I have been trying to write this blog for many months. I have started it twice and stopped. I have stopped because I have not understood hope.
My first attempt started like this:
“She came into my office in her usual way, with a smile, a box of treats, and a sparkle in her eye. This time it was to talk about what to do next. She has a beautiful baby from her first IVF cycle, but just used her last embryos from a second IVF cycle without success. As we began to talk about another try, I saw something in her eye I had not expected. I saw that sparkle of hope fade. I hadn’t really expected that. Sometimes my patients give me strength and she was one of them. We spent the rest of the visit talking about the challenges and opportunities she would face in a second cycle. I tried to bring that sparkle back but I am not sure how well I succeeded. Since then I have been thinking a lot about hope. What it is and how to better give it to my patients.”
My second attempt started like this:
“I just had to tell one of the nicest people in the whole world that she is not pregnant. I will never get used to having to make that call. I feel like my house has just burnt down. Empty. If I feel this way, how on earth must she feel!?”
Our practice has two special Wendy’s. We love each of them beyond words. They are each very different, but together they have helped me with my own personal struggle with hope. They have each faced the emotional struggles of multiple failed attempts to conceive and a suboptimal medical prognosis. I have seen hope fade from their eyes and have reached inside to find a way to comfort them and have felt I left their cups half empty. I have wanted to give them hope to go on but have struggled with how to have hope in an outcome that is far from certain. I have watched them cry in my office as hope fades and seen in their eyes hope’s replacement: Despair. And then I have seen something amazing…
I have seen them set despair aside and move forward with hope. Last week I had the indescribable joy of performing an early obstetrical ultrasound on one of the Wendy’s who is pregnant from her ninth embryo transfer after the birth of her first baby.
Our other Wendy had another insemination as she prepares her mind for her path ahead. What most impressed me was that she was rekindling her hope for her future family despite the heartache of multiple failures. It is these experiences that have taught me so much about hope. Hope is critical to our lives. In some religions, it is even a commandment. Why must we have hope, even when the odds seem against us? Because without hope there is despair and where there is despair, there are no dreams and where there are no dreams, we can achieve nothing.
Without hope, Wendy would not have found a way for that last embryo transfer that will bring her the family she has dreamed of. Without hope, our other Wendy will not find the path that will keep her dreams alive. This does not mean that the dreams we have today will always come true if we have hope. It means that if we have hope we will always have dreams of a better tomorrow, and because of those dreams we can move forward to achieve a better tomorrow despite the setbacks of today.
The holiday season is essentially about hope. It celebrates the birth of a child that was called “The Hope of Israel” At this time of year we set aside despair and set our sights forward to a new year of hope. I am thankful to the Wendy’s in my life who have taught me so much about hope and help to rekindle it in my heart.