This post has been a long time coming.
I’m finally ready to share publicly what we’ve been living privately for the last 2 ½ years.
My husband and I began trying to start a family at the beginning of 2017. We were both in fairly good health with no known concerns, so we decided to just give it a try. Neither of us had ever “tried” in any capacity previously. Because both of us were in our later 30s, we discussed that if we tried for 6 months naturally with no success that we’d go to the doctor to make sure that everything was working right.
I made the decision early on that because I am a very sensitive, emotional person that I would wait each time to take a pregnancy test until I was late. I had been tracking my cycles using an app on my phone for several years and my estimated ovulation window seemed to match up with the signals that my body gave me each month. I thought everything was working fine.
Rewind back several years to a time before I knew my husband… For about 5 years I experienced extremely heavy periods for 3 months at a time. I’d had multiple tests done at my gynecologist’s office to see what was wrong. She never had an answer or diagnosis for me. She couldn’t figure out why it was happening. Nothing was technically “wrong” with me. I had tried so many different things to see if I could fix my body. Natural or otherwise. This left me feeling drained, depressed, and worried for my future. I was fearful that I wouldn’t be able to have children because surely my body was broken.
After hearing my doctor tell me one day that I could “either take the pill (birth control) or deal with it” (to solve my constant bleeding), I was absolutely crushed. This was not the route I wanted to take. Determined not to take it but without any other options, I took the pack home with me. I began taking it after swearing many years ago that I’d never put that in my body again.
Meanwhile I began seeing a friend share about some products that were helping women with symptoms like mine, even though I was undiagnosed. I’m not going to mention the name because this isn’t meant to be an advertisement for them, simply relaying my experience in how this relates to my fertility journey.
When I started taking them, I stopped using the birth control. I wanted to see what they would do for me. After about a month of use, my problems that I’d been dealing with for several years were gone. I never had to take the pill again. (Yay!) Fast forward almost 6 years and those problems had stayed gone.
Between this experience and a few years of “normal” visits to the gynecologist, you can see why I thought everything was good.
Each month as my cycle came and went without delay, I was bummed but still hopeful. I had always hoped that I would be one of those women who could conceive easily. I never dreamt that I would have any problems.
After waiting a little longer than we originally discussed, 10 months into our journey we scheduled a visit to the doctor. We each had all the appropriate tests done and everything looked good. My progesterone was low but still in the normal range.
My doctor scheduled me for a hysterosalpingogram (hystero-what??) that was intended to show that my fallopian tubes were open with no blockages.
This. Was. Not. Fun.
This was a painful and honestly humiliating experience. They had to force one of my tubes open but then they identified them as “normal” and “free spilling”. The doctor who performed the test said that sometimes just doing this procedure can help women conceive because it essentially clears the path. I think he may have even referred to it as “therapeutic”. Even though I was left feeling scarred from the experience, it gave me hope that now I would be able to get pregnant.
At the recommendation of a friend I began using test strips to tell me if I was ovulating. I have used several brands since I first tried them, and always used them for a large window of time just in case my ovulation days weren’t when I actually thought. Never once have they shown me a positive reading.
In April of 2018 I was dealing with lingering pain from a back injury I’d received the previous fall. I was regularly seeing a chiropractor and most of my pain had been resolved but there was still one spot on my back that was giving me trouble. I was having a hard time even stretching without feeling like I was making it worse. I requested to have an MRI to see if we could figure out what was wrong. When the MRI results came back, we found that not only did I have a torn disc in my back, they also found a fibroid the size of a grapefruit on my uterus. They said it likely wasn’t cancerous, but it could cause infertility. It appeared to be breaking up, but she referred me to a new local ob-gyn to look into it further.
The interesting thing was, about a week before the MRI was the very first time since we’d begun trying that I had a late period. I took my first-ever pregnancy test with so much hope in my heart and it was negative. I knew from talking with friends that early tests could often be negative. So I held onto my hope and tested again every couple days up until my MRI. Because there was the possibility of pregnancy, the hospital did a test. Still negative and yet I hadn’t started my period.
That day was so hard. To get a negative pregnancy test from the doctor and then to hear about this fibroid that could be affecting my fertility, my heart was broken.
I started seeing my new gynecologist and she scheduled a vaginal ultrasound to take a closer look at what was going on. Soon after I started my period and then proceeded to bleed for two weeks. Right at the end of this was my ultrasound appointment. While I was there, they found that my fibroid was breaking up even more but that I also had a polyp in my uterus which was likely causing the heavy bleeding. My doctor scheduled a surgery for the very next morning to remove it. They said that it was benign but can also contribute to infertility. I walked out of that appointment and sat in my car and cried for an hour. Upon leaving I messaged my mom to tell her the news. I said to her, “I know you’ll probably want to call but it’s easier for me to just message about it right now.” I could barely hold it together when I talked to my husband and I just couldn’t talk about it anymore without bursting into tears.
