The Path to Motherhood Podcast: Navigating Infertility and Pregnancy Loss
85. Balancing Hope and Fear: Pregnancy After Infertility and Loss
Balancing hope and fear, I recount my own experience pregnancy after years of infertility, multiple miscarriages, and doubt. I open up about what being pregnant was like for me and how the fear did show up along the way.
Infertility doesn't end when pregnancy begins. Sarah is honest about that. Whether you are pregnant or want to hear what being pregnant after infertility might be like, listen in.
Be sure to tune in and share your favorites by connect with Sarah on Instagram: @SarahBrandell
Apply for personalized 1:1 coaching today!
Grab your Two Week Wait Workbook here!
SHOW NOTES: www.sarahbrandell.com/episode85
Be sure to tune in and share your favorites by connect with Sarah on Instagram: @SarahBrandell
Apply for personalized 1:1 coaching today!
Grab your Two Week Wait Workbook here!
Balancing hope and fear, I recount my own experience pregnancy after years of infertility, multiple miscarriages, and doubt. I open up about what being pregnant was like for me and how the fear did show up along the way.
Infertility doesn't end when pregnancy begins. Sarah is honest about that. Whether you are pregnant or want to hear what being pregnant after infertility might be like, listen in.
Be sure to tune in and share your favorites by connect with Sarah on Instagram: @SarahBrandell
Apply for personalized 1:1 coaching today!
Grab your Two Week Wait Workbook here!
SHOW NOTES: www.sarahbrandell.com/episode85
Be sure to tune in and share your favorites by connect with Sarah on Instagram: @SarahBrandell
Apply for personalized 1:1 coaching today!
Grab your Two Week Wait Workbook here!
You are listening to episode 85 of the Path to Motherhood podcast. Welcome to the Path to Motherhood podcast. I'm your host infertility life coach, sarah Brandel. Join us each week as we walk through navigating your trying to conceive journey. My mission is to share the skills of managing your mind, processing emotions and living a full life to create a more authentic path to motherhood. Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of the Path to Motherhood podcast. I am your host, sarah Brandel, and I am super excited to be on here with you guys for another episode.
Speaker 1:We have a couple episodes coming up that are really just me sharing my experience and reflecting with you guys how, basically, the last year has gone and, yeah, just what it's been like. So that's the plan for today. We'll talk about what I mean by that here in a minute, but I just finished up a consult call and I just wanted to shout out you know who you are, who was on a call with me today when you're listening to this episode just her willingness to share her story and her vulnerability and really just share what she's hoping to kind of change about her fertility journey, and I'm just super excited for her to be working one-on-one with her and have her experience what that's like. But one of the things she said is man, this was what this call was like. I felt nervous about this call. I didn't realize this is what it was going to be like and that made me think, hmm, maybe I need to talk about that. So what the consult call really is is that it's just a free call to talk to me, to get to know me.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I feel like I can only do so much explaining of what coaching is online in work and, you know, written on the website or on my social media or even here on the podcast, because it really is different for every single person how it looks, how it's structured, all that stuff. It's not like a one size fits all type of approach, which is really awesome that I get to do that, because I do work with you guys individually and really the plan of what we're going to work on, the things we're going to work on it, varies for every single person. So that is why we do the call, like I said, it's free every single person. So that is why we do the call, like I said, it's free. I have people who do the call and we realize this probably isn't a good fit for them and we don't end up coaching together and that is totally fine. There's no stress about you have to sign up if you do the call.
Speaker 1:But really what we start off with is I just get to listen to your story. You do a lot of talking and share as much as you feel comfortable with when it comes to sharing your story and what you've been through and what's gotten you to this point, and we really dive into, like, what about your fertility journey is working and not working? And, of course, like the getting pregnant and succeeding with a pregnancy and having a baby in your arms is the thing that's not working. I totally get that, but, acknowledging that we don't have complete control over that, we got to let be what will be and let time happen and let things figure itself out. How can we make the journey more bearable? That's really my goal, and so I will ask every single one of you on a consult call what are you looking to change about the journey that you have control over?
