Those mornings I woke with a sadness so deep it felt like panic. A kick in the gut, an intake of breath. We were in living in NYC, miles from family and friends. We had lost a pregnancy. We were trying to conceive. It felt as though the spot we were in was IT. The only place we'd ever be. This low.
I felt as though I was at war with my body; what it was doing and not doing consumed me. I was tested-poked, stuck, filled with a sugary drink and stuck again with needle after needle. We did our first round of IVF. Conceived but lost the pregnancy. I learned about a whole world of support groups of people who were TTC and lost a DS/DD after how many weeks?
We entered a whole world we could never have imagined. The question: how long did it take you to conceive? became part of that world. Yet it often came from people who knew nothing of that world. How could I possibly convey an answer that captured the emotions we went through day by day? How could I put a figure/a number to this process that was consuming our lives?
That was 10 years ago. Looking back now I don't know how we got through that time. I have no advice to impart, no maxims to explain it away. I know that it was---that it was something I will always carry---and that it will always inform my writing.