Saturday morning my husband took me to the hospital for my surgery. Everything went fine physically but I think I left in a haze of codeine and sadness. Throughout so much of my journey, even though I was hurting inside, I tried to put on a happy face. This was probably about the time that I really started to withdraw. It felt like blow after blow.
Leading up to this day, Brandon and I had been talking about wanting a bigger home for our {hopefully} growing family. We lived in a small farmhouse that we loved but wouldn’t be big enough when kiddos came around. We had discussed so many ideas from adding on to our current home, building a new house on our land, or buying a bigger home that might need a little bit of work. We had looked online for months and hadn’t found much in our price range that was any bigger than what we had. At this point it was all just dreaming and talking. The evening of my surgery we decided to expand our online search east of where we had been looking in the Loveland/Fort Collins area.
Our search brought up several newly built homes that were beautiful in pictures and within our budget. We had not even dreamed that we could afford a brand-new home. Our real estate agent (Brandon’s mom) was out of town but we were anxious to take a look. The morning after the surgery I was feeling groggy but otherwise okay. I think we were both ready to think about something else other than the previous day’s events and the past year and a half’s roller-coaster of emotions. We needed a break from trying and something new to look forward to.
We went out that day to check out the model homes of what we had seen in pictures. While we were out, we found a builder that we liked and fell in love with a house plan. We even found a lot on the outside of the neighborhood that still would let us feel like we were in the country. We quickly went under contract to have our new home built.
Over the next 7 months we poured our time and energy into renovating our farmhouse to rent and looking forward to seeing our new home come to life. I hoped this would take my mind off my fertility issues and for the most part, it did. We were busy and tired.
People often say things like, “just stop trying so hard” or “just relax and it will happen”. Honestly, these are the most unhelpful things you can say to someone who wants to have a baby. We aren’t the couple who is on a strict schedule or makes phone calls like “you need to get home in the next 10 minutes” to make a baby. Even though we have been trying, we’re probably fairly relaxed about it. But if there was ever a time that we were “not dwelling on it”, it was during that time of renovating and packing for the move.
Once we moved into the new house, life didn’t settle down right away. Of course we had a lot of unpacking and I had picked up another side gig that kept me very busy. Around May life finally started to look normal again for us. We were searching for a new chiropractor and happened to find one who specializes in prenatal care and knew it would be a good fit.
Over the last couple years that we have been walking this road, I have withdrawn significantly. No one tells you what a lonely journey it is. People are afraid to talk about it. I drew back from my circles and have lessened my social media interaction. I’m sure many people have wondered what happened to me. I imagine people have even been offended by my withdrawal.
So many times I have been hopefully waiting only to start my period and then get bombarded with pregnancy & birth announcements on social media. This. is. HARD. Don’t misunderstand me, I am over the moon for you. But I am sad for myself. I can’t help but think, when is it my turn? I know that people have been afraid to share things with me in fear that it will hurt me. Please share… Share your victories. Share stories of hope… Please! But understand that sometimes it’ll be sad for me, and that’s okay. It’s because I’m longing to have that same happy news myself.
I often worry that these problems I’m experiencing are because of the many poor choices I’ve made in my life. But I know that I can’t think that way. Whatever the reason is for why I’m not pregnant yet, I don’t know. I wonder sometimes if it can be from circumstances within my control whether it’s weight, diet, stress level, products I use… But I know so many stories of women who shouldn’t have gotten pregnant for x, y, z reason and did. Ultimately I know that it’s not in my power, but God’s.
Even though it’s hard, I wish people would talk about it more. I know that so many people don’t understand. But I also know there are more of us than we realize. I’ve read so many places that 1 in 8 couples struggle with infertility, and 1 in 4 have lost a child. I want to be open about it and stop hiding what I’m going through.
Several months ago, a favorite blogger of mine who had been struggling with infertility for a long time shared that she had bought a dollhouse that she had been looking at as an act of faith. This greatly inspired me. My bestie came to visit and we were in a shop in my little town. I saw this cute little bunny and picked it up. When I snuggled it against my face and heard the sweet little tinkle sound that it made, I was just overcome. Even though I was afraid to, I knew that I had to buy this little treasure as a reflection of my faith that I’m holding onto.
Even on the hardest days I will cry out to God and hold onto hope that this desire He has given me will come about someday.
“Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” Luke 1:45
If you are struggling too, reach out to me. Let me know how I can support you on this hard journey!