Speaker 1:And so for some people, that's hey, I'm just constantly anxious all the time and I need help working through that. For some people, it's I'm literally miserable and I don't know how to enjoy myself, see my friends be around, family, etc. For other people it is I am burnout. I've been on a break and I don't know how to restart. For some people, that is, I'm in the midst of treatments and I just want someone to walk alongside with me through this process. There's so many different things, so many different women, that I work with women who are just getting into fertility treatments, women who are doing lifestyle modification to see if they can avoid treatments, women who are trying to come back after a long break, women who are grieving losses and not sure if they're ever ready to try again. There's so many different stories and those are all great. So it's really just about getting to know your story and really what you're hoping to get potentially out of coaching.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, my goal is to determine hey, is this coaching thing actually something that's going to be beneficial to you, and so we can talk about that, or is this coaching thing not quite what we're looking for? And if that's the case, that's totally fine and we can brainstorm together what might be a better option for you and share about those and come up with some ideas about those. So that's what a consult call is like. I find a lot of women find that it can be just nice to have the conversation and be around someone who's non-judgmental, who's not trying to make you feel better, who's not giving you unsolicited advice, who's been there and knows what the heck you're talking about. That's a pretty rare thing to happen, and so just that conversation can be really nice to have. So that is what happens on a consult call. If you've been ever wondering and if you're interested in one, if you want to kind of share your story and see if coaching would be the right thing for you, you can go to the link in the show notes to book your consult call and I would be honored to talk with you.
Speaker 1:But, as I said, the next couple episodes I'm going to reflect on the past. So if I look back at all of my episodes and really what ones have been the most listened to, there's a handful of things that are top listened. So things like fertility, anxiety topics, pregnancy loss topics, but one of the topics that is very much high up there is pregnancy after infertility, and so that was something that I did last year. I'll link it in the show notes of this episode of a panel of women who experienced pregnancy after infertility and what it was like for them and what I decided to do, coming up on four months postpartum is really share my journey and what the experience has been with you guys, and I'm going to do that in a couple stages. So this first one's going to do that in a couple stages. So this first one's going to be talking about my pregnancy and just really what my experience was.
Speaker 1:For those of you that don't know, I've been on some sort of fertility journey for basically seven years. My first took us just over a year, almost a year and a half, to conceive and we went through a miscarriage, many months of negative pregnancy tests, multiple rounds of ovulation medications and were able to conceive her with ovulation medications. At the time that felt really hard, very stressful, very much in my emotions, and now I look back at that and think that was so easy. So that was our first. She'll be turning five very soon. And then we went on to try for our second and we started pretty soon after our first just because we knew we had infertility. Lord did we know?
Speaker 1:It actually took us three and a half, almost four years to conceive our second, we went through many, many different modalities, worked with many providers, tried many different things and ended up having to go through multiple more pregnancy losses. We tried lots of ovulation meds, tried IUI, tried naturally working with functional medicine providers, with NAPRO providers, with acupuncturists so many different things I can't even remember them all. We did IUIs. We had three failed embryo transfers. So we went through a lot and this time, almost a year ago just over a year ago in June, we transferred our last remaining embryo before we were going to have to go back for another egg retrieval and it worked. She stuck and at the time we didn't know it was a she, we just knew our last embryo, our inconclusive embryo, if you know anything about PGD testing stuck and we got pregnant and I was in so much disbelief.
Speaker 1:So this time last year I remember just being like I don't know if I believe it we found out somewhere around maybe like June 20th I'm recording this episode around July 4th I know it's going to come out in a couple of weeks, but around July 4th and I remember we threw a July 4th party with a lot of family and friends and people knew we were going through this process. I was pretty open about it on social media. So people at that party knew that we were expecting and it was very early, obviously, and that was stressful because I was still in so much disbelief and shock. And there was these people that were just so excited for us and, you know, making comments about it and I remember telling a family member, maybe not on July 4th but soon after, like I'm not really ready to celebrate this, like I'm glad you know and we're excited, but let's just see how the next couple weeks goes, because that's where I was and the disbelief and the shock was definitely stronger this time than with the first, I think, just because it took so long to get there and to get pregnant. And then I now had three losses in my past.
