Chanukah 5770/2009 - Jewish Infertility

SHAAREI TIKVAH/ CHANUKAH 2009
We had never considered the possibility that when I went
back to the doctor the following week, we would see
no heartbeat.
utes. No one heard my screams in this back-room office
while telephone calls and lunch break distracted her. Another
month, we were recommended to a fertility specialist
whose recommendation we faithfully followed. We found
out later that his exorbitant fees were exceeded only by his
willingness to subject women to procedures that had been
scientifically proven to be ineffective. Finally, we went to
one of the top fertility specialist at a well-known hospital
where we were put at the end of a one-and-a-half year long
waiting list.
A year after my miscarriage, I got pregnant again during
a trip to Israel. I attributed it to my endless prayers at the
graves of saints and at the Western Wall. My husband and
I were delightfully astounded, and awaited the birth of this
child with great anticipation. A few weeks later, I gave a lecture
at a community Sabbath lunch. The topic was, “Why
Bad Things Happen to Good People.” One of my patients,
who had suffered tremendously, insisted that a good friend
of hers come to listen to me. The friend was trying to come
to terms with a host of tribulations and challenges that she
was facing, and my patient assured her that my word would
help her find her way. Two minutes before I was to start
speaking, I felt the familiar sensations of a miscarriage.
I felt as if a messenger had come to tell me that I was
not the rightful winner of the lottery whose prize I had already
mentally banked. It had all been a mistake.
I gave my talk, with its uplifting message that nothing
happens by accident. Everything we undergo is a divinely
engineered circumstance that is tailored to help our soul
develop its maximal beauty and connection to its source.
When I finished, my patient’s friend came over to tell me
how deeply my words had touched her. When the crowd
left, I sadly walked back to the rabbi’s house where I was
staying. In private, I sobbed, feeling physical pain that reflected
the emotional torment of my tragedy, even as my
intellect told me that Hashem was embracing me, and it
was all for an ultimately good purpose.
Three months later, I got a telephone call from the hospital’s
fertility center. The nurse told me that she found a
way to get me into treatment in only six months instead of
18. I jumped at the opportunity. I underwent yet another
fertility workup from scratch, the fifth in two years. This
time, though, the news was not encouraging. I was nearly
39 years old, and the tests showed that I might have
reached the end of my fertile years. I would have to get
monthly blood tests to determine in any given month if I
would be fertile that cycle. If I was not for three or four
months in a row, there would be no point in subjecting me
to any more fertility interventions.
Every month we waited with bated breath for the results
to come back, and the first two months we were crushed.
My hormone levels were so high they were off the chart,
indicating that I could not get pregnant those cycles. The
third month, a miracle occurred. The levels were borderline,
and the program accepted me for in-vitro fertilization. I had
to inject myself with massive doses of fertility hormones
for about a week, get multiple blood tests and sonograms.
Then, at the ideal time, I would be anesthetized and have
my (hopefully fertile) eggs removed so that they could be
fertilized and later re-implanted. For the first time in two
years, I had strong hopes that I would actually have a
healthy pregnancy.
I dutifully got my blood test the day before egg retrieval
was planned. My husband and I were looking forward to
having dinner that evening with friends who had finally had
a baby using our hospital’s program. That afternoon, we received
a terrible phone call. It seemed that my hormones
had already surged, and that the chances that I would get
pregnant if the eggs were retrieved the next day were not
great. The doctor never said it, but he botched the timing.
Based on what he told me, I had the surgery the next day,
and a few days later one or two embryos implanted. Nearly
two weeks later, with every day seeming an eternity, I discovered
that I was still not pregnant.
We endured several more months of torture, as I went
for blood tests, only to be told that my numbers were off
the chart. Finally, one freezing, windy evening, we heard the
unlikely news on our answering machine. My numbers
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