Our Son was born on Nov. 29th, 2012. This event happened 5 years after trying to get pregnant. During those 5 years I had 2 miscarriages. The birth of our son brought an immense amount of joy but looking back the years leading up to his birth were hard and filled with a lot of different emotions.
Growing up I always wanted to be a mom and never had any indication that it would be a struggle for me. As a young teenager you dream of getting married and having kids like it was no big deal, but not long after we got married the struggle to get pregnant reared its ugly head.
The first miscarriage happened soon after we got married. It was early in the pregnancy and so we were only able to have about a week of happiness before the sadness started and the dreaded confirmation that there was no baby. Several years later the second one happened. After about a year of trying after the first miscarriage we decided to try to adopt, thinking that maybe that was the answer to our prayers. We went through the whole process and were approved, and the wait began. We would be told from our caseworker that a birth mom was considering us and another couple. This happened several times, and as much as we prayed the birth mother would choose us, they always chose the other couple.
There are a lot of emotions that play a role when you face infertility and loss of a baby. For many years during this I felt a complete sense of overall sadness. I tried to be happy for people who were having kids but every time I would see a pregnant person I would come home in tears. It was a time of so much heartache. I also felt very much alone. It wasn’t until years later that I learned and realized that so many people went through infertility but for some reason I always felt so alone–that no one knew exactly what I went through. I also lost a lot of confidence in myself. It was so hard to face the fact that there could be something wrong with me. The adoption process hurt me in that way as well. I never felt like I was good enough to be a mom. I mean that must be the reason for this to be happening, the infertility and not being chosen to adopt a child. All of the many doubts and insecurities took its toll on me and my marriage.
After about 4 years of a lot of heartache and discouragement I finally started to go to a doctor to see what was wrong. I didn’t even start with a fertility specialist because again I didn’t want to admit that there was something wrong with me and the fear of hearing from that specialist that I could never have kids was too great. I started with seeing an endocrinologist and he diagnosed me with PCOS (Turned out to be the wrong diagnoses) and referred me to an OBGYN. I was put on medicine to try and get pregnant. After about 3 rounds of medicine I got pregnant with our son!!. I was so excited and so happy, but I held my breath through the first trimester as in the back of my mind I worried that I was going to lose this baby too. As I stated before, our son arrived healthy after a long labor and emergency c-section, but he was finally here!!
When it came time to try to have another child, I started the same medicine before but this time it didn’t work. I was going to a different OBGYN and after the medicine didn’t work, I finally was sent to a fertility specialist. For the first time in our whole process we finally got some answers. A full work up was arranged, and it turned out that I was born with a low egg count. I was given FSH hormone injections. Once again it took 3 rounds of shots and we got pregnant with our second. A girl born in May 2015. I got pregnant with the next child a year later with no fertility treatment.
It took me a long time, but I finally allowed myself the opportunity to learn from my fertility experiences. When I was living through the struggles to get pregnant and the uncertainty of it all I didn’t allow myself to see much past the grief and anger and frustration of not being able to have the children that I wanted. I know my story is different because I have been blessed with 3 beautiful children and I know that I am lucky. But my story is just that–mine!! I have realized that each person who goes through infertility has their own unique story, but at the core there are some similarities. When I hear of a person who is struggling with infertility, I can remember my experiences and be able to show empathy that others may not be able to. Looking back, I can say now it was a gift to go through this trial, but in the moments of our trials it is hard to see that. Because of this I have forgiven myself for the many tears of frustration, anger, jealousy and fear that I experienced in the years it took to have my kids.