Speaker 1:It was, it was a hard time. I was very anxious. I was very worried about was this going to work out? Is this going to stick? What is this going to mean? Anxious, I was very worried about was this going to work out? Is this going to stick? What is this going to mean? Now I have this daughter who was aware that we were pregnant and she was going to bed every night praying that this baby was going to keep growing and be healthy and be turned into a baby in her arms too. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:It was a lot so early on, being that it was an embryo transfer. We worked with our IVF clinic. We did go to some follow-up appointments I remember you compare your treatment plan to others that share their treatment plan online and so I felt like they made us wait a little bit longer for the first ultrasound, so that was real stressful. I think our first ultrasound was around eight weeks and things looked good there and the labs did increase for the three times that they checked the HCG levels and at the time I was being really active and exercising and feeling really good and, yeah, just trying to hope for the best. And I remember at the time I was kind of finishing up working with one of my own coaches and we have talked so much about infertility in the past.
Speaker 1:I've actually been daydreaming recently about having her on the podcast, which I may do in the future, but I was talking to her. I'm excited, I'm happy, I'm grateful, but I actually think I'm doing better than I expected I would, being at this point in a pregnancy, and what I meant by that is I didn't feel overrun by worry and stress and anxiety, like I thought I would. So the anxious thoughts were there, the fear, the worry, thoughts of something's going to go wrong. What if thoughts, all of that they were there. It's not that they weren't there, but they felt manageable. That's how I described it to her.
Speaker 1:I remember telling her like I'm thinking those things. I know I'm worried. I'm having moments where I get excited about what will be next year when this baby is in our arms, and then I'm following that up with but what if they're not? What if we don't get there? Those fear thoughts would come in and kind of ruin the joy thoughts. And I didn't feel upset about that happening. I didn't feel angry that that was happening. I wasn't like fighting against that thinking. Why is that happening? I wish I didn't have that. I wish I didn't have to deal with this type of thing, and that is what I kind of anticipated would have happened is I would have been angry about my fearful or anxious thoughts. I would have been fighting against my fearful or anxious thoughts and it have been fighting against my fearful or anxious thoughts and it really was not that strong for me and so, talking to her about it, it was a moment of like wow, like, look how far I have come on my own self work to be okay in the discomfort, and so I think that was the key.
Speaker 1:The biggest win that I had for me through the whole entire pregnancy was it wasn't that it was easy, it wasn't that I was just hopelessly naive, it wasn't that I never had fearful thoughts. I didn't make those fearful thoughts mean anything bad about me, the pregnancy, my relationship with my daughter, any of that. And I think it's really easy to do that. If you go back to that panel episode from last August that was something we discussed on there you know feeling guilty for feeling that way, feeling guilty for the way that it addresses or it creates this distanced relationship with the baby growing inside of you, which I'll talk about in a moment All of those things are easy to happen when you're having a lot of fear and you're having a lot of anxious thoughts, to feel upset about that, to resist against that, and for some reason that wasn't happening, and I truly believe that came from compassion.
Speaker 1:It came from me thinking well, of course I would have those thoughts, of course I would be worried. Of course I would be fearful. Who wouldn't After the experience of fertility that I've lived, going through so many losses, taking so long to get here, literally pouring blood, sweat, tears, money, everything into trying to get to here. Of course I would be fearful. It would make no sense if I wasn't fearful, and just knowing that and reminding myself that allowed me to be okay when the fearful thoughts happened, when the worry thoughts happened. And I think that's a big key because sometimes we feel in the moment, in the heat of anxiety, in the heat of frustration, in the heat of hopelessness, that the only thing I can do to feel better is to eliminate those thoughts, and that feels impossible. That literally sets you up for failure. You're attempting your darndest to get rid of those thoughts and it's not happening. This happens for so many women in the two-week weight of. I don't want to be anxious, so I'm going to avoid having anxious thoughts during the two-week wait and let's think about how well that goes.
