That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles

a blog by Murgdan

Two years ago I received a call from my mother that was filled to the brim with gossip. She frequently calls with little juicy tidbits about “you-know-who” that I care absolutely nothing about. Mom knows I don’t care, yet she just can’t seem to resist trying to stir up a little mama-drama now and then, so I indulge her.

“Do you remember Susie Smith? You went to school with her? She can’t get pregnant. They’ve been trying for nine months. She’s just heartbroken. They want kids so badly . . ." And so on and so forth.

My response? "That’s the way the cookie crumbles. Some people can’t have kids. It happens. That’s part of life."

Was I horribly insensitive? Was I foreshadowing the future flavor of my own cookie?

Two years ago I had barely begun on this journey. Our super-stimulated, self-destructing embryos were nothing more than a twinkle in our eye. We hadn’t even begun to play-plan our nursery or day-care arrangements that may never be. I was still trying to conceive what it would be like to be done with school and have a real 9-5 job. Trying to conceive another life was a foreign concept, and failing to conceive was completely off the radar.

As our journey began, I often thought back to this conversation. As we approached the six month mark (remember those days?), I thought it was the end of the world—yet simultaneously felt confident that we would conquer, eventually. Time drug on and my world of suffering seemed insurmountable—I felt Susie Smith’s pain. (Susie Smith, by the way, conceived on her 10th month of trying, and is now expecting her third).

I imagined my mother having that same conversation about me.

“Did you hear about my daughter? She can’t get pregnant. They’ve been trying for one year. She’s just heartbroken…”

I often thought I would simply die if something were really wrong. I likened an infertility diagnosis to a nuclear bomb, that would leave me permanently shell-shocked and utterly destroyed. I read blogs and posts by women going through IVF and couldn’t imagine how they were even able to wake up and face the day.

Here I am. Unable to conceive naturally. IVF/ICSI the sole option. Failed IVF cycle. I am here. I survived. There was no nuclear bomb. I wasn’t destroyed, demolished, or obliterated. I wake up and face each and every day even though I can’t get pregnant. I’ve been trying for two years. I’m just heartbroken. I want kids so badly.

My response? That’s the way the cookie crumbles. It happens.

Let’s face it, people. It sucks that our cookies are crumbled. It stinks that we can’t have our sugar cookie imprinted with monograms piped neatly onto the top. Our chocolate chips aren’t perfectly proportioned and our raisins are scattered. Our thin mints are crushed. Our shortbread went long. And our snickers lost their doodle.

But a crumbled cookie is still a cookie — it’s just a lot more difficult to eat.

I, personally, am going to scrape my strewn, unfortunate morsels carefully into a Dixie cup and swallow them down as best I can. How about you? How are you going to eat your cookie?