Body of mine

A common problem you'll discover among the infertile crowd (and I'm most specifically talking about the infertile individual of the couple) is this feeling as though their body has failed.  It's a theme I've noticed over and over whilst reading about the emotional effects of infertility and in talking to a great many infertile women and men.  An infert will express disappointment in their body, going so far as to feel their body is less than, useless, and/or betraying them.

I never felt this so acutely as I saw others did.  I was aware that my body ovulated improperly.  I realized that my body was incapable of getting pregnant on it's own accord. I was frustrated that I couldn't find a quick, easy fix. I just never out and out blamed my body. I felt spared in that, lucky nearly, that I could remain somewhat rational about it - afterall, we take our small victories were we can get them when it comes to the losing game of being infertile and one of mine was that I didn't hate my body.

Still, when I discovered yoga I began to respect my body again.  Yoga starts with this lovely mindset that you don't focus on what you cannot do. Instead, the focus is purely in what you're capable of.  You can hold a pose for 2 seconds? WONDERFUL! LOOK AT WHAT YOUR STRONG AND LOVELY BODY IS DOING!!  And slowly, in celebrating each little thing I was capable of, I started being capable of more and more in the land of yoga.  Before long I was not only accepting of my body but very proud of it.  I felt powerful and incredibly feminine again - two things that infertility had definitely taken away from me.

I stopped being able to do yoga like I was used to by late March.  Infertility treatments really take a toll on my body by adding weight, increasing fatigue, and decreasing stamina.  Hyperemesis knocked me out of the game completely and by the time I found a way to cope with it, I had lost a lot of energy and muscle. Pregnancy led me to feeling overly fatigued and incredibly activity intolerant.  Still, I managed a few yoga sessions here and there.  Getting back into the mindset was nice - the refocus on beauty and capability.  I was reminded of how wonderful my body is.

And, I was very proud of the fact that, though my body couldn't get pregnant easily, it seemed to be doing a bang up job of staying pregnant this time around. I gave accolades to this little body of mine for that, incredibly thankful especially knowing that there are too many infertile women that cannot say the same. I felt I owed it to my body on the behalf of so many people and things to specifically celebrate it for that victory.

Yesterday it was discovered that my cervix is much too short and already funneling, an indicator of pre-term birth.  A decent measurement for a cervix at my stage of the game (27 weeks) would be at least 3 cm, 2.5 cm on the low end, with good being 4cm.  Mine is an unfortunate 1.97 cm. I was ushered into a room to discuss this with the OB, swabbed for a test called fFN (it's a test based on it's negative predictive value.  Mine was negative meaning it is 99% likely that I will NOT go into labor during the next 7-14 days), and then sent to the perinatologist for further evaluation.  He confirmed the findings and after a short stay in L&D, I was shot up with steroids and sent home on strict bedrest.

I had a hard time last night with being down on myself in a way I hadn't been in a while and mad at my body in a way I'd never been before.  It's a bit difficult for me knowing my body isn't doing the bang up job I had been celebrating. It's very difficult for me to be undeniably reminded of the fact that I cannot do well what comes easily and naturally to the majority of women.  I admit it's a loss of some identity, a loss of that feminine quality I had come to embrace.  I'm not normal and there's just no way around that.

Today I'm going to try to focus on my victories:
   -we discovered my short cervix in time to do something about it
   -as far as anyone knows, this babe is staying put for at least a couple of weeks
   -she's growing strong and well

and I'm going to try to convince myself that this set back and reminder needn't rob me of my beauty, my womanhood, or my femininity.  I am still powerful and lovely. We'll see how I do with that.