Let's Talk About the Elephant in the Room: Infertility

Higher education taught me to write my life goals as descriptive as possible. Set your goals high and create a plan to achieve them with everything down to the smallest detail so the mountains you will climb will seem like mole hills.

I made my list and for most of the items I had elaborate plans and descriptions, but little did I know that one I had not planned out would be the most cumbersome of them all. Having children. 

You see, 1 in 8 couples face infertility in today's society. The biggest problem is that you don't know that you are part of the statistic until everyone around you is having children and you wonder why nothing has worked so far. But once you know, it will change your life forever. 

Mitch and I spent years trying to conceive with no results. I was told "you are trying too hard" or "you are too young to have issues" or "you are young, why do you want to rush to have children?" The hard reality was that both of us were already past the age when we wanted to have children. 

I have been through a lot of tough stuff but finding out that I was the one with fertility issues was one of the hardest moments in my life. Since I was a child I knew I wanted to have two kids by the time I was 25 years old. Here I am 27 years old with no children and a reproductive system that is non-cooperative. 

There is no accurate way to describe all the emotions that go into infertility diagnosis. You start off feeling that your body has betrayed you. That every period cramp or migraine or PMS symptom was just Mother Nature tricking you into believing that you would be able to get pregnant only to rip the rug out from under you. You begin to slowly hate yourself and resent everyone around you who has children. 

Then one day you wake up and realize that it is no one else's fault that you are the 1 in 8 couples with infertility. You begin to realize that there are other options available to try to treat infertility and you try to find a glimmer of hope because at that point that is all you can do. Most importantly, you begin to encourage others in their pregnancies or births or adoptions because they deserve happiness just like you do. 

Fertility treatments are hard, I am not going to lie. The hormones play major tricks on the mind and body and leave you a shell of who you are if you are not careful. I experienced this firsthand. Giving yourself injections is hard. Taking all of the medications on time is hard. Following every instruction you are given is hard. But what is harder is completing the cycle only to find out that the cycle was not successful. 

I have learned over the course of the last year to avoid the word failure. There are enough feelings of guilt, regret, agony, pain, grief, sadness and despair within infertility. Failure indicates that the outcome was of no use, but each treatment cycle teaches you something. It teaches you how strong you and your partner really are. It teaches you that no matter what happens you must get up and face the day.

Most importantly, infertility has taught us who is there in the dark times. It has shown us that family does not have to be blood related, it can be friends who come to help you pick up the pieces or random acquaintances who check up on you even when they don't have to. No matter how bad things seem, there is always a silver lining somewhere hidden. 

Mitch and I have done three timed intercourse cycles previously and agreed that we will be doing at maximum three more of these cycles this fall. If these three cycles are unsuccessful, then we accept the outcome. In the end, there is a bigger plan at play and we must learn to be patient and just enjoy the ride. 

I am planning to post on a routine basis on this blog during my treatment cycles for anyone else that may be undergoing treatments. If you are going through treatments or infertility, please do not hesitate to reach out. I am more than happy to explain the procedures that I have been through, provide a listening ear or support in any way I can.