The Calm Before the Storm

As the oldest, and my grandmother’s first grandchild, I know the ‘firstborn syndrome’ all too well (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, ‘firstborn syndrome’ is totally a thing). The pros are your siblings’ role models, you naturally gravitate to leadership or caretaking jobs, and you’re really, really good at being responsible and stressing yourself out and compromising your own boundaries because, apparently, that’s the burden you’re born with. Side note: I’m in therapy for this.

That sense of responsibility was what made me want to be a mother, one day. I was always the one looking after my brothers and sisters. I started cooking for the family by the age of seven, assisting with homework, ironing their school clothes, and fighting their battles with bullies. The ‘momma bear’ mould was never far from the making. If anyone had told me two decades ago that I would be on the edge of the blank page trying to conceive in my early 40s, I would have laughed. But after making sacrifices to be a supportive big sister, here I am.

My husband and I have been married for a little over a year, we are just beyond our first wedding anniversary mid September. We have always wanted children, and we talked about having a family from, pretty much, the inception of our relationship. Two years before we met, I had a stillbirth at 26 weeks. My husband had been in a relationship with someone he was seeing who lied about being pregnant to him. Even under these heartbreaking circumstances we were attracted to each other almost as if for healing and growth. Needing to be a mother, especially him not have children and knowing he is truly a good man, has really been calling out to me. I haven’t had much to worry about, and he is very much like a man finding a wife in that he said ‘When I found you, I found a treasure’. I want to always be that delight and consummation of the treasure for him as his wife and my inability to conceive has been one of the things I feel has made me a failure to him.

I been intent on getting pregnant with my husband (clean living, right?), so I did all the right things – I yanked (not really) out my IUD, tracked my ovulation, ate my vegetables, drank my eight glasses of water – that’s all it takes to get pregnant, right?! Well, nothing. Not a damn thing. Year two, nothing.

I went to see my OB-Gyn, who ran some blood tests. There was something low with my thyroid, nothing too severe but basically she said I was fine hormonally. Except I wasn’t. My periods were always regular, arriving like clockwork every month since the age of 13. But something just didn’t feel right. I wasn’t getting any younger – I knew all too well that being past 35 might make getting pregnant a bit more challenging – but I still hadn’t given up hope.

It was 2021 and I was referred to an IVF doctor. The calm before the storm. That summer was a summer that would change our life forever. A vaginal ultrasound with a well-known IVF clinic in DFW with one of the most top rated doctors was followed by a referral to Baylor University Hospital where I was told my right ovary was consumed by a dermoid cyst to the point where it couldn’t be saved. The best bet was a oophorectomy (removal of my right ovary) and the stunning news that my left ovary was also blocked, of course on top of the fact that my eggs were ageing and time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time, time.

How can I ever learn to be a mother now? Is this man going to leave me? What happened to me? Wasn’t I good? Didn’t I do everything right? Wasn’t I a good big sister? Did God forget about me?