Behind the Scenes

It's been almost 5 years since I wrote on here...how time flies. Life has changed in so many ways...so many of them for the better.

Three years ago I met the love of my life. He has made all the others who came before him look like fools in comparison. He loves me outwardly, obviously and outrageously. He proves himself and his love for me over and over daily. He loves me as much as I love him (that's what we all look for, isn't it?) and he isn't afraid to tell me so. I don't know how I got so lucky.

Even better, he was from close to my hometown. So I moved home, for good this time, got a job and enrolled Lex in the same private school my dad, brother and I all attended. My love (J) and I put up a house across the field from my dad and we couldn't be happier where we are.

There's only been one dark spot on our happiness. Several months after we began dating, I became pregnant. Excited and a bit scared, J and I kept the news to ourselves, hoping to wait til after the first few appointments before we told anyone. Neither of us knew if we were ready but we were willing; we knew we wanted a child together and we already knew we wanted this relationship forever. I love my Lexi more than anything and so does Justin but we both wanted another and a sibling for Lex. Unfortunately, our baby didn't make it to those first appointments. At 6 weeks along, God chose to make him an angel. And while I grieved, I felt optimistic that maybe it was just too early in our relationship and that God would soon give us another shot.

Fast forward two and a half years, several more early miscarriages, multiple OB appointments, multiple appointments with a fertility specialist, tons of bloodwork, a hysterosalpingogram, chromosomal abnormality testing, several rounds of fertility drugs, a diagnosis of being premenopausal and Diminished Ovarian Reserve, being told that I wasn't a candidate for fertility treatments such as IVF, hundreds of ovulation and pregnancy tests and countless tears and here we are today, still without. And many days I just feel broken.

While several of our closest friends know of our struggles, we have kept it from many close family members, not to hurt them by not knowing but because how does one bring it up in conversation? How do I say that in 3 weeks I would have been celebrating my youngest child's 2nd birthday or that my due date this year would have been almost New Year's Eve? How do I tell them that I can't do again the one thing that my body was made to do as a woman? I did it once though I was much younger and I'm so incredibly thankful for Lexi, more than she will ever know. She has become my miracle, possibly my once in a lifetime.

I have days when I'm not sure I can even bring myself to get out of bed but I do it anyway. Days when I can't bring myself to open Facebook because friends there are announcing pregnancies or newborns and while I am very happy for those friends, it's also a reminder of not being able to conceive. Days when it's a struggle to just put one foot in front of the other because I feel the massive weight of this failure pulling me down. I mostly don't let people see the down side. I don't let them see that I deal almost every day with an underlying sadness that I can't seem to shake. I do occasionally talk about those days with one person in particular who gets it because she's been in these shoes.

I'm at the point now where I have exhausted my patience with doctors and tests and bloodwork and for the past six months or so, I've given it to God to handle. I still struggle on a daily basis with letting go and letting God do his will but I'm trying my best.

I'm tired of hiding all of this from others. I'm tired of the stigma around infertility and miscarriage, the hush-hush, we don't talk about that, etc. About 1 in 4 women experience a miscarriage in their lifetime. 10 percent (~6 million!) of women aged 15-44 experience infertility. Women are always speaking about building each other up. There can be no better way to help build up other woman than to be a no judgment listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, a friend to share experiences with, both the good AND the bad.

But please, please do not tell a woman who has had a miscarriage or is going through infertility that "everything happens for a reason" or "at least it was early on". Those statements are more hurtful than you can imagine. Instead, express your condolences and ask what you can do to help or if they'd like to talk. Validate the fact that at least for her (and her partner as well), that child existed: even if it was only briefly, even if they didn't get far enough along to hear a heartbeat...it was a baby to them.

On September 10th, 2018, I should be celebrating my youngest child's 2nd birthday. On December 30th, 2018 I would have been due to welcome a new baby. I will never lay eyes on those babies here on earth but they are still my children.