Some of you may have followed my blog for awhile, while some of you are new. I'm taking a moment today to share my story for those of you who are new to the blog and have come here seeking comfort, advice, or a perspective from someone who truly understands your situation. In honor of RESOLVE's efforts to raise awareness about infertility in October, it is perfect timing to reflect back on the last 5 years or so and tell my story from a different perspective.
I say 5 years, I guess it really started back in about 2008 although it didn't really become super difficult emotionally until around the end of 2009 when we really started wondering if something was wrong. We just weren't getting pregnant! That was the worst of times. We had been married for almost 3 years, and people started asking the dreaded question, "When are ya'll gonna have babies?!" Just like that. No sugar coating it. I, to this day, do not understand why people ask, so openly, such a personal question. But alas, people are complicated creatures.
Finally, we broke down and sought the help of a fertility specialist. Between our initial consultation with him and our first appointment to begin treatment, a miracle happened! We became pregnant on our own. That was December 2010. December. My favorite month. My favorite time of year. A month for children. It was perfect.
Until it wasn't.
On December 23rd, after a day of Christmas Shopping with my Mom, I began to bleed. Being naïve, thinking there was something that could be done, Casey and I rushed to the ER. I remember the drive there and taking deep breath after deep breath to try to consciously calm my body. It amazes me, looking back, how I instinctively knew what I needed to do and how I needed to do it in order to prevent my body from panicking. I didn't know it. But I was already a Mother. I always had been. If only I could have convinced myself of that over the course of the next 3 years. That night in the ER, we saw our precious baby's heartbeat for the very first time. For a split second, it felt like a Christmas Miracle what we were seeing on that screen. The baby's heart was beating. It was fine. We were fine. I was sent home to rest and "see what happens." Over the course of the next 48 hours the bleeding and cramping worsened, and when I finally got in to see my Dr. the Monday following Christmas, the baby was gone. No heartbeat this time. Just a blank screen. He gave me Misoprostol to take to induce uterine contractions to "clean out" my uterus. I am thankful that no D&C was necessary, but will never forget the act of putting that tiny pill into my mouth. All the while, I was thinking, hoping, that there had been some mistake. And here I was taking a pill that could kill my baby. I stood in the shower and cried, and realized that I had to commit my first heartbreaking act of Motherhood and Just Let Go. I was devastated. And changed. Forever.
Over the course of the next three years, I suffered 2 more confirmed miscarriages (one that resulted from a fertility treatment), and I believe an additional one based on how my body felt, but there was never a confirmed pregnancy with that one. It was also in December, so who knows, I could have just been feeling echoes of my lost angel the December before. Those 3 years, I was at my lowest and, surprisingly, my highest moments in life. The lowest were low. I was angry. I hated every child and every pregnant woman. I isolated myself from friends and family to protect myself from any triggers or prying questions. I attacked people who didn't deserve it.
The high moments, though, those are the moments that I choose to focus on. During those 3 years, I grew more as a person, a human being, than I ever imagined possible. I learned about myself - that I was strong, resilient, kind, compassionate. That I chose my reaction to my situation and chose what I would do with it. I chose to help other people. I began talking openly about our struggles (maybe too openly at times). I wanted people to know that I was strong. And I was shocked by the number of people who opened up to me after I had told my story. I made lasting relationships with others as we bonded over our suffering. Suffering, I learned, is the ONE thing that makes us human and the ONE thing that glues us all together - if we choose to let it. That is when I started letting people - friends and family, enjoyment - laughter and happiness, and love - in my marriage and for all people, back into my life. Going into our IVF cycle in January of 2013, I was at my highest. I felt good about life and good about myself. I knew I was a Mother. A mother to all other people on Earth - just as every woman is because we are all born with love in our hearts. It is that love that causes us to Suffer and to Hurt, but it is also the one tool we have that can bring us out of the depths of despair.
Our IVF treatment worked. We were some of the lucky ones (I had many friends who weathered 3, 4, 5 cycles of IVF). We cautiously enjoyed our pregnancy and now call ourselves the blessed parents of a 9 month old (today!) little boy, Silas. He is forcing us to continue to grow as people and to change the way we identify ourselves from an infertile couple to parents. (That is a whole other blog post).
Being able to tell our story has been our saving grace. Looking beyond our own situation and seeing our suffering for what it was - a GIFT. A gift that allowed us to begin to look beyond ourselves and reach out to others in pain. It is my goal to continue to do this. To be a source of positive momentum in someone's life. People already have Hope inside them, even if they can't feel it from time to time, so I want to be a reminder of that everlasting Hope when they are hurting too badly to find it.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story. Love yourself and love others. And you will be okay.
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