The beginning

This blog is something I have had on my heart to do since my journey down a road I never expected began over 4.5 years ago. This is not to make anyone feel bad for me. This is a place to share my heart and hope that my story can help encourage someone who may be dealing with similar issues, or even to help encourage people to keep walking along the path that may seem impossible.

On August 5th 2011 I married the man of my dreams. I knew he was exactly who God had for me, and that our life would be full of adventures together. Once we had been married a little over a year we began to talk about starting a family. For those of you that don’t know me you should know I absolutely adore children. I have devoted my career to children by being a nanny, and a dance teacher. I had always dreamed of becoming a Mom, and having a family pretty quickly after getting married.

I went off my birth control, and we began to “try” for a baby. Days turned into months, months turned into years. The comments and unsolicited advice began when people started noticing most of my married friends were having babies and I wasn’t.

“Why don’t you have kids like all of the rest of your friends? Is there something wrong with you? ”

“I don’t know what’s taking you so long. I can try once and I’m pregnant. It’s not that hard.”

“You are so lucky to not have kids. Your life is perfect.”

“You are getting older, shouldn’t you be starting a family by now?”

These are very few of the hurtful statements that were said to me during a time where I was at one of my lowest points in life. I don’t write this for you to feel sorry for me, but for you to realize that sometimes the things we may think are funny to say to someone can be a source of pain for them.

After many failed pregnancy tests and a lot of heartache we decided it was time to see a specialist to get to the bottom of why I had not become pregnant.

We went into our first appointment positive, and knowing that things were probably an easy fix. We met with an absolutely incredible specialist. He went over all the ins and outs of infertility and gave us our first method of getting to the bottom of things. We left extremely overwhelmed and decided to take the next 6 months to pray and decide how we wanted to move forward. If we used a doctor to help us move forward to be able to have a child would that mean our faith in God was not strong enough? The answer to that is NO! I wish I could say I knew then what I know now, but if I did I would be lying to all of you reading. These doctors were given the ability to learn amazing things and procedures to help people that struggle with infertility.

After a lot of prayer we knew it was time for us to move forward. We went through a lot of testing, ultrasounds, scans, and blood work. We knew after the final round of testing we would get a phone call with what they thought our best options for moving forward would be.

I will never forget the day we got the call from my sweet nurse. My heart was racing when I saw the call I had been waiting for coming across my phone. When I answered I had a sinking feeling and we received devastating news. After reviewing all the test results we had a 1% chance of conceiving children naturally. I calmly asked what our options were and they proceeded to tell me it depends on how aggressively we wanted to proceed. We could pay tens of thousands of dollars to see more specialists and try a few different procedures, or we could do in-vitro fertilization. Of course my first question was how much does that cost? The total initial cost was equivalent to a new mid sized car.  That did not include initial ultrasounds, or some of the medicines. My heart sunk, but in that moment I knew we would do whatever we had to to raise that money to be able to fulfill our dream of becoming parents.

I hung up the phone and called my husband to break the news to him. To say we were both devastated would be an understatement. I remained positive with him on the phone saying I knew everything would work out. We will get the money some how, but I wasn’t even sure if I believed the words I was speaking. My heart was broken. I wish I could say I didn’t doubt things at that point, but I was hurting more than I ever had.

Why? Why me? Why us? What had we done to deserve this? Why when I have devoted my life to children would we have to experience this? In these moments I questioned everything.

Infertility is a real, raw, hurtful, and unfathomable thing. Many people may not talk about it because it could be embarrassing to them, their deepest source of pain, and it takes them to a place of extreme vulnerability.

My mantra: Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

Be Kind. Always ❤️

Next week: continuation of our journey through infertility. Thanks for reading!

XOXO