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Chizuk<br />
Lights<br />
at the end<br />
of the tunnel<br />
SHAAREI TIKVAH/ CHANUKAH <strong>2009</strong><br />
By the time I reached my early thirties, I felt my biological<br />
clock pounding away as I searched for a suitable<br />
husband.<br />
I was so relieved to get married at the age of 36, and assumed<br />
that I would get pregnant almost immediately. After<br />
all, my doctor had assured me that I was very fertile. As<br />
month after months passed without my getting pregnant,<br />
I began to feel panicked. Finally, I got pregnant, more than<br />
a year after we got married. We were elated that our prayers<br />
had finally been answered with a resounding “yes, now it’s<br />
time for you to have a child.” No lottery winner could have<br />
felt more grateful than us when we saw the fetal heartbeat<br />
on the sonogram at eight weeks.<br />
We had never considered the possibility that when I<br />
went back to the doctor the following week, we would see<br />
no heartbeat. The fetus died, and so did a small part of me<br />
when I heard the terrible news. My husband was inconsolable.<br />
We began consulting fertility specialists who assured us<br />
that all was fine, but that a little assistance would help<br />
speed thing along. We dutifully sought interventions every<br />
month, some of which required us to turn our lives upside<br />
down. One month, we needed to walk four miles each way<br />
to a hospital on the Sabbath. Another month, the doctor<br />
inserted an assortment of instruments into my reproductive<br />
system, left the room and forgot to return for 45 min-<br />
40
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