TTC since 2010

I wish that I could say that my worries about infertility started with my miscarriage or at the time Wisehubby and I decided to try for Wisebaby, but I have deeply and thoroughly feared infertility for much longer. After my brother died when I was fifteen, I realized just what a profound thing family is. While the ground shifted underneath my feet, the one thing that I knew I could count on was my family. Although I continued to have many aspirations for my life, family shifted firmly into a first-place lead. All I have wanted since the day my brother died was a chance to expand our family and provide to my own children the love that my parents gave to me. It’s a kind of pay it forward approach to life that I believe in down to my bones.

When I was eighteen, I worked at a summer camp. This experience changed my life in so many ways by allowing me to work with children, meet exciting young adults, and experience life away from home while being financially autonomous. I met a beautiful young woman who was a twenty-year-old sophomore at Louisiana Tech University. She wore sorority letters and carried herself with grace. At my age, she seemed so worldly to me.

Halfway through the summer, I fell ill with a serious case of tonsillitis. She was sick at the same time with cysts on her ovaries. We spent a lot of time resting in the staff lounge together, and she explained to me all about her chronic reproductive problems. At twenty, she knew that she would never have her own children. It was then that I began to understand the profound sense of loss that accompanies infertility. I felt powerfully sad for this woman, and I knew that I would be devastated if I ever struggled with infertility myself.

Fast forward eight years, past a happy honeymoon period of marriage. Once Wisehubby and I were comfortable financially, we stopped using hormonal birth control. It killed my sex drive, and we could afford to stop playing it safe. A year after that, we decided to try to conceive in 2010. 

I come from a long line of women who do not struggle with getting pregnant, so we thought we could be one of those couples who times their pregnancy to land the perfect amount from the end of the school year. That way, I could enjoy a super maternity leave from my teaching job. 

Now, over a year into my saga, I have had to face infertility. One of my worst fears has become my reality. Of course, as with anything, it did not take the shape or form that I had dreaded, nor am I dealing with it in a way that I thought I would. More on that later...