Letting Go: A Story of Emotional Release Following Years of IVF And Miscarriage

The clutter that inherently forms in piles and various other formations throughout the horizontal surfaces in my apartment creeps up on me. My eyes scan the stacks of papers, books, mail, and misplaced random objects. I feel like my brain will burst. I need to see spaciousness or I can’t focus and I get agitated like an angsty teenager.  Something about the absence of stuff makes me free to breathe again.

There’s also a slatted wooden box somewhere down (under the bed), housing almost-expired fertility medications and a sharps container filled to the gills with used syringes.

Then, there’s the clutter that’s under the bed. It’s hidden, but I can still feel the weight of the ghosts that live down there amidst the dust bunnies and the musty old family photos that I keep in plastic shoe boxes, with the goal of one day scanning them into a computer where they will sit, unseen, for who knows how long. Down in that under-the-bed void, there are also handbags and home manicure tools I don’t use, but can’t seem to let go of. Art supplies and beads for bracelet-making that I haven’t messed with for years – maybe decades – are stuffed under there too. There’s also a slatted wooden box somewhere down there, housing almost-expired fertility medications and a sharps container filled to the gills with used syringes.

When I let go of something I no longer need, I usually feel a little giddy inside. Ah, the joy of making space for something worthy is so satisfying.

The old tattered bras I haven’t worn in two years – goodbye! Exhale. 

The pilled sweater I haven’t worn more than once, because it reminds me of an epically disastrous Thanksgiving dinner, buh-bye! Exhale.

The stack of receipts from purchases last year, being removed from the muddle and onto their journey in recycle-ville. Exhale.

Sometimes, though, letting go of something feels like a sticky, tense breath in my chest that holds a memory for ransom: a micro-trauma that my body isn’t ready to release yet. It hurts to keep it and it hurts to relinquish it.

Sometimes, though, letting go of something feels like a sticky, tense breath in my chest that holds a memory for ransom: a micro-trauma that my body isn’t ready to release yet. It hurts to keep it and it hurts to relinquish it. Often, these are the objects that I shove deep down into a random drawer and when I come upon them, it’s a gut-punch from my past.

___

My husband and I adopted our second baby a few years ago. While I was on maternity leave, we were moving into a long-awaited two-bedroom apartment located one floor below our existing residence. With baby number two strapped to me, I packed and decluttered as much as possible before transporting wagon loads of our things from the fifteenth floor to the fourteenth floor. When it was time to pack my clothing, I began with my chest of drawers.

Buried in the first drawer, amidst my underwear, were three positive pregnancy tests from four years prior. These were the only physical remains of the unexpected pregnancy that happened naturally at forty-three years old, between cycles of IVF. I had missed my period that month, but I always had an irregular cycle, so I thought nothing of it. Eventually, after two weeks of delay, sore breasts, and no blood, I went to the local pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test. I was embarrassed to be there yet again, buying yet another test that would yield nothing worthy of a second look.

I had memorized the instructions for all the tests long ago and kept a urine-dedicated mug in the bathroom, specifically used for pregnancy tests. As soon as I got home, I administered the test. I left the bathroom to straighten up and prepared to return to work that evening. When the timer sounded three minutes later, I wasn’t nervous or hopeful or any of the things I’d normally felt when testing, because in my mind it was absolutely out of the question that I could be pregnant.

When I casually looked and two bright, well-defined pink lines appeared on the screen, I was stunned. I laughed out loud in spurts, but I was also a bit incensed. We had done so much, spent so much, depleted so much of ourselves, and relied on science so much…a natural pregnancy is how the story of our family would begin? Couldn’t be.

I returned to the pharmacy immediately and bought two more tests from other brands.

The new tests proved that I was, without a doubt, pregnant. One displayed a plus sign and the other revealed a digital smiley face. Every cell in my body pulsed with fervor.

I decided to tape each of the positive tests to big notecards and on the first card I wrote “We.” The second card said “are” and on the third, with a shaking hand, I scribbled the word “PREGNANT!” When my husband got home, I tried to maintain my composure, but I was jumping out of my skin. He stood in the entryway to our bedroom as I handed him the cards in order.

He looked perplexed at first, just like I had been only an hour before, but once he saw my bursting smile and tear-streaked cheeks, he knew this was real. We hugged and kissed, laughed and cried. We jumped up and down, unsure how to process this seemingly impossible news. I recall feeling dizzy with hope.

