Anyone who has struggled to conceive the baby they so long for will know that the road to pregnancy can be absolutely brutal – and this has been summed up perfectly by dad-to-be Dan Majewski this week.
Dan took to Facebook to give a real, raw and at times intense insight into his fertility struggle with his wife, Leah, who is due to give birth later this year.
In the post, Dan explained how the couple spent over three years trying to conceive and documented the many attempts and extremes they went to, in order to become parents.
While they initially struggled to get pregnant, Dan and Leah – both in their thirties – were not overly concerned in the first place. They were then reassured by doctors, who carried out examinations and confirmed that everything was A-Okay.
When they still weren’t able to conceive, however, and Leah began hormone treatment, they started to get concerned.
“So maybe we’re bad at timing, or something, or god knows. Usually that’s fine, but we are in our late 30s, and clocks are ticking. The doctor told us that certain hormone levels were low, lower than they should have been, and that meant our egg supply was dwindling,” wrote Dan.
The latest step in the journey wasn’t helped by the indirect pressure hanging over poor Leah.
“Let me tell you something. There is nothing you can tell a woman that will make her feel more young, beautiful and vibrant than, ‘You have a dwindling egg supply, and it is time to pick up the pace.’ You should try it. Maybe at a bar,” Dan added, sarcastically.
So, when they had no luck, the couple began intrauterine insemination (IUI), or what Dan refers to as ‘the turkey baster method.
As you can imagine, this process took quite a toll on both Dan and Leah – and it wasn’t made any easier by the fact that people were beginning to ask the couple when they would be having a baby.
In some of the most vivid and intense points of his post, Dan outlined the process, thoughts and emotions that went along with making his sperm deposits and injecting his tearful wife with hormones – something that any other couple sharing their experience will no doubt be able to relate to.
Another feeling those couples will be able to relate to? The frustration and uncertainty as you endure the long wait to see if your invasive treatments have actually worked.
“You’re warned against taking pregnancy tests because they measure hormone levels, and after taking all sorts of weird sh** all month, you can trigger a false positive. So you wait. And there will be spotting. Is it spotting, or is her period starting? You don’t know. So you wait. And you wait. And you wait…And it’s negative, but you hope,” he wrote.
Following a heart-breaking miscarriage, there was light and hope at the end of the tunnel – they are now expecting, and everything is looking great for them.
“Everything went well. Arms and legs and moving around. We’re very excited, but I’ll be holding my breath for 26ish weeks. And it’s a girl. Not that gender matters! But we’re going to have a little girl! And I am stoked. We are stoked. We are pregnant,” he wrote.
As you can imagine, Dan’s raw insight into his and Leah’s journey to pregnancy has struck a chord with people all over the world, leading it to reach viral status worldwide.
Can you relate to this couple’s experience? Does it inspire hope?