Speaker 1:But instead of avoiding or wishing it wasn't there or hiding from it, I was okay to feel scared. I took moments in my day, in my week, to just sit here and just be scared, to be worried. I talked about it, I shared about it with my husband. I was honest about how I was feeling. I recorded that podcast, the panel podcast, in July and I remember it feeling almost cathartic to be talking about all of those stressors of pregnancy while going through it, while experiencing that. That's what I want to offer is that if you're in it, if you're going through it, or if you can take this and apply it to other areas of your journey, the less you resist, the more comfortable you'll be able to be. And so, for me, the joy didn't come from avoiding the negative emotions. The joy came from letting them be there. Letting them be there, letting myself work through them, and that giving me the space to find joyful moments. I truly believe I was able to find those hopeful, joyful moments, daydreaming of February 2024, because I gave myself time to sit with, being petrified of what February 2024 was going to look like For me.
Speaker 1:That anxiety, those worried thoughts it wasn't a first trimester thing. I got past the first trimester and it disappeared. It wasn't something that disappeared after the anatomy scan. I really truthfully carried that through the entire pregnancy. It kind of waxed and waned in how intense it was. There were times where it was more tolerable, times where it was less tolerable, but it was always there, always there, and that was okay. Always there and that was okay.
Speaker 1:As far as how I did this pregnancy was a much harder pregnancy physically on me than my first. I don't know if it was because I was older than my first one, just by number of years it took us to get pregnant this time. I don't know if it was because I was on IVF medications that I wasn't on with my first. I don't know if it was, I'm not sure, but it was definitely different. So I had pretty significant nausea from about nine-ish weeks and fatigue from about nine-ish weeks all the way up to like 18, 19 weeks, pretty severe, Not puking going to the ER, but like enough to make me want to do nothing, make me want to not work out, make me want to stay at home and just lounge, to not work out, make me want to stay at home and just lounge around. That was hard for me because with my first I was very active. I went to Orange Theory multiple days a week, which of course you're not. You're not caring for kids, so that makes that more possible. This time there is no way I could have done that. There were many times I told my daughter like I'm sorry mommy's not feeling well, you're going to have to like lay next to me in bed and read a book because I just can't do it right now. So physically it was rough and that first basically half of the pregnancy. And then I think I had like maybe three or four weeks, kind of around Thanksgiving to Christmas, where I felt pretty good. I was really excited about that. And then in early January I felt like, oh my gosh, how many more weeks do I have to go? How many more weeks? So that was hard for me to feel, mostly not great.
Speaker 1:This pregnancy, my first pregnancy, was the opposite. I loved being pregnant. I felt great the entire time. I had some nausea, very minimal in the beginning, and that was really it. I went spontaneously into labor with my first early, not crazy early, but at 39 weeks, and I didn't have any of those days where I was like, oh, when am I going to be done being pregnant? I really didn't with my first. That is an absolute different story. This time, even for just like the last four, five weeks I was, I was struggling, ready for it to end, feeling really just run down, exhausted. I think a lot of it probably had to do with I didn't move my body or use my body in a way that I did with my first, but I just truly couldn't and that's okay.
Speaker 1:But it was definitely a rougher experience as far as physically goes. As far as like appointments and stuff. I really enjoyed working with my OBGYN. She's pretty laid back. She did have me go to a high-risk specialist for ultrasounds just because of it being an IVF pregnancy and that was fine. We did our more frequent ultrasound, starting at 20 weeks and things looked good there.
Speaker 1:And as far as you know triggers or stressors, definitely going to those ultrasound appointments was stressful. Going into an echo appointment and anatomy scan and just praying everything's going to look okay was absolutely a stressful time. We were able to get through, but man was it rough. It makes total sense again to be walking into those ultrasounds and feel terrified. Don't beat yourself up for doing it, it just makes sense. So, yeah, that was tough. There were times, especially in the beginning, when you're going, you know, four-ish weeks before you're being seen again. That was tough, just being that we were being seen so frequently really early on because of the IVF clinic. And then when you graduate the IVF clinic and move on to OB care. That was tough to be like. Oh, I have how many weeks until I get to be checked again. I have how many weeks until I get to be checked again and then how many weeks till I actually get an ultrasound.
