Retrospective: My Struggle with Infertility  

This is one of the stories we are featuring from “A Nest in My Heart.” The book was developed by editor Anne Sawyer from a series of creative writing classes in January and February 2024 with Southeast Seniors, a neighborhood nonprofit in southeast Minneapolis that is focused on helping people 65-plus stay in their homes with the help of local services. We chose to feature it this month as part of ongoing coverage about how consciously people choose how and when to have children.

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Infertility hit me like a ton of bricks. I’d never thought about, expected, or accepted it. It became part of my identity, my past, and my present. It challenged my hopes and left me weeping in despair.

Don and I were married in  1974. We were a dual-income couple with money to burn. Let’s buy a house! Let’s buy a car! That dark green convertible coupe – that’s what we need. We’ll take it!  Don furrowed his brow. Nooo… we should be practical. When we have children we’ll have to replace it.  

In 1980, we were eager to start our family. Two months, four months, ten months later: no pregnancy, no baby. After the of-course-it-will-happen hadn’t happened, I looked for any sign that I might be pregnant. At the year mark I called my OB/GYN one day to tell him, My period is due in four days and I have none of the usual symptoms. Maybe I’m pregnant. … Oh, I should wait to be tested? Until I’m two weeks overdue? Thank you, Doctor. Don shook his head and said in exasperation, Janie, it will happen. You just have to relax.

When I was a young girl, eleven or twelve years old, my friends pretended to be brides; I pretended to be pregnant. I’d walk around arching my back, pushing my stomach forward. I had known my whole life that I wanted to be a mother. After a year of trying to get pregnant, it seemed that everywhere I went there were women in various stages of pregnancy and motherhood.

I tried not to see the women who shamelessly rested their hands on their enormous bellies and had the audacity to  walk the “pregnancy waddle.” Some were adjusting babies on their hip, or putting a tiny sock onto an equally tiny foot. Colorful strollers were on parade. Unreasonably, I thought that others’ pregnancies were like lottery tickets: as each winner claimed her prize, it decreased the winning pool.

After two years [my husband and I] agreed that it was time to be proactive. We’d consult an expert just in case something was wrong with one or both of us. We were on the right path, we told each other. Everyone we knew reminded us it was time, why wait? You’re in your thirties, the clock doesn’t stop ticking, no time to waste. Oh, thanks for telling us, we whined in private.

The first visit with our infertility specialist was informative. He outlined short- and long-term options of care. He referred Don to a urologist for an evaluation of his sperm. We were in for countless procedures and treatments, the results of which could take weeks, sometimes months, to yield results. I politely nodded. Inside, I was screaming, Nooo! I can’t wait weeks or months. You’re the expert — do something!

During the purgatory of infertility, we met dozens of couples like us — some of whom have become lifelong friends We shared our milestones and  setbacks, and agreed that when one of us joyfully announced a pregnancy, it felt like a dear member of the family had deserted us. We issued the requisite, “Oh, how wonderful …we’re so happy for you, you give us hope.”  Then we’d flee to privacy where we could sob freely, Why not us?

Two years later, hooray! A positive pregnancy test at last! We called everyone we knew and some we hardly knew. My mother bought us blue T-shirts with big red letters that announced, ‘We’re Pregnant!’ I was convinced that I was nauseous and exhausted, that my breasts were tender. Life was perfect.

Five days later the doctor called: I’m sooo sorry to tell you this, but the pregnancy test was false. You are not pregnant. We were crushed, we crashed, and our resolve to move forward was shaky at best.

The race was on again: second, third, fourth doctor. Each month that I got my period, I felt like I was drowning, barely keeping my head above water. My sister wondered why I’d be so anxious, so angry, before I got my period. Let’s put it this way, I informed her in my best condescending voice. If you’d had a root canal once without anesthesia, and then were told you’d have to have it done all over again, wouldn’t you panic? Well, this has been happening to me every month for almost three  years!”

She got it then. Don and I remained current on any and all developments regarding infertility, including the first in vitro pregnancy in the United States. On December 21, 1981, the first “test tube”/in vitro baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, was born. The pregnancy was achieved at the Howard Jones Institute in Norfolk, Virginia.

