After spending our first year of marriage as newly-weds, my husband and I were ready to have a baby.
We decided that we should just “see what happens” when it came to starting our family. We wouldn’t prevent, yet we wouldn’t be trying. This continued for a year with no success. After a visit to my OBGYN, being put on Clomid for 4 months, we still had no positive test. No pregnancy. It didn’t make sense. Was it my body failing us? My husband? None of my friends were having any complications. My mother and sisters all had children of their own with zero issues, why couldn’t I?
We spent the next few years as regulars at our fertility center.
We were diagnosed with unexplained Infertility. Monthly calendars were filled with tests, blood draws, shots & ultrasounds. Doses of medications & side effects, rounds and rounds of IVF. All of this was new territory for everyone in our families. We felt isolated as if we were treading water, trying to survive in the darkest of trenches. So dark at times I didn’t think we would ever make our way out. Going through it feeling hopeless, your lives are turned upside down. Physically, emotionally & financially you’re stretched to your limit. Relationships are strained because people don’t know how to act around you. You seem to be sensitive to words that never bothered you before. Yet somehow, by the grit of your teeth, you find hope day after day in the smallest of victories. It was that last bit of hope & faith that led us to our very last frozen embryo transfer. We decided this was our final shot at becoming biological parents. My husband referred to it as our “Hail Mary”. We told our families and had them rally around us. In fast and prayer, we begged God to make this work for us. To please give us our baby we so badly wanted. Those prayers were heard, and we were blessed with our miracle little boy just 3 short years ago. Being able to see him and hold him, makes me know the fight was all worth it. Better than what I ever imagined motherhood was going to be.
I tell you our story to show that good things can come.
Although I’m on the other side of things and have a success story from IVF, it does not mean that my heart is not with those still suffering. I promise you I understand the grasps of infertility and how unbearable it is as times. There continues to be days that I feel engulfed in sadness. Grieving my own failed pregnancies or getting jealous of all the birth announcements I see. I feel a huge loss not being able to grow our family by more than one child or carry another pregnancy. It’s selfish of me to know how difficult it was for us to have one baby yet I’m longing for more. Why is this trial of infertility never-ending? What could be the lesson in this I’m still not understanding? These are the questions I ask myself over and over, spending nights on my knees trying to get answers.
If you’re in this process or just beginning it, I’m with you. I know where your heart is and how it’s hurting. Have faith and find happiness in the things you can control. My advice is to surround yourself with people who have understanding hearts. Share your story with them. Give them the opportunity to embrace you. It is these people in my own life that got me through my roughest days. They will give you the strength to keep on going. Let them stand with you because I believe no one should be fighting alone.