Speaker 1:I know some people go and get like third party ultrasounds. I know we talked about that in last year's panel. I personally never did. I always thought to myself would that place or that setting be the right place for me to find bad news out? And for me it didn't feel like a good idea to have to find bad news out at one of those clinics like the cash pay ultrasound clinics, and so for me that actually gave me more anxiety than it gave me like peace of mind to be getting those ultrasounds. So I personally never did those, but I know some people do. Um, what else?
Speaker 1:Something that I was grateful to have had is my daughter was getting older. We've had episodes in the past where I've talked about I've really shared this journey with her and so I really was able to talk to her of like, oh my goodness, this embryo finally stuck, this little peanut is growing in my belly and sharing that with her and being honest with her, of gosh. I hope this works out, I hope this baby keeps growing, et cetera. And that was a really special experience to be able to share that with her and talk to her about that. Will she remember it, I don't know, but that was important to me to be able to do that. We had shared with her all of our failed embryo transfers of we put a little embryo in and it didn't decide to stick around, and so we don't have a baby growing, and so it felt so nice to finally have the experience of being able to share good news.
Speaker 1:That did bring on pressures of what will I do if we're devastated by a loss, and I thought about that often Our last two losses. She was much younger, they were early on in our phase of trying for our second, and so I really have only ever talked to her about miscarriage from the past, and so she will like absorb that and talk to me about that, but I don't know how much she fully understands that. I think it would have been pretty significantly different if that happened at this age for her, so I was just so grateful to share that, but also cognizant of like there could be education around bad news if we get bad news. That's that's kind of what's coming top of mind about my pregnancy. Um, of course, I am so grateful to be on the side of infertility journey that has given me the gift of not one but two beautiful children.
Speaker 1:My plan is to talk next week about motherhood and that experience and specifically kind of motherhood in the postpartum phase. But one thing that I would say is just because you've been fighting through infertility for so long and you want nothing else more than to be pregnant, doesn't mean that just magically makes pregnancy easy. It can still be hard, you can still struggle, you can still have tough moments, and that's okay and you could decide how you want to enjoy your pregnancy, how you want to celebrate your pregnancy. I work with women who feel very excited and are ready to just kind of dive straight into all the joy about being pregnant and for them that is amazing and that, honestly, was pretty close to me with my first this time around not as much, I really didn't talk about it much. I remember I got maternity photos taken in early January, so I was probably like 34 to 35 weeks pregnant when I got those pictures taken.
Speaker 1:And then you know they edit them, takes a couple of weeks for them to come back and I shared a handful of them on my social media that I have on Facebook just with my family and friends and for a lot of people that was their first time finding out that I was pregnant and it wasn't because I was hiding it per se, but I definitely wasn't like intentionally having conversations about it, announcing it, making it a big deal, and I think for me the reason was that it felt really jarring to be cautiously optimistic and be surrounded by extreme joy for the pregnancy. So when people come to you and they're just excited and happy and talking about all the good things and you're still scared, questioning if this is going to work out, reflecting on all of your sadness of the losses, of what could have been thinking about wow, if those pregnancies would have worked out, this could be my third kid, this could be my fourth kid. Looking at important people in your family, you know nieces, nephews, cousins, family, friends with kids that they would be the same age as your loss if they would have stuck around. And it doesn't all feel fun, it's not all joyful, it's not all happy and exciting, and so feeling those emotions meant. For me, it felt safer to kind of keep them close to the heart with me, with my husband, with my close, close family, and less with the world around me, because it just didn't feel like they understood and I didn't want to be in one of those places where I felt like I was trying to make them understand. Rather, I just wanted to only spend time with people who did so. That was my experience this time around, definitely different than with my first, but this time it was much closer to the chest and that was okay. That was totally okay. So those are just some of the highlights I can think of.
