Getting Past Fertility-Clinic Bitterness

It happens whenever I hear a news report touting my former fertility clinic’s latest innovation. That old familiar feeling swims up inside of me. Bitterness.

This highly regarded fertility clinic was unable to get me to the promised land of pregnancy despite my “fantastic eggs” and my husband’s “A-plus sperm.” So when I get wind of a great new discovery at the Great Fertility Clinic, or at any fertility clinic, I am not able to muster much of a rah, rah, rah.

But I need to change that, and I’m working on it.

New discoveries in fertility treatment will keep some women from going through the pain I went through. New discoveries will make it possible for more couples to bring a baby into their empty nursery or a long-awaited baby brother or sister in to their home. New discoveries will help more couples grow their families through biology, which in theory would reduce the number of wannabe parents standing in various, endless lines for adoption.

And yet, I can’t seem to shake the bitterness, and not just toward the fertility clinic, with its financing deals that never seemed like good deals. I also remain bitter toward my employer, which did not provide insurance coverage for treatment, and the pharmaceutical companies that fueled the seductive nature of treatment with their “buy three get one free” offers. Why not just cut the price?

Why couldn’t the great new advancements have come along when I was a junkie buying drugs I couldn’t afford? Why didn’t I work for one of the few companies that provide insurance coverage for infertility procedures? Why didn’t the one treatment I was able to afford work?

My doctor was confident that the drugs I injected into my thigh had done their job and that his associate had successfully injected my husband’s sperm precisely where it needed to go. He went on to say that if the insemination did work, he was pretty sure I would get multiples, given the dozens of glorious follicles on my ovaries. TWINS! I was so excited. But before I took the test, I knew I wasn’t pregnant. I didn’t have sore breasts. I didn’t feel pregnant. I knew. And it hurt.