secret, and what it took to get there, felt really sacred. I think due to the nature of my work, it carrying so much vulnerability, its hard to feel like I have secrets, because I often don’t lol. I wanted to be sure that I was sure I was ready to share.
I processed in class that weekend after sharing, and realized so much that sharing didn’t just mean sharing my joy of my baby blessing, but also the pain of the waiting game. The pain of the unknowns that I have navigated. I had to share my anxieties that I have carried, and still seem to rise up within me sporadically.
I knew there would be a process of releasing a private journey once I crossed the threshold. And I had to patiently wait to arrive into feeling ready todo so.
February 19, 2023
I’ve had a few people reach out to me in the last few months— “hey it took you longer than it did the first time to get pregnant, you were going to share your journey with this, where can I find it?”
Sitting in the drafts.
This blog entry keeps getting longer and longer and every time I sit to seal it up and finish it up, I open a well of things I realize I am still processing that surround the topic. The waiting topic.
It’s been a very interesting pregnancy in total and I am going to commit to sharing more details on another entry— all in all in the last 13-ish weeks we have been through A LOT of ultrasounds, opinions, “this isnt what we like to see at this stage…”, “everything’s fine! don’t worry about a thing!!” moments. I feel like its been a whiplash since my 20 week ultrasound in which I thought I would gain all the peace I would need to carry through soundly.
The 20 week ultrasound is the anatomy scan and I remember feeling like I rode over the hill and into pregnant bliss with Yael at that appointment. Like all is well, baby is good, now its smooth sailing. This experience has been much different, and much like in my waiting era, I am holding, tensing, and WAITING for the next moment, the next appointment. The next bit of info or advice. The next thing that might be wrong— but is actually ok.
Believe me, if that all sounds like a confusing headache (like okay what are you actually talking about) THATS HOW ITS FELT !! I mean whiplash.
So I come here today to actually seal this writing to say—
there is nothing that can be said to alleviate the pain / fear of the journey, all we can EVER do is hold space. I feel I have been in a delirium in this pregnancy in which I can see when I allow myself to is just a swirl of anxiety. Constantly reminding myself to stay intuitive and to stay steady. Not to jump to conclusions, but to cry when its overwhelming and to speak words of love to him when I remember. Not allowing shame or guilt to creep into the mix, but simply holding space to take it one day at a time. Holding ultimate space. For me, for him, for my body, for the process.
It is absolutely the only thing that makes sense. Stepping into my journey and witnessing other women navigate their own— this topic is so sticky, so tender, so personal. There is really nothing like it. To try and take the pain away only amplifies and swells.
So I hold space. Today, tomorrow and the next day. For me and for you.
I am here for you if you are in your own waiting journey. Please do not hesitate to reach out.
xx warmly, Liv
