I Had Followed All My Family's Rules. Then I Couldn't Fulfil Their Biggest Expectation — And It Nearly Broke Me.

I had barely taken a sip of my burned cup of diner coffee when my uncle unexpectedly joined us. We scooched over, nestling into a snug booth, surprised and slightly disappointed to see him.

“Hola, tío! We didn’t know you were coming,” I greeted him with a half-kiss on his cheek.

My sister and I had taken the two-hour train ride from New York City to the New Jersey suburb to visit family, as we regularly did on weekends. My college internship had secured me a prestigious finance job straight out of college, and my father was keen to show us off.

As the waitress delivered the Western omelet I was starved for, my uncle blurted out, “When are you going to have a baby? You’re getting old; your eggs will be old. You don’t want that.” I sank into the red faux leather banquette, my appetite suddenly lost. 

“No sé, tío,” I replied. “I don’t even have a boyfriend, I’m not married, and I’m only 25.” My father interjected, “She’s focused on her career — let her be.”

My sister and I had followed the first-gen playbook: Go to a good college, get a good job, and now, according to our family, it was time for the next step — procreation. Growing up in a strict household, we were expected to be presentable, feminine and agreeable, but never to call attention to ourselves. As the middle child of three girls, I was often labeled the rebel. I hated dresses, avoided church because it made me late for soccer, and resisted the cultural expectations placed on me.

Yet, the cardinal rule was always clear: Don’t be a statistic — teen pregnancy was the ultimate shame. My sisters and I weren’t even allowed to date. If a boy called the house, my mom would tell them I didn’t live there. It was mortifying. 

“I’m only trying to protect you,” she’d say. “Boys only want one thing.” The fear of disappointing my parents weighed heavily. They had sacrificed so much to give me a better life in a foreign country. Survivor’s guilt and the burden of expectations were real.

Family lies at the heart of Latine culture. There is an unspoken expectation that Latine women will fulfil traditional family roles, embracing motherhood by a certain age or having multiple children. A woman’s worth is often intertwined with her ability to deliver on these cultural expectations — producing large families, becoming the matriarch of the home. But what happens when you can’t fulfill that expectation? What does that say about your identity, your womanhood, your worth?

I met my husband at 32, and we married a year later in Mexico. I was eager to start a family — the proverbial biological clock was ticking away. We were financially secure, in a loving relationship, and ready for the next chapter. Not long after, when I became pregnant, I was overjoyed.

But everything changed during my 20-week anatomy scan. What should have been a moment of excitement turned into a nightmare. The ultrasound technician’s questions felt like rapid-fire bullets. I knew something was wrong. We were rushed out of the exam room with sonogram pictures and told, “The doctor will call you.” My heart sank. 

In a cold, sterile room, at 23 weeks, we were given the worst news. My placenta was failing — placental insufficiency. Our baby had no chance of surviving. I could wait or terminate the pregnancy. 

Hours later, I started bleeding and was rushed to the hospital, where I gave birth to my daughter Paloma, who was stillborn, on March 19, 2014. All I had left was a tiny white box containing her ashes. My grief consumed me. I was no longer the person I had been. I blamed myself, feeling the weight of every unfulfilled expectation and cultural pressure. I had followed all the rules — yet my dream of motherhood was stolen from me in the most painful way.

My father, a man of few words, tried to help. When I returned home, he quietly fixed the broken curtain rod to block out the sunlight; he knew I needed a total blackout. As I lay on the couch, the antiseptic smell of the hospital still clinging to me, I thought, “What did I do to deserve this?” My heart ached, barely beating, strangled by the pain of my loss. My father approached and sat at my feet, awkwardly patting my legs, offering me a glass of water. “Mija, lo siento,” he said softly. “A veces en la vida, tienes que tener humildad.” I raged inside, my grief too raw to process his words. “I’m going to try, Papi,” I muttered.

Infertility and pregnancy loss affect approximately 35 million women in the U.S., including many in the Latine community. About 1 in 4 women will experience a miscarriage, and 1 in 6 will struggle with infertility. Despite these realities, discussions around pregnancy loss remain taboo, especially in minority communities. In Latine culture, where motherhood is often idealised, infertility can be shrouded in silence and shame.

I was desperate to have another child but terrified of experiencing another death. I felt utterly alone and isolated in my grief. I didn’t know anyone who had gone through this trauma. Surrounding me was a family of women who had no issues conceiving. My own mother had conceived me and my younger sister, Jessica, with only one ovary. I felt judged and ostracised. The whispers of “Te dije” echoed around me — I had waited too long to have a baby.

I was a vieja — my eggs had gone stale. I had chosen my youth, my career, my freedom over motherhood. In their eyes, I had been selfish in prioritising my happiness and delaying what they believed to be my true purpose on this earth: to procreate and birth children. I had desired safety, financial security, and some time to grow and mature without restraint. I had been obedient, achieving that model minority status, and yet I was now suffering because, of course, this was mi culpa (my fault).

It took us two years to finally hear the cries of a living baby, to give birth to a child we could take home, rather than leaving the hospital with a box of memories. Our daughter Bella was conceived during the first trip my husband, Ari, and I took after Paloma’s death. Bella came into this world out of love, connection, reprieve, magic and destiny. Her life signified rebirth. This little baby girl helped to mend pieces of my broken heart, but the pain and worry persisted.

