How Did I End Up In This Crazy Place?

I sit here at the computer with a clean house and a fully packed suitcase. Tomorrow morning I leave for the airport.

I'm off to the good old US of A where I am set to pick up frosty and bring him/her home with me. Not in a suitcase or an additional seat, but inside me.

It's such a strange thing to think that frosty has been waiting for me since he/she was fertilized in August. Sitting in a straw in a lab, just waiting to be defrosted and placed into my womb. I can't even describe the feelings I have about flying halfway across the world to have an embryo transfer. It seems so strange and very "jet-set."

I suppose it's not unusual these days, but if anyone had told me 10 years ago that someday I would be flying from one country to another to try for a baby I would have told them they were crazy. Because everyone knows that sex gets you pregnant. Unprotected sex without a care in the world results in an accidental pregnancy and a cute bouncy baby at the end.

At least that's the story they tell us. That's the story we see on TV programs and read about on the news. It happens to everyone around us, our neighbours, our friends, and even a few of our fellow classmates from the 11th grade.

It happens so often that we don't even think about it not happening.

We assume.

But for some of us things do not go quite as smoothly. We are responsible and use protection. We focus on our careers and being the best we can be. We get married and still we wait.

• Until we have enough money. 
• Until things at work are settled. 
• Until we can buy a house. 

And then when we are ready, we go off the pill and wait for our "accidental pregnancy." And we wait, and we wait, and we wait.

At some point we realize it's just not going to happen that way for us. So we start researching and asking questions. We make doctors appointments and are subjected to test after test. Some of us get answers, but many of us do not.

Unexplained infertility,,,,, will someone explain what the hell that is supposed to mean?

The rest of the journey takes us through uncharted territory. We meet with doctors we didn't know existed. We learn tons of medical terminology and jargon. We take hormones like they are candy, or like they are recreational drugs, or both. We hope and we pray and some of us get good news. Others of us hope and pray and get bad news.

In my case I got almost all the way to the finish line only to have my hopes shattered at 36 weeks by those 6 terrible words. "I'm so sorry, there's no heartbeat."

But somehow, despite all the bad news and setbacks we manage to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and throw ourselves right back out there. To a place where we are so vulnerable and so desperate for a good outcome that we will try almost anything.

For me, this means flying across the Atlantic because the don't have a good donor egg program in the country where I live. It means expensive, long, last minute flights for transfers. It means adjusting my injection times to match whatever timezone I'm in. It means working with 2 fertility clinics, one here and one there. It means communicating with my RE and Nurse via email and long distance phone calls.

Some days I wonder how I ended up in this crazy place. Most days I'm just hoping it's all worth it in the end. The day when I not only get pregnant, but I stay pregnant, and I get to bring home a living baby at the end of it all.

So my bag is packed, my boarding pass is printed, and I'm ready to go. Because this is my life now, and all I want is a healthy, living baby.