I was standing on top of the escalators making my decent into the mall. My mind racing, as usual, covering every emotion, lesson and piece of advice I’d had over the last twenty months, analyzing, sorting and reliving until it came to me. I’d been working so hard at achieving my goals, taking every piece of advice that came my way, weighing seriously, never rejecting it, but feeling guilty for not at least trying, frozen into a too scared to move in any direction lump that I hadn’t realized one very important piece of information…. The kind of information you’d get in the dating world, but no one gives you while you’re trying to make a baby. Just be yourself. Is it really worth wanting something so much that you need to change everything about you to get it?
When we first started this journey we’d just moved to Yellowknife from Ireland, got engaged, started building a house, moved twice, got new jobs, and got married all before we even started trying to conceive. So, of course the first piece of advice I received was to reduce the stress in my life. Following that it was my diet, my weight, exercise, the type of exercise I chose, hobbies, and the list goes on. These might sound like normal, healthy life style changes… but they were never consistent. Doing too much or too little of either could be ‘fatal’ to the process.
Of course through most of this time we had no idea why we were even going through any of this which made it so much harder to make a ‘life style’ decision. Other than a small threat of a brain tumour (which turned out to be a medical over reaction.) tests were coming back normal.
Eventually we progressed far enough into the process and were finally able to get a referral to a specialist, where we finally started getting some answers. I was only 34 when we first started trying and at 36 the Fertility Specialist pinpointed a problem with my ovarian reserve (which they found while reviewing my original tests, and retested to confirm). They couldn’t say for sure, but I either had a problem with the quantity or quality of my eggs. They also said that the issue could be age related. This was my greatest fear. When we started trying I was afraid I’d be too old and here it was slapping me in the face. I will admit I shed a few tears when I first heard the news, but it didn’t ruin my day. In fact, it inspired hope. We now had a clear and solid path to follow. No more blindly searching for a cure or a magic potion.
It seems strange to have the epiphany I did on the top of a mall escalator on the first day of my IVF regiment (In Virto Fertilization) in the middle of Burnaby, BC. At the time I thought it was a bit late in the process to have this realization, but now, in hind sight, I’m glad it came. It gave me the power during my month with the fertility clinic to enjoy the process, to enjoy my temporary home, to take care of me, the way I needed to be taken care of.
