Part 6: Going Public

Soon after Bex's announcement, I had plans for a phone date with another friend, Lyn. Lyn had a daughter already, and had been hinting that she and her husband were thinking of trying for #2. All this to say, Lyn was not necessarily the first person to whom I was planning to disclose my sad little secret. Not that I was worried she would be rude or unkind about it. But it made sense that it would be hard for her to understand my situation, given that she'd already succeeded (rather easily, of course) in getting pregnant once before. Imagine my surprise then, when Lyn began telling me that she was having a hard time with Bex's news. It turned out, she was struggling with secondary infertility (a term I was not familiar with at that time but have since learned refers to women who experience difficulty conceiving following the birth of one or more biological children). Lyn and her husband had been trying for nearly a year at that point, and Bex's pregnancy hit her hard.

In a moment of solidarity, I blurted out that it had been over a year for us. Breaking my silence to Lyn was oddly liberating. It was not something I had planned, and yet I felt instant relief. Confiding in Lyn was absolutely the right thing for me to do in that moment. As much as I would never wish this pain on anyone, knowing that Lyn was going through something similar (albeit not exactly the same since she'd already had one baby) helped me feel a little less alone. If nothing else, she understood my lack of enthusiasm for Bex. Paul was supportive of my decision to talk to Lyn. Until that point, I don't think either of us realized just how much pressure we were putting ourselves under by keeping it a secret.

I wanted to tell my mom in person. She was coming to visit the end of May. That did not happen. The day after she arrived, Gibbs (our one year old silver lab puppy) got into a fight with the fence... and ripped a nine inch hole in his side down to his ribs. We spent the rest of her visit dealing with the aftermath of that trauma. In the midst of all that, I couldn't bring myself to discuss yet another painful topic. Soon after my mom's visit, I made the dreaded call to Kathy at my doctor's office (see next post for details). I originally thought I would wait until after we'd seen Kathy to call her, but with the appointment looming, I knew I needed to just get it over with.

I called Mom and immediately warned her at the start of the conversation that I would probably cry. And I did. I told her how long it had been. I told her about talking with Uncle K and accidentally telling Lyn while trying to cope with Bex's news. I told her I didn't know much yet, but I hoped, more than anything, to have some answers after the appointment with Kathy. I admitted the thing that scared me the most was the possibility that there might be no answers. I told her that I wanted her to know so she could be praying for our appointment. But I also told her that I didn't necessarily want to talk about it on a regular basis. I felt like I was obsessing over it enough internally and with Paul - I didn't want infertility to dominate yet another relationship in my life. It was really hard telling my mom, and it sucked that it had to be over the phone. But in the end, I was glad I went through with it.

The only other person I wanted to tell before the appointment was my best friend, B. Telling B was just as hard as telling my mom. I told her in the car as she was dropping me off at home after a riding lesson. And I cried again. And it sucked. Again. But I noticed that with each telling, the pressure began to lift ever so slightly. I had been suffocating under the weight of keeping it a secret and letting it go, just a bit, was like getting a fresh breath of air. It wasn't like I suddenly wanted to shout it from the rooftops or anything, but I definitely felt okay about the decision to go (semi) public.