Some of you maybe know that my husband and I have been trying to have a baby for the past two years. The road was long and winding. The preparation, the hormone therapy, the never-ending doctor visits, the food restrictions, the emotional baggage, the burdening society, the failed inseminations, and of course, the 'try again' phrase that seems endless. But apparently, the story keeps going.
In early 2020 covid-19 arrived in this country. People were required to stay at home, and these days we couldn't see our doctor (clearly, the hospitals were the dangerous zone). One day I realized that my menstruation had missed its schedule, and after three days, I jokingly tried to use the pregnancy test I had. It showed two lines.
Unsure of the result, I asked my husband to run to the drugstore to buy three other brands. I tested myself again. Two lines. In all of them. I'm positive. I was pregnant. Puzzled by this miraculous result (knowing we had stopped our treatment because of the inability to visit my doctor due to covid-19), we braced ourselves to get out of the house and enter the war zone, which was the hospital so that my doctor could see and maybe confirm what's stated on the test packs.
(Once in my life, stuff like this happened)
I went, the doctor looked into it, and he confirmed. I was 5 weeks pregnant.
By that time, we couldn't see anything just yet. The embryo sack was hidden. My doctor suggested I return the next week, and in the meantime, he treated me with vitamins.
Next week we came again. This time around, we saw the embryo sac but haven't seen the embryo itself. My doctor seemed unsure, but he suggested I return the following week.
We came again by the—what was supposed to be—the 7th week. The sack got bigger, yet the embryo that was supposed to be seen (or heard) was not. My doctor furrowed his eyebrow, but he knew how long this journey to have a baby for me and my husband has been, so he said we'll take another look next week.
On the 8th week, I returned to see the doctor, and the scan on the embryo sack got even more significant. By now, the primary embryo should have been more than 1 cm, and the heartbeat should have been noticed two weeks ago, but nothing. It's just a growing sack with no embryo in it.
That day my doctor said 'sorry' a million times. He introduced us to the term 'blighted ovum' and told us carefully that even though the embryo sack was growing, there was no embryo in it. It's an empty sack. It's like an egg with no yolk.
That day he gave us options: wait until my body processed the false pregnancy that'd lead to natural miscarriage or speed the process a bit by consuming a drug that later will be assisted with curettage.
We picked the second option.
It was devastating enough to know that the hint of hope we had was just a false alarm; we didn't want to be tortured even longer by the pregnancy effect that took place. Like most pregnant women, I was nauseated, I felt lethargic, I became very sensitive to smell, and so on and so forth... the different only pregnant women usually carry their embryos, and I didn't.
We thought the drug would help the miscarriage faster, but no. Three weeks after my first encounter with the drug, I was still "pregnant"; the thing just would not fall off my uterus. My doctor was worried about my health because the longer this embryo sack stayed in me, the more likely it would poison me (it's a dead 'thing' in my living body, so obviously, it's a threat), so he suggested having the curettage.
Now during normal circumstances, having a curettage procedure done is quick. During covid-19 time, however, was not. I must do a PCR test to ensure I'm negative for covid. The test cost 2.5 million Rupiah. And guess what? I tested positive!
Yes, there was a time in my life when I was positive for covid-19. At the time, I was not panicking at all. Maybe because I didn't have any symptoms, or maybe because I've been too tired to be entertained by God's weird sense of humour. Anyway, my doctor called me to deliver the bad news. He prescribed me more vitamins and demanded I retake the test in three days. That's another 2.5 million Rupiah, folks!
Thankfully, on the second test, my result came back negative. So my doctor scheduled me for the curettage procedure in the next week (the week after Idul Adha)
The night my result returned positive was the night of Idul Adha, I was staying in my parent's home in Bogor. Everything went well until I felt this excruciating cramp in my tummy, the kind I usually get during periods, only a million times more painful. It was late, and I wasn't sure what to do, so I just stayed in the bathroom and followed what my body asked me to do—to get the pain out. I had never encountered such pain before; my whole body was trembling, I cried in silence because I didn't want to wake anyone, and my shirt was wet because of the sweat. To my surprise, I "gave birth" to the empty sack this night.
Though most of the sack came out, my family and I were worried about what was still left inside. Because unclean 'miscarriage' could lead to a whole new problem in the future. So I went to the curettage as scheduled. It was a quick procedure that lasted less than two hours. During my previous operation, I had my husband next to me soon as I woke up. This time I didn't; the covid protocol didn't allow anyone to come with me—unless he had PCR test that showed he was negative (meaning another pointless 2.5 million Rupiah), so he chose to just wait in the car while I was in the operating and recovery room. Thankfully we returned to our home that very day after I gained full consciousness, and I could sleep in my comfortable bed that night.
