One thing that I still would tell anyone that would ever ask me about my life story would be that I'm an infertility survivor. I don't think you ever walk away from it. It becomes a part of who you are - no matter what happens to complete your story.
You never forget the pain. You never forget the months of hope and then extreme let down. You never forget the feeling of being surrounded by people with children - only to have your arms be the empty ones at the end of the day. You never forget feeling that something is missing from your life. You never forget the treatments, doctors, nurses, and phone calls that you endure along the way.
For me, my fertility treatments were a joke. I spent so much time and money on the process - only to find out after months and months of trying that the doctor just plainly didn't know how to get my body to produce a mature egg for them to fertilize. I injected drugs into my hip nightly on at least 3 different cycles for a week or so - made myself completely nuts... and everyone around me nuts... all for nothing.
I'll never forget what that was like - the excitement of starting a new cycle... "this month" would be different. I'd finally get my positive... only to start injections, have ultrasounds... and in the middle of the stimulation portion of the cycle - I'd get the call. There was nothing growing into a follicle. We wouldn't make it to the next step... no IUI for us.
The problems that they were having with my body wouldn't even allow us to do an IVF cycle or anything else... because they couldn't get a single egg to mature into a follicle. There wasn't any amount of intervention that would help with that - unless we wanted to spend an undetermined amount of money just throwing more and more hormones into my body to see if it would respond. When a doctor puts it like that - you know there just isn't much more hope left.
When it came down to it - the doctor had one "hail mary" type of treatment to try in the end, but we ended up canceling it. I remember starting that whole process - thinking - I don't know how I'd ever survive walking away from those treatments without a baby in my arms. In reality, that is just what I did. It wasn't working and for us - we couldn't put more money and resources into a "maybe".
For us, it was also a major time that God was working toward us going in a different direction - to complete our story in a much different way than we could EVER have imagined at that time. Ultimately, I have my miracles... and they are beautiful... in their own way, with their own stories about how they came to be part of our family... and I wouldn't trade it for the world.
But, I also wouldn't be truthful if I didn't acknowledge that all of those infertility treatments and years of waiting didn't shape me into the woman that I am today as well. My story has a happy ending - I truly pray that everyone has the same happy ending... but I don't get to make those choices or decisions about the future for all of the women out there. Just know that if my story can turn out like it did - yours can too. Just keep praying and trusting that somewhere out there - God is working to create the family that you are meant to have.
Praise the Lord that our years of infertility had a happy ending, too, despite what all the doctors said. But I will never forget the years of what I can only describe as emotional and spiritual trauma....endless doctor appointments, treatments, money spent, charting, testing, praying, begging, hoping, accepting, miscarriages, grieving, etc. I wish it on no couple. All I know is that God is good....and He would still be good even if He had not given us our beautiful daughter. Many blessings to your lovely family, Kim!
ReplyDeleteWell done Kim, on being a Survivor and your blog.
ReplyDeleteI have nominated you and your blog for The Versatile Blogger Award. Stop over at my blog to check it out. xx
http://mj-brightsideup.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-first-nomination-versatile-blogger.html