I suffered from high levels of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. I was terrified to let her sleep alone. I needed to feel her chest constantly to make sure she was breathing. I invested in the latest technology — a small bootie that monitored her oxygen levels and heartbeat, sending an alarm to my phone if there was any sign of danger. I barely slept and wouldn’t leave her side. I didn’t want to leave the house for fear of getting into a car accident. I needed to control every situation, to predict any impending danger. My pain, trauma and paranoia hit new levels, and I began to lose myself in the duality of being a mother to both a living and a dead child.

They say lightning only strikes once. How much bad luck could one person possibly have? I was about to find out. With trepidation, fear and hope, we re-embarked on the terrifying journey to grow our family. Every doctor’s visit triggered uncontrollable panic attacks. The trauma was still fresh — buried enough for outsiders to believe I was OK but still deeply raw on the inside. I hated my OB’s office, but I was trauma-bonded to my doctor. I could see the pain and disappointment in his eyes as he delivered the news of yet another miscarriage. Not once, but twice. Three times, and we were sent off to in vitro fertilisation — the $50,000-plus “solution” for my “advanced maternal age” and high-risk, geriatric womb.

I felt completely disconnected from my body. There had to be something wrong with me. I believed I was broken, unable to even look at myself in the mirror. My husband couldn’t bear to see me in any more pain, and honestly, neither could I.

IVF is marketed as the ultimate solution for women struggling to conceive. The market size for IVF clinics reached $18.82 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow to $35.83 billion by 2032. However, statistics show a much less favourable reality. For women aged 38 to 40, the IVF success rate is only 20.2%, dropping to 9.6% by age 41 to 42. The average cost of one cycle is $18,000, and bringing home a living baby typically requires two to three rounds, costing up to $40,000. 

Disparities in access to fertility care persist, with only 5.4% of Latine women having access, compared with 72.2% of white women. Limited resources and education leave many individuals navigating this complex and isolating path alone. Studies show that a holistic approach focused on mental, emotional and physical health can dramatically improve fertility success.

When I walked into the football-field-sized room filled with women desperate to bring home a baby, I knew how lucky I was to even be in that room. But I also knew it came with a heavy cost. IVF is a gamble, and there are no guarantees. My heart raced as I felt an immediate wall of rejection, a sense of coldness. My intuition told me this wasn’t going to work, but I persisted. I handed over all my power to the doctors, believing they could fix me. I needed more than prayers from my family — I needed science, advanced technology. I ignored the whispers from my faith-driven culture, which rejected anything that didn’t adhere to God’s natural plan.

During my consultation, the reproductive endocrinologist was condescending and arrogant. He quickly reviewed my lengthy chart and said, “OK, this should be simple and straightforward.” Off we went to the examination room. As I undressed and placed my feet in the cold stirrups, he examined my reproductive organs and condition of my uterus. 

“You have the Ritz-Carlton of uteruses,” he said. The bizarre comment struck me. Who says that? I nervously laughed. “I guess that’s a good thing,” I replied. “Yes,” he responded confidently. “Do you know how many women in the waiting room would die to be in your position?”

And with that, I was whisked off to the next room, where I signed away my life savings and began the painful process of hormone injections. His protocol was successful, and he retrieved 22 eggs — a great number for my 41-year-old geriatric ovaries. A few days later, we received a call that eight embryos would be sent for genetic testing at an additional $10,000. 

We were one step closer, and yet my anxiety was in full-blown panic. I was so stressed that my face broke out in cystic acne. I could barely function at work. This process had battered my body and psyche. Out of the eight embryos, three were genetically normal. Soon, we would plan for the transfer.

I thought this would be the easy part. After all, with my Ritz-Carlton uterus, how could the embryo not thrive? But Transfer number one failed. Transfer number two failed. Transfer number three failed. Destroyed, shocked, and out of money, we waited for our reproductive endocrinologist to call. Three days later, he finally did, and without emotion or accountability, told us we needed a surrogate. “Or do another round — up to you.”

In an instant, my uterus went from the Ritz to the Motel 6. My dreams and my savings were gone. I felt robbed of my American dream.

Ari and I sat down, devastated. We knew we couldn’t stretch ourselves emotionally, physically or financially any longer for just a chance at another baby. I never spoke to my doctor again, and we chose to step away from the billion-dollar IVF industry, focused more on profit than patients. I set myself free from that cycle of harm, but my story wouldn’t end there. I refused to give up on my dream, and I embarked on a healing journey that would change my life forever. Four months later, at the age of 41, we conceived my son without medical intervention and I gave birth to Leo at 42.

For so long, everyone else had defined what success and motherhood looked like for me. My healing required me to face both personal and generational trauma, to acknowledge my conditioning, and to name the systems that had kept me small. I had to explore what brought me joy and learn to live in the present moment without fear. My healing came when I let go and learned to surrender — to let go of the pressures and expectations and find my way back to my body, intuition and heart. Then, he came — on his own time.

Nine months after Leo was born, we packed up and moved to the suburbs of New Jersey, close to where I grew up. Our house, nestled on the edge of a forest, has a canopy of majestic oak trees that feel like a protective womb. I watch my children play, and tears of joy and gratitude roll down my face. When I let go of the American dream, I started to define what that dream meant for myself and my family. And it became clear: My family is here, I am already living the dream — on my own terms.

Karla Levit is a dedicated women’s maternal health advocate, certified fertility coach, and practitioner of Breathwork and Reiki. After a successful 20-year career in finance in New York City, Karla shifted her focus to helping women navigate the challenges of pregnancy loss and infertility. You can find her on Instagram @karla.levit or visit her website at www.karlalevit.com.

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