That's the end of my false pregnancy story. It lasted for only 9 weeks. I thought a miracle was there for a while, but reality proved me otherwise.
I thought I'd be bitter. I thought I'd be devastated. But truthfully, I'm relieved. I didn't cheer joyfully when I saw the two lines on my test pack. My husband and I didn't even hug each other. We were stunned. Both of us just thought it was too good to be true, and somehow, in the back of our heads, we expected a plot twist. We got that plot twist, indeed. Another reason I was relieved was that I realized maybe it was not what I really needed in my life. During the 9 weeks, I hated to admit that I was too scared, weak, and ignorant to handle such a gift. God knew this far before I figured this out. So instead of being mad at Him, I'm grateful. He gave me a "sneak peek" into what I thought I wanted but did His own plot twist to save me from having an encounter with something I wasn't ready for just yet.
I thought that was all that I felt. But no. It Turned out this experience traumatized me. I am relieved yet burdened. Because I know I let people down. I know for sure I have been a massive disappointment to my wishful family. Having a trauma about something that raises hope in your loved ones is tricky. Because you try to avoid the trauma for your own sanity, but you can't bear to be another disappointment to those who never stopped supporting you.
The inability to escape this place lies in the resistance to letting go of what I thought I wanted. If I don't occupy myself with work, memories will bring me back to those days when I thought I got what I had been waiting for.
I remember the cheerful smile on my father's face. I will not forget how he reluctantly drove a bit further that day so that I could get the porridge I craved for. I remember my mother teared up when I delivered the news. I still kept the care package she bought me just so I could be more relaxed. And I remember that scared yet hopeful look in my husband's eyes. For a few weeks, he got around to buying me food I could digest while my body refused the home-cooked meal. Now, every time I see porridge or sniff the scent of that shampoo my mom bought me or think of wanting to eat that snack I ate while I thought I was pregnant, I'm sad. These things draw a hint of pain in my heart and remind me of the few weeks of a miracle when I wasn't such a disappointment to them.
After a while, I thought I had made peace with this, but it turned out I hadn't. I was just good at hiding from it. I avoided it, scraped this away from my daily topic, stacked it in the back of my mind, and pretended everything was fine. Until it was not okay anymore. Weeks after that miscarriage, I fell into the unseen trap and encountered this silent beast lurking beneath the surface; depression.
It was hell.
Even more hellish because I didn't want to say it out loud. Many students of mine quickly stated they were depressed because of the homework, and my stupid dignity forbade me from falling into that lame teenager's cry of the famous 'depression'. So I was in denial over this particular stage of grief until I can no longer deny it. Luckily I acted quickly. I met a therapist—which finally gave me the 'chronic depression' diagnosis—and I tried to deal with this depression by acknowledging it and then treating it slowly with daily therapy sessions that I do at home. I feel better now, so I assumed the therapy works.
Usually, I transferred all these insecurities into writing. But the damage in my broken heart was too severe, the trauma cut too deep, and I couldn't function as my usual self for a few weeks; that's why I didn't write for almost three weeks. I wanted to write but couldn't get up and force myself to do it. I was just this helpless lump of disappointment that couldn't do anything—for weeks, I just laid in my bed, sometimes crying and sometimes just chugging down pills to keep me asleep, not knowing what to do instead of just falling asleep and escaping reality.
I wasn't proud of what happened, but it was the process I needed to grow. And this post is the last step I have to write for closure. Some of you were kind enough to check on me when I rested a while from writing, and I thank you all for that kind attention. I wasn't well, I'm not healed yet, but I am better now.
I wrote this for myself (as a reminder of what kind of drama I thought I couldn't get through—and a reminder that I was strong enough to battle it through and through) and for any other kind of people that cared enough to scroll this far. For you who read this sentence, I thank you. Maybe we don't know each other in real life, but somehow we met through this medium, and I'm thankful for that. I hope by writing this, I will have closure to what happened in my life. If it's not, I wish this was a baby step I had to go through for a better recovery. I just want to be happy with what I have. Well, I am fairly happy with what I have, I'm just not sure my family is happy with this, so now I hope they can be happy for me and will still love me despite the painful memory I caused that has left scars in their hearts.
edit:
I've completed my infertility story and compiled them all into "inconvenient truth" titles. Click on these pictures for easier access to read them all.
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