I've got a secret

As much as I want a baby, I’m glad I’m currently not pregnant.

I’m starting a new job soon and I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to take the job if I was pregnant and due between now and the end of the year. It is a really weird place to be emotionally because I am really excited for my new job, and I really do wish I had a baby. I am incredibly sad that I’m dealing with infertility and have had failed infertility treatments. Each failed cycle since I was offered the job still makes me sad, but I also breathe a sigh of relief that I’ll be able to start this job that puts me well on my way to getting my dream job.

It is incredibly hard to be a woman in science and trying to build a career when you want a family. Timing pregnancies so that they have the smallest impact on your career progression is difficult, but possible. Having a baby at the end of grad school, while writing or taking a few months between finishing a PhD and starting a post-doc seems like an ideal time. Adding infertility on top of building a career and growing your family makes everything feel impossible. I worry that my post-doc is not going to be as successful if I’m undergoing IVF and have a baby, and I worry that I won’t get those months at home with baby that I would have gotten if I got pregnant cycle 1. A cycle 1 pregnancy would have given me 4 months at home with pay while I finished writing my PhD thesis, plus 2 months at home before starting my post-doc. Now I’m considering only taking those first 6-8 weeks to heal from giving birth and letting my husband take the rest of the parental leave so that I don’t stall my career. It does give my husband the opportunity to stay home with baby that he may not have gotten otherwise, but it’s just another thing that we have to deal with in addition to the infertility.

One of the good things, I guess, is that if we do do IVF and have frozen embryos, we can do a frozen transfer whenever we are ready for another baby, which means we hopefully don’t need to go through the months and months of trying and planning again.

Current Cycle - 19

13 failed cycles

a male and female infertility diagnosis

2 failed medicated cycles

3 failed medicated IUIs

an IVF consult

Back to square one

I successfully defended my PhD recently. I have been working on the revisions from hell for over a week now. Although all of my examiners signed off on my thesis with minor revisions, one of the examiners appears to hate one of my chapters and I have no revised it 4 times. I now not only have the record for fastest PhD completion in my lab, longest PhD thesis in my lab, I now hold the record for most revisions to a thesis. I have literally rewritten the chapter once a day every day for the past 4 days.

A few days after my thesis defence I had an exciting day. I was offered an amazing post-doc position – my dream position – and had IUI #2 in the afternoon. I had 2 eggs for the IUI, 50 million sperm, and my doctor finally found a combination of meds that prevented my luteal phase bleeding. I was filled with so much hope that maybe the treatment would finally work. I’d finally get my baby. But I was also filled with worry – what if it did work and being pregnant screwed up my new job. I couldn’t celebrate my new job because I was so worried about what would happen if I got pregnant. Another thing that infertility has taken from me.

There is only one infertility clinic in the place we will be moving for my new job. As much as I’m worried about being pregnant impacting my job, I’m even more worried about moving and having to wait months – I have friends that have 15 MONTH waits - to see a new doctor. I’ve been waiting over a year for a baby. I’ve already waited 3 months to see an RE after my referral, 1.5 months for an appointment with an OBGYN to get an RE referral. I’m done waiting.

IUI #2 didn’t work. We decided to go forward with IUI #3 and will work out something so that it doesn’t impact my job. I’ll use the same meds protocol this cycle. We have an IVF consult with our RE just over a week. Luckily, I was able to get a quick appointment because she had a cancellation – she was booking into June. I’m hoping we will have the time to do an IVF cycle before we leave. I’m not sure if we’ll go all the way to embryo transfer at this time or if we will do a frozen transfer in a few months. IVF is our last step. It was a step I was hoping I’d never reach. It shouldn’t be this hard.