by Charlotte Husson December 3, 2018

Liza - the one who gives hope.

Today I present to you Liza who embodies many things through a wonderful lived experience that particularly touches me, PMA.

Behind the veil of this abbreviation, meaning Medically Assisted Reproduction, in all its administrative dryness, how many disappointed hopes, successes, trials, suffering, taboo, happiness, enchantment... roller coasters, moral and physical?

Here's what Liza told me, because it's like a Christmas story that makes her beam with happiness today with a belly that has been rounding nicely for 8 months.

His history ?

Born 32 years ago in Strasbourg, in this beautiful city where it is the storks who are responsible for bringing the blessed babies into homes.

Liza's home was sweet and loving and the stork was particularly generous and inspired. Liza was born an artist at heart. Coming to Paris, Liza is a “Dream Catcher” model, actress, singer, composer (her first song was titled “comme une amour”; coincidences do not exist), an album is in the works, and then... in love of Mathieu, another blessed who also came from Strasbourg. The planets align harmoniously for Liza and Mathieu, a baby would be an additional enchantment. The stork is summoned.... but it does not take flight. The days pass, then the months which turn into years, four already...

And Liza suffers, from impatience, from frustration, from injustice; she also suffers, physically, at regular intervals. “I lived with my pain,” she said. These words resonate in me like so many terrible memories.

So Liza consults. Analyzes, x-rays, like a battle plan that begins to be organized without noise. Results: the specter of endometriosis which haunted Liza is not detected, phew! but the pathways to her fertility are blocked, the after-effects of an old infection.

Liza goes through a stage, which I, unfortunately, also knew very well: the stage of medical wandering with the wrong people.

First failed in vitro fertilizations, treatments as painful as they were ineffective, administered by a renowned (or self-proclaimed?) specialist doctor, but who inspires no confidence. How can you be competent without empathy or without inspiring confidence, whether you are a doctor, mechanic, psychologist, lawyer, driving school instructor... whatever? We can topple mountains if we are armed with confidence, in ourselves and in others.

The miracle.

And then, miracle – like me, again – THE meeting that will change everything. Enter the battlefield, the good doctor, the one who, like Mathieu, does not let go of your hand, the traveling companion, the teacher, gifted with patience and empathy, the one who seeks at your side all the ways and means of THE solution.

Oh, it's not, overnight, a path strewn with roses, it's even a new marathon that begins, but this time with a compass in hand and newfound confidence.

I will spare you the technical details of all the treatments and operations, I would not want to make any misunderstandings.

The best is to go to Liza's blog who will tell you her lesson in applied biology in full knowledge of the facts. In any case the way she told me about her last chance IVF, “the trigger shots to release the eggs” (sic).... all this was said with a mixture of poetry and joyful technical details, which radiates life, determination and pride, otherwise translated as: “I'm so upset, but it worked!! » .

Yes, what a delight to learn that fertilization was successful after a final period of waiting, full of fear and superstition.

A new era, in pink, in blue, in chirps, is coming... but there is no question of falling back on our happiness. Happiness is meant to flap in the wind and be shared. Also share experience, good and bad, to learn the best lessons for the benefit of others.

Liza opens a blog, a logbook of her PMA trip, a real object lesson and life lesson, transposable to many other challenges.

Here is what I read there:

- don't lock yourself in solitude or denial when the sky falls on your head, but accept and put yourself in combat mode.

- surround yourself with the right people; medical competence is crucial, but human alchemy, mutual trust, the caring shoulder of loved ones to sometimes cry, it's all that which makes it possible to overcome the last kilometers of the marathon, the hardest in general.

- it is this hard core of the team and love, always love, which allows us to make the right decisions and face deadlines without wavering.

- don't be afraid to break the silence, dialogue and transmit.

- also explain, without prejudice, without judging or being judged. PMA remains in the gray zone of certain debates. Refractory voices are being heard, against a religious or traditional background. This is respectable, provided that we do not display intolerance or contempt towards those who are infertile and who want to give birth at all costs, with this desire for a child deep in their hearts. Nothing repulses Liza more than these refractory people who name her baby "test tube baby", stigmatized before having seen the day.

- adoption was an alternative considered by Liza and Mathieu, there are so many children lacking everything, including love, on this earth. But ultimately the procedures turned out to be even more random, longer, and also more unfair than a PMA.

I leave to George Sand the moral of this beautiful encounter: “The love of a woman for a man must resemble the tenderness of a mother for her child”.

nib: CH