In 1983, we agreed that we would go to the Jones Institute, knowing that this would be our last stop before pursuing adoption. The team decided that we were not candidates for IVF, but some of the protocols used in the process might be beneficial.

I was given hormonal therapy for ovarian stimulation, so that I might produce multiple eggs during my cycle. It had been discovered during Don’s evaluation that his sperm were covered with antibodies, which kept them swimming in place, so they could never travel from the vagina up to the Fallopian tubes. The Norfolk team had developed a procedure called a “sperm wash and rinse,” that would eliminate the antibodies and allow Don’s sperm to swim. At the time of ovulation, they inseminated me with his sperm.

We waited.

One attempt: failure. Two attempts: failure. Third attempt, my period, again. Four weeks and another attempt later, I was working at my desk and, as expected, I heard from the clinic. I called Don, sobbing hysterically. I couldn’t stop. People in the office looked curiously into my cubicle to see what was going on. “I’m pregnant, Don! I’m pregnant!” This time I knew it was real. 

Shopping time! I announced to my sisters one week later. Umm, don’t you think it’s a bit too early? they offered. Are you kidding? It’s already four years too late!

I stocked my closet with maternity clothes that exaggerated my pregnancy: bold colors, horizontal stripes. I started to wear them immediately, and I’d rub my lower back as I’d seen other pregnant women do. My appetite was huge. I was swaddled in joy and serenity.

My due date was April 3, which came and went. As did April 4 and 5. I treasured every lingering moment. On Friday, April 13, just as I got out of the shower, my water broke. I called Don at work, then my neighbor, who came over immediately. I got back in the shower, Don arrived home, and we made the 45-minute drive down to New York City.

From 7pm until 1pm the next day, I had no contractions, no cervical dilation. Just before they induced me, they did one more exam and discovered meconium — fecal matter found in the amniotic fluid. If aspirated during birth, it can cause serious lung infections. An emergency Cesarean section was ordered.

Finally, nine long-plus months later, I was on a gurney headed to the operating room to give birth. I was dazed. I checked in with Don: This is finally, really happening, isn’t it? I heard the buzzing of nurses and happy visitors. Surgeons were hurrying to the next patient, blue bonnets on their heads, soft paper slippers on their feet. Overhead, a doctor was paged to room 103. I tried to lock in every sight, every sound, in exquisite detail because — after four years of trying, four years of crying — our baby was almost here.

On April 14, 1984, at 2:39pm, Jeffrey was born: healthy, boisterous, already loved and treasured.

We jumped into parenthood: feeding, diapering, nurturing, blabbering. It was a dynamic learning curve for all of  us. The things Don and I had thought we would always do we didn’t always do. The things we knew with certainty that we’d never do, well…

Jeff was about two years old, and he was wearing a pair of blue sneakers with rubber-ridged soles. He was sitting in his high chair having hot cereal for breakfast, much of it falling on the step where his feet rested. When he was finished, I brought him upstairs to change his diaper. As he kicked his legs in the air, I noticed bands of Wheatena stuck between the ridges of the sole. Using a toothpick, I pushed the cereal out from the ridges onto the changing table.

I was overjoyed: I had a son who required this task. Life just couldn’t get better. Or so we thought. 

When Jeff was three years old, we decided to return to Norfolk [for another fertility procedure]. I would head down with Jeff, and Don would join us in about 10 days. I loaded up the car for the two-day, 400-mile trip, with all the essentials that a three-year old would require, plus all my stuff and more.

I brought the car to the local mechanic to have the oil and tire pressure checked, the old windshield wipers replaced, and loaded up on nutritious snacks, like sugarless dried peaches, which Don said smelled “like old running shoes.”

Jeff chattered the entire way. He never took a break. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The team at Norfolk used the same protocol as before. After just one attempt, my second pregnancy was confirmed. On February 5, 1988, 10 days after my due date, our beloved Jonathan was born by vaginal delivery. He completed our family and our lives.

I’ve been asked if my struggle has helped to make me a better mother; I think it has made me a more appreciative one. 

More than 30 years later, I am a proud and blessed mother of two adult sons. Every Mother’s Day I send them a card, telling them how lucky I am to have them in my life; that I am still happy just to breathe their air. 

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