MY
INFERTILITY
STORY:
Choosing to be
the 1 Percent
Melissa Rosenstock
M
y body was failing me. As I
sat there in the doctor’s office,
listening to him talk, I felt as
though I had fallen so hard the
wind had been knocked out of me. How could
these terms I had never even heard of apply
to me? Premature ovarian failure. High FSH.
Premature menopause. Secondary infertility.
Even worse: “unexplained”—no explanation for
why my body had turned on me.
I hadn’t had my period in several months. I’d
chocked it up to the fact that I was running a lot,
training for marathons, and exercise amenorrhea
can happen with excessive exercise.
While I enjoyed the freedom from not having
to deal with visits from Aunt Flo, I also knew it
wasn’t healthy, and I should probably stop selfdiagnosing. What happens, though, when you
self-diagnose, and the doctor tells you something
completely different? Holy shock and awe, and
not in a good way.
As the discerning look on his face emerged, so
did the lump in my throat, traveling to become
a pit in my stomach. The specialist I then saw
took one look at my blood-work and gave me
the devastating news: “You have a less than
1% chance of conceiving a child with your own
eggs.”
While having another child was not on my
mind at that moment, I knew I wanted to give
my daughter a sibling one day. Yet in a single
breath of stinging words, he was telling me
it could not happen, at least not in the way I
envisioned.
My ovaries were shriveled, FSH (Follicle
stimulating hormone) was sky-high, estrogen
low. All signs pointed to early menopause—
forget the fact that I was in my mid-30s. Could
it be the marathon training? Not likely, said the
doctor.
I had a child already. I was told by many to
consider myself lucky. Sure, I was lucky, and
beyond grateful for my daughter, Rio. But I
wanted another child. Was I being selfish and