Let me tell you about my friend

I have a very dear friend who is in the medical profession and she also suffers from infertility. Not the normal TTC'ing kind of infertility but, the multiple loss/miscarriage kind. We met in about Standard 4 and have been good friends ever since. We dreamed about boyfriends and our future weddings and naturally we imagined we would become mothers without any complications. We went to Varsity but we still kept in touch. When my friend finished Varsity she got married and they moved back to my hometown. We got to see alot of each other again.

As time went by I also got married and R and I started TTC'ing right from the start. After I went off the pill, I had a menstrual cycle that just wouldn't budge. Three months of bleeding later I went back to the gynae, had a pap smear and found out that I had Cin3 cervical dysplasia. We opted to have a Lettz biopsy done to remove the cells. I was also diagnosed with Insulin Resistance and PCOS. In short I wasn't ovulating at all..

I was prescribed a 6 month course of Climen ( a form of birth control) and Metformin, was put on a Low GI diet and was sent home to wait out the 6 months.

After 6 months we stopped taking the Climen, but continued on the Metformin. We got pregnant during the 2nd month of trying. We were absolutely elated!!! Our dream had come true.

In the meantime my friend had a beautiful daughter with the only complications being that she had to deliver at 35 weeks due to calcifications in the placenta and the baby not growing anymore.

Well, at my 9 weeks scan (after I had been in the hospital with bleeding) we discovered that our little embrio stoppeD growing and that there was no heartbeat. I had a D&C and was sent home with instructions to wait 3 months and then try again. I was also prescribed Ecotrin at that stage. During the first "normal" menstrual cycle thereafter I fell pregnant again...

During this time my friend also fell pregnant with twins, but had an early miscarriage. She was naturally devestated, as it was a natural identical twin pregnancy. She was also instructed to wait a while and try again. Never did we imagine our lives would take this turn.

During my second pregnancy I had lots of complications and bleeding and I was hopitalised regularly. My friend became pregnant with twins again (!) , but she also lost them again. Again, as you can imagine it was a horrific expereince, but I was still pregnant. I felt so guilty about hoping and wishing for the best for my own pregnancy. I felt guilty because I was still pregnant and she was lying there in hospital bleeding out. Our due dates were very close, so it was making the situation worse.

In the end I also lost my baby at 24 weeks and she was one of the first people to visit me while I was in Labour. And she was pregnant again... this time she was feeling the guilt.

She is doing well and only expecting one baby this time, but all seems to be going well.

I really really hope this will be a successful pregnancy for her.

And that I will also be following in her footsteps soon.

What is the reason for this post you might ask? Well, some people in the fertility world can't seem to see beyond their own journey and pain. Some people in the fertility world want to remain in this painful, fearful state for the rest of their lives, and that is truely sad. I sincerely hope that these ladies will fall pregnant, have their babies and move on with their lives. Off course none of us will ever forget the babies we lost, and certainly we will not forget the pain we had to go through and none of us will ever be the same carefree people again. But life is about more than fertility. Life is about love, hope, caring, sharing, reward, failure, success, pain, joy AND happiness. It's about a true relationship with God. THE ULTIMATE FRIEND. The One who carries us through this journey when we can't walk the road by ourselves.