The sun was setting over the skyline as I walked back to my office that afternoon, carrying the news of my pregnancy secretly inside me. I looked up at the city lights, noticing that they seemed to pop more vibrantly than ever before.

___

When I came upon the four-year-old pregnancy tests in my underwear drawer, I was surprised to find that they still showed positive results. My chest contracted. My head shook in disbelief. I was reminded of the privilege of carrying a budding fetus inside me, my future baby, and being aware of him or her for ten whole days (which in the span of a lifetime is nothing, but in the duration of being pregnant after thousands of days of trying and failing, felt like an eternity). I was also reminded of the life that never came to be and how crushing it was to be so high, hopeful, and proud, only to get slammed down to reality by spotting and cramping: a miscarriage.

When I came upon the four-year-old pregnancy tests in my underwear drawer, I was surprised to find that they still showed positive results. My chest contracted. 

It wasn’t just the end of the impending baby’s life. It was the end of the life I had begun to fantasize about…one of growing this baby inside me and bringing life into the world. It was the dream of finally becoming a mom and falling in love with a cute little blob that would one day move through the world with a life of its own and all the moments between now and then. In my reverie, every day was filled with love, connection, and purpose.

___

As I stood amidst the boxes of our upcoming move, I rolled the pregnancy tests in my hands and debated about what to do with them. My two-month-old daughter in the baby carrier sighed against my chest. I could feel her full head of fuzzy hair brush against my chin and the warmth of her breath.

A flash of guilt gushed over me as I thought about my two amazing children. We had adopted them from birth, and they wouldn’t be ours had the embryo from my pregnancy made it into the world.

A flash of guilt gushed over me as I thought about my two amazing children. We had adopted them from birth, and they wouldn’t be ours had the embryo from my pregnancy made it into the world. I felt the ‘shoulds’ skulking, telling me that I should be glad this miscarriage happened, because without it – I wouldn’t have the beautiful family I have now. I should appreciate my beautiful newborn daughter resting against my chest right now and I should be thankful for my first child who confirmed for me just how much I love being a mom. I should not expend my emotions mourning a child that never came to be. I should be grateful.

The sneaky logic of the ‘shoulds’ was aimed at defeating my feelings of grief. But I know full well that the rumble of trauma doesn’t go away because of logic. The experience of love and gratitude for my existing children isn’t eroded in any way by allowing myself to feel all the feels – even the ones of loss for the children that didn’t come to be. In fact, the love I have for my children is intensified by embracing the wholeness of where I came from and all that I feel. Would I appreciate my children as much as I do if I hadn’t worked so hard to become a mom? Would I feel the deep pleasure of being a mother to these wonderful beings if motherhood was a foregone conclusion?

These life-affirming, death-reminiscent tests told a chapter of our family’s story — a chapter that takes up so little of my drawer space and used to take up so much of my mind-space.

These life-affirming, death-reminiscent tests told a chapter of our family’s story — a chapter that takes up so little of my drawer space and used to take up so much of my mind-space.

“What are the stakes of letting these go?” I asked myself. I couldn’t come up with much of an answer.

I won’t ever forget the aliveness I felt as I carried the sweet secret of our baby inside me. I will never forget the first and only time I saw that baby on the ultrasound screen. I won’t ever forget the fear I experienced when I saw the pink blood stain in my underwear. I won’t ever forget the email I wrote to the doctor with quaking hands, the follow-up appointment, and the deflated feeling I had when I left his office, knowing I was carrying the beginnings of a dead fetus inside me. I can’t forget the foreboding I felt about the week ahead and what it would be like to see the evidence of my pregnancy slowly leaking out of me. I won’t forget the stabbing cramps that would jolt my insides. And I won’t forget the devastating sadness and hopelessness I felt when the bleeding and the cramps stopped. I will never forget.

As I squeezed the tests in my hands, I realized that they represented all the memories and all the feelings that already lived inside me. It became evident that I didn’t need tangible proof of the life, love, and loss that I endured. And while I am sometimes burdened by the space these memories take up within me, I am simultaneously touched by how they have shaped who I am today.

For the last time, I gazed at the tests and the choice was simple. Off they went…into the recycle bin.

Exhale.