Dear Future Baby
Hi, Baby.
I am 10 dpiui, which means in the infertility world, that it’s been 10 days since my second IUI. I am still six days away from my scheduled pregnancy test, two until my period is expected to arrive, and three until I hit the point where I was last cycle when I learned it had failed. I’ve waited for you for so long but these days feel long and unending. Even if my pregnancy test is positive, it will be more days of testing and waiting until we know that it is a true, viable pregnancy.
I am not sure how to feel right now, baby. I have some slight cramping, nausea, and fatigue, which are pregnancy symptoms but could also be from my medication or an upcoming menstrual cycle. There is no true way to tell if I am pregnant with you other than wait to take a pregnancy test or to see if my period comes.
At this point during my last IUI cycle, I spent hours on pregnancy forums and Instagram, hoping to find predictions through others’ stories. I often googled things like “bfn at 9 dpiui but then bfp” and “what symptoms did you have a 11 dpiui?” I read page after page of strangers cheering on each other and sharing encouragements of baby dust. I wasn’t a participant in the community, just a lurker.
This cycle, I told myself I would stay off the forums. There was something that felt unhealthy about the constant scrolling and symptom diagnosing. These posts, most of the years old, couldn’t tell me if I was pregnant, and I figured there was something better that I could do with my time.
However, it takes a hard resistance to push back the urge to get on the forums. There are the one small corner of the world where I feel seen, where I know I am not alone. They understand my late night questions, my growing doubt, my fear. Especially now, when my period could come any day and I can’t will myself pregnant no matter how much I try, the forums are a warm blanket.
And, yet, I find myself competing with them, as if only so many of us can be in the 20 percent of women who become pregnant via IUI. We can’t all get our bfps (big fat positives). But don’t I deserve it more? Probably not but that doesn’t stop me from wanting it as bad.
As I type, I feel some tenderness in my breasts. My head screams no, like it’s a sensation I can stop with reprimand. Tender breasts is a sign of pregnancy but not at this point in my journey. Rather, this might be a sign that my period is coming. I can’t accept that, and I likely won’t until the red flow is here.
I write to you tonight, baby, from a slightly desperate place. I wish I could call you and beg you to come. You would be convinced of my reasoning, and you would hang up and start your journey to me. Of course, that’s not how it works. I can’t control this anymore than the thousands I’ve already spent on medical help.
I saw a psychic the other day. I had seen this woman before, shortly before I married your father, and she had told me that I would have two kids before I graduate my master’s program, your father would get sizable raise, and I would never run again. Well, I have no children, your father lost his job a few months later, and I’ve run three half-marathons, a marathon, and two ultras in that time. I agreed to see her again, and pay her hefty fee, because I had to know about you, I had to know if this round of IUI was successful.
We chatted for about 15 minutes, half the time my friend, who went before, had spent with her. She told my friend when she would be pregnant again and that she would have a boy.
For me, she said, “You will be a mother.” She didn’t give any specifics about when or how many, just that I will have multiple pregnancies. When I told her about the fertility treatments, she seemed worried about my financial situation and how much we’ve already spent. I told her when I was to take a pregnancy test, and she replied again, “You will be a mother.”
So, baby, I don’t know if that means this month or down the future, but I would prefer if you come sooner. Yet, I am your mother, and because of that, I will wait for however long it takes. I will continue to wait.
