Her heartbeat filled that room, and in the deepest part of my consciousness I did know she was a girl, just like I knew in some secret part of myself that my first was a girl, lost before I ever heard the rapid drumming of her heart. A man who, really, I barely knew held a wand that may as well have been magic.  It was magic, honestly.  Better than Harry Potter’s wand, although I mean no disrespect because HP is my man (for real…Harry Potty is my jam, guys)!

But this man, my fertility doc, held a wand that blessed me with the sweetest, most hoped-for, wished-for, begged-for, cried-for sound my ears have ever heard.  Her heartbeat filled that room, buried itself deep in my soul, and scared the absolute hell out of me.

After one more visit to confirm her magical, soul-satiating heartbeat would not just as quickly disappear with only its echo left behind, I was standing there in the hallway of my fertility doc’s office. The staff were hugging me.  They were handing me an adorable, tiny little bottle of Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Juice. Then, barely aware of it, I was walking out of their office for the last time.

But, that’s it?  I was standing in that hallway thinking, “…wait…you guys are just….high-fiving me and sending me out the door?”

Yes. That is exactly what they were doing.  Their part was done.  They held my hand through a fertility diagnosis, multiple procedures, the process of growing each of my ovaries into what felt like giant watermelons, harvesting 19 eggs, fertilizing 13 of them, phone calls to tell me day in and day out that another group of those 13 had not made it. They shared in my joy when we went from only 2 embryos healthy enough to even consider up to 4. When we put our final hope in the 2 that were actually viable, they wished and hoped and dreamed with me.

They cried, too, when they heard her heartbeat.

But one visit later I still found myself walking out that door silently screaming, “…That’s it?  But I need you guys!”

The vulnerability that we infertile women, that we infertile couples, that we hurting, wanting, mourning people of the world lay at the feet of our fertility specialists and their staff is one felt by many, spoken of by few.

We build what to us feels like an unbreakable bond, and then they let us go.  They get us pregnant, and then they walk away (I mean…technically…we walk away…but in that moment, it feels like they are walking away).

Blinking, we walk into the light, dazed and confused, as if this world we’ve walked out into is a foreign one.  We find ourselves back in our original obstetrician’s or midwife’s office, and it is like everyone else just skipped forward, oblivious to the painful journey we are still in the midst of.

“Hey, you’re pregnant? Great.  So watch your weight, take your vitamins….etc….etc.”  Do not get me wrong.  I have had excellent obstetrics and midwifery care along every step of each of my pregnancies. I have loved and appreciated those that have cared for me on the opposite end of my infertility.  I have felt I was in excellent and skilled hands through each visit and both deliveries.

But you know what? Most of them do not know.  How can they?  How can they, when we ourselves did not know, either? We did not know until we were there, living it, breathing it, existing only in our infertility, and then in the memory of our infertility and the fear that it would rear its ugly head and tell us that this pregnancy was, indeed, too good to be true.

Unless you are in the club, it seems you do not know.  But through this, again, we will survive.  We will breathe.  And we will advocate.  And we will encourage. And we will breathe again.

We will seek out and find each other.  We will come together to tell the world that we are here, hurting but surviving. Hurting, but learning how to peacefully be.  We will breathe again.  And we will help them, the obstetricians and the midwives and everyone else. We will help them learn how to not leave us all alone. How to love us and support us, and how to hold our hands through this walk that is pregnancy and parenting after infertility.