Heartbreak and Control

My BFF, the one that I wrote about here (41 years old, recently had an FET and found out she was pregnant with rising numbers and everything…) Well, it’s all over. She went in for more betas, and her numbers weren’t rising appropriately. Then finally she went in this weekend for an ultrasound, and there is nothing there. She stopped all the progesterone, and now she’s bleeding. My heart breaks for her.

But then, on top of it all, right after she found out she was pregnant, and right before she found out her numbers weren’t increasing appropriately, her husband went to the doctor due to pain in his testicles and they determined he has testicular cancer. So he had one of his testicles removed on Friday, and they find out later this week how bad it is based on the pathology report. I finally got to talk with her on Sunday, and she’s in shock – still processing it all. I can’t even imagine – going through all this at the same time. My heart goes out to her, and I wish I could take away the pain. But I know I can’t. I only did what I knew to do – talk to her, and I sent them flowers.

She sent me an email today, her first day back at work after taking most of last week off: “I’m back at work and I can’t decide if it’s good to be back in familiar territory that I can control or if it sucks to be back to work.” This is so very true. I remember going back to work after my miscarriages, and I found it strangely comforting going to a place where I was competent, where I could have a direct relationship between hard work and results. In school and in work, I’ve been very successful. And so has my friend – ever since we met in grad school we’ve been successful at our studies and our jobs. We’ve worked our way up our own corporate ladders, and our hard work has been recognized and rewarded. It’s only when we try to do something in our personal life like try to start a family that we can’t control the outcome. I find this statement very common in our online IF community. So many of us have been successful professionally, and are then shocked when our plan for family-building doesn’t go as expected.

My friend has tried to get pregnant for over two years, and finally succeeded after two IVF’s and an FET. She had a couple days of happy wonderful times, when she told her family and her close friends, and she started planning for her future baby. And then her world started crumbling around her – her husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and then she lost her baby. She, and for that matter all of us, has absolutely no control over what happens to her in her personal life. And this sucks, it really does.

The only thing we can try to control is our reaction to the events around us. And so I can try to be there for my friend, send her flowers as a token of my love, hug my husband a little tighter while being grateful that he’s healthy, and appreciate even more that my baby girl is doing well in my belly. But I’m continually reminded that this is all fleeting – we never know when our worlds can crash - none of us have any control.