Speaker 1:When it comes to reflecting about my pregnancy, I'm trying to think if there's anything else I wanted to share with you guys. I think the only other thing would be I can't remember if I've shared this before. I maybe did, but I wrote like a journal to my daughter my first daughter during that pregnancy and I looked back at that journal to see like when I started writing in it, you know I had been recovering from a loss previously and I remember I have this book that I think I've since gotten a read of. It was almost like a daily devotional type of thing. It was more like poetry than devotions, but a daily reading about pregnancy. And there was one for like every day of the week through all the weeks of pregnancy. And there was one for like every day of the week through all the weeks of pregnancy. And I read it with my first pregnancy that ended with a miscarriage. I read it with my second pregnancy and I enjoyed it. I read it with my third pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage. I read it with my fourth pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage. I read it with my fourth pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage.
Speaker 1:And by that point the book became like this trigger to me of this thing that like, am I even going to be able to read this? Am I going to have to put this away again? What's going to happen here, kind of thing, and so I didn't even open it this pregnancy, this fifth pregnancy at all, and when I looked at my journal that I started for my daughter, I looked at it when I was starting the new journal for my second daughter. I started writing to her at like 10 weeks, maybe 12 weeks somewhere around there, so early in the pregnancy, and reflecting on how life is going and all that stuff. And when I look at where I started writing journal entries to my most recent daughter, it was somewhere around 35 weeks and I will not say that it was because of stress or busyness of being a mom and pregnant.
Speaker 1:That was not it. It truthfully was that I didn't feel ready to truly trust this was going to happen, and writing it down felt so permanent that I held on from that for a while and some of that resulted in some sadness of perhaps there was a little bit more disconnection with this pregnancy when it comes to just being connected to my daughter and my belly, and that came from a couple reasons. Some of that was the disbelief in the I'll believe it when I see it type of mentality that I had through the whole pregnancy. Some of it was I actually had what was called an anterior placenta and for those of you that don't know, when you have an anterior placenta you're less likely to feel your baby and you definitely do tend to feel your baby move later in pregnancy. So I mean it was like a good month or two later than I felt my first and it just was not nearly as intense or as frequent as it was with my first. So that was stressful. To have the decreased movement compared to previous pregnancy and then coupled to that just already being in disbelief compared to previous pregnancy and then coupled to that just already being in disbelief, yeah, it was a lot. So there is a little bit of sadness of like how connected I was to her through pregnancy and you know, should I feel guilty about that and that stinks.
Speaker 1:There is a grieving process in this that my pregnancy experience was different just because of infertility, just because of pregnancy loss, and that's a bummer. I think that's part of it is. It can be beautiful and it can be joyful and it can also be painful, it can also be sad. You can also miss out on things and I'm sorry. I really am sorry if you have to go through that experience. As much as I am so happy for every single woman that gets to claim to be on the side of infertility, that gets to get pregnant at some point in the journey, I would not wish it upon anyone to go through this difficult, difficult journey and still never kind of have that success. It doesn't mean it's not hard, it doesn't mean that it's all happy, rainbows and sunshine and there's not any painful moments, because there absolutely are.
Speaker 1:So this was a little bit rambly today. I'm sorry about that, but goal was, just, like I said, to share kind of my thoughts about what it was like to be pregnant after so many years and ups and downs and twists and turns of my own personal infertility roller coaster and what it was like. So hopefully this was helpful to someone. Maybe you can relate to some of this or give you some ideas of ways to think about things if you're going through this or going to be going through this, and I hope you all have a great week and I will talk to you next week all about what it's been like in the postpartum motherhood experience about what it's been like in the postpartum motherhood experience.
Speaker 1:Hey there, inspired Mama. If you enjoyed this show, I want to invite you to leave a review in your podcast player. This helps to share the message with so many more women just like you. Also, if you know of another hopeful mama on her path to motherhood, please share this episode with her. I would love to get this into the ears of anyone who needs to hear it If you are ready to step this work up and not only learn these tools but to apply them to your unique story. Head to the link in the show notes to apply for a free consult. Call. I would be honored to help you.