HUFFINGTON
10.07.12
MIRACLE BABIES
I was going to push [the embryos]
out. I was crazy. We lived in an
old house, and I went to open the
windows and used my abdominal
muscles. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! I
strained when I did that!’”
Harder still was trying to keep
herself from seeing everything as
a sign of pregnancy. “You start
having the, ‘Oh, am I going to the
bathroom a little more? Are my
breasts starting to ache?’”
During Tracy’s second IVF
cycle, the answers to those leading questions became “yes.” She
was pregnant. Then three days
later, her hormone levels dropped
and it became clear it was only a
chemical pregnancy. Altogether,
Tracy underwent three cycles of
IVF before she and her husband
decided to adopt a child through
foster care, and soon took in a
3½-year-old girl. Four months
after the adoption was finalized,
Tracy discovered she was pregnant with a girl. Just over a year
later, she was pregnant again,
this time with a boy.
“I wasn’t adopting, thinking, ‘If
I adopt, I’ll get pregnant,’” Tracy
said, acknowledging that she followed the exact pattern people
told her she would.
None of her doctors ever gave
“AFTER YOU
HAVE YOUR
BABY, YOUR
OB IS GOING
TO TELL YOU
TO USE BIRTH
CONTROL.”
her an explanation for her infertility, nor did they give her a reason
why she was able to have children
after failing with IVF and adopting.
The lack of clear answers can
make it extremely difficult for
women to know what to make of
their bodies throughout the infertility process, particularly when,
after years of pipe dreams and
treatments, they suddenly have
a baby on their own. Should they
feel betrayed? Elated? Can they
muster any sense of trust in their
own reproductive systems?
Kari Harris, 29, took ovulation drugs for three years and
had multiple IUIs — having her
husband’s sperm injected into
her uterus — as well as two miscarriages before she