Month: March 2018

Hope

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Dear No One,

Hope. “A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.”

Despair. “The complete loss or absence of hope.”

Every month while a couple is trying to get pregnant, they are extremely hopeful. They look up when the due date would be. They think about when they can tell their family. They think about when their first appointment/ultrasound will be. They start planning.

I did this. I am a super planner. I was very naive and SO sure we’d get pregnant on one of our rounds of using clomid (3 years ago). I planned how I’d tell Marcus. How we’d tell our families. How our child’s age would compare to his or her cousins’ ages. We had names. We were so ready.

Month after month, you pick yourself up when your period comes. Your hope comes back. With every passing month, though, that hope starts to dwindle. It becomes despair. Fear. Anger. Jealousy. Guilt. Pain.

It is March. Our embryo transfer is March 19. I should be excited, right? As soon as March hit, though, I realized that I haven’t had any hope for getting pregnant in a long time. I am ready and I am excited for the opportunity. But I find myself guarding my heart as I am scared to hope.

I am scared to take a pregnancy test again as it normally triggers a lot of tears and pain. I am scared this won’t work. I am scared my body can’t do this. I am scared to hope. I am scared to feel. I am scared if this doesn’t work, I will only know despair. I am scared.

But I have to have hope. I wouldn’t be able to put my body through all of this if I wasn’t hopeful that it will work. I know beneath it all, I have hope. And no matter what, I am positive we will build our family one way or another.

So for those of you out there who are struggling to hope, keep this in mind:

“We must accept finite disappointment but must never lose infinite hope.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

All my love,

Betsy

Strength Through Infertility

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Dear No One,

Infertility can suck you in and try to drown you. Infertility strips you of so many things you maybe didn’t even know could be taken.

Dreams. I grew up dreaming of what my family would look like someday. At one of my bridal showers, we played a game that compared Marcus and my answers to different questions. They asked the question, “How many children will you have?” I answered, “3-6.” While that got a few surprised looks, I knew I wanted a BIG family. I want the full house. I want the chaos. I want loud. I dreamed of this even before I met Marcus. I longed for the day to be a mommy.

Faith. I rarely talk about my faith. This is partially due to the fact that I lost it during some of the worst parts of our infertility. Completely lost it. I struggled. I still struggle. While I am finding my way back, it is still a struggle. Whether you have a faith that can’t be shaken or no faith at all, it is hard to hear, “It’s all in God’s plans” or “in God’s timing.” While I believe He is walking with me in this journey, I believe I also have the power to make decisions and move forward. I don’t sit around and wait for signs. I make decisions. I move forward, and I ask God to walk with me and give me strength through it.

Control. Anyone else a control freak?? I know I can’t be the only one. You learn very quickly with infertility that you have little to no control. Your body does what it does. Medicine can only help so much. Sometimes there is nothing that modern medicine can do to help.

Time. We have been trying for four years now. With not one positive pregnancy test. We went through the adoption process. We are on our first round of IVF. When you are in the middle of trying, babies are on your mind about 99.9% of the time. I started medicine for our first round of IVF in December. It is March tomorrow, and we still haven’t transferred one embryo. Four months for one chance. ONE. I thought waiting to start trying again every month was a long wait. Infertility consumes your time.

Friends. While everyone tries to be supportive, most can just simply not understand. It is hard to watch others around you continue to live their lives, while you feel a daily struggle to put a fake smile on your face and pretend your heart isn’t breaking.

Hope. Every woman who has ever tried to get pregnant knows how devastating it is to get a negative test, but your hope comes right back again the next month. After you pee on a test so many times, your hope is harder to find.

Goodness. That is a lot, and it doesn’t even begin to cover everything you can lose. You may be thinking, “That is all so depressing Betsy!” Try experiencing it. It IS depressing. Infertility consumes you in so many ways. But you know what? It also brought me a few things.

Strength. You don’t know your own strength until it is tested. And boy has my strength been tested.

Patience. Adoption. Infertility. AKA wait…wait…wait…wait…wait. NOTHING happens quickly. I still struggle at times, but I am a lot more patient now than I used to be.

Friends (sisters). Infertility is a sisterhood. Any relationship I have is instantly taken to another level when we both have experienced infertility. There is just an instant understanding. And huge support system you didn’t even know you needed.

Knowledge. Yes, I can tell you ALL about ovulation and hormones and shots. I mean what I learned about myself. I have a friend that experienced a miscarriage that told me, “I feel like I can’t go back to the person I was.” The truth? You can’t. And you shouldn’t. Allow yourself to grow from your experiences. I am not the person I was four years ago, and I wouldn’t want to be.

 

In every hard situation, there is pain. You lose parts of yourself. But you also find another side to yourself that is even stronger. Some days will be dark. Some days will hurt like hell. But some days you will see the light. You will feel that spark of hope again. Every day is a challenge. Let yourself have the bad days. Hold onto the good days to get you through the worst. When infertility tries to strip you of everything, fight to show you are stronger.

And for those days you feel lost and alone, know that I am here. I am thinking of you every day. I will show you your strength when you are in doubt.

All my love,

Betsy