Pregnant after three years of ordeal: MP Karianne Bourassa recounts the obstacles she faced

After three years of fertility treatments, CAQ MP Karianne Bourassa is expecting a baby. Daily injections, nausea and emotional ups and downs: The Chosen One reveals the obstacle course faced by couples unable to conceive a child.

“I’m pregnant!” says the Charlevoix-Côte-de-Beaupres member in an interview, all smiles. A former journalist, the 33-year-old politician struggles to contain her joy. The road there was full of pitfalls and the cost was high.

Karianne Bourassa and her partner spent $40,000 to make their dream come true. “I know that wanting to be a mother is priceless, but it has effects.” Although she earns a good salary as an MP, the young woman has had to give up contributing to RRSPs in recent years and delay her plan to become an owner.

During her journey, she met many unlucky women who had to give up their hope of becoming mothers, due to the high costs of the operation.

The state pays for in vitro fertilization treatment, but the lawmaker and her lover are not eligible. Her partner, a 46-year-old father of two, had had a vasectomy before they met. Free admission does not apply to couples who have undergone voluntary sterilization.

We don’t choose who we fall in love with

Karianne Bourassa explains that her government has no intention of reviewing the rules surrounding assisted public reproduction. But she does not hide that she has already spoken about her case to raise awareness about this situation among her colleagues. And it will continue to do so.

“There are always special cases that are not ignored,” she insists. We don’t choose who we fall in love with. I fell in love with a man who had a vasectomy.

And it’s not just about money. Fertility treatments are arduous and have many physical and psychological consequences.

Patients must take medications and high hormone levels during the procedure. Karianne Bourassa had to go through this twice, not once. She had to give herself several injections into her stomach every day and take a packet of medicine. His stomach was sometimes covered in bruises.

Some of the flasks had to be kept at a low temperature, and the MP had to be constantly moved with the coolant. The refrigerator should always be within reach.

While eating dinner with her partner, the young woman recalls having to inject the treatment into the restaurant’s toilet, while the meal was cooling on the table.

Obsession

Pregnancy becomes an obsession. “You see children everywhere. All you see when you walk into a room are children, she confides, with her eyes in the water. The vulgar comments from people you meet in the street, who ask you how many young children you have, bother you.”

To put all the odds in her favor, Kariane Bourassa had to follow all the advice, even the most unusual advice. She once adopted the Mediterranean diet, which some credit with increasing fertility.

“There is a belief that after transplantation [de l’ovule]You had to eat pineapple, then McDonald’s fries. The transplant took place in the morning, and then at 10 o’clock I went to buy McDonald’s fries and drank pineapple juice because I wanted to put all the chances on my side!”, she recalls, laughing.

Nothing could make her deviate from her baby plan. Not even nausea, mood swings, or crying. Not even the many disappointments: when tests reveal that only one egg is fertilizable, or that the sac pushes back the deadline, or that her first attempt at IVF fails.

It is clear that the Member for Charlevoix-Côte-de-Beauupré will never forget this moment. When she received the fateful call, she was accompanying a delegation of Moroccan MPs around Charlevoix and was scheduled to give a speech. She buried her pain deep within herself for a few hours. “I went to give my speech, accompanied the delegation all day, and then when I got home, I walked in the door and collapsed there. I think I cried for two days.

She had to go through the whole process again before she finally became pregnant.

But unlike the majority of other citizens, elected representatives in the National Assembly are not entitled to parental leave. She agrees that this reality puts “pressure” on politicians who want to start a family.

After years of fertility treatments and all the inconvenience associated with them, Rep. Bourassa wants to make time, perhaps “four months,” for her newborn, who is due in November.