Wednesday’s are for Fertility!!

You can certainly take a deep dive into our fertility journey by looking at my four blog posts from yesteryears or read going forward as I will lay it all out in future posts.

FIRST A RANT!

A year or so ago I read a blog article heavily circulating my facebook feed. This post was written by a councilor with the initials A.B., (Not for lack of knowing the attribution but more for disdain for the article I am not going to link the post, but you can search for it with the quote I use from it if you really want to read it.)

Essentially she talks about an early twenties girl who feels silly and embarrassed about her deepest desire of wanting to be married and have children above everything else. This councilor assures her that her desires are valid, and then the rest of the article I angrily read her views that having children is “last resort, a final hurrah” and further that “career trumps, independence is king, and personal happiness” is the ultimate priority. Perhaps for some people, but as someone who has been on a nine year fertility journey, I can emphatically say this is not true for me.

Then rather than validating those who can’t have children and are on this terrible, wouldn’t wish on my enemies, journey of infertility she instead says “This is not to say that those who can’t have children, don’t have children or who aren’t married are inherently wrong.”

Though, I do understand she is trying to protect those who want simply to be stay-at -home moms. Her view is extremely close-minded. She reprimands those many people who talk ‘condescendingly’ about those whose main focus is their home, marriage and family, in other words the stereotypical – mom, dad, children, one income family. This disregards divorce couples with children, blended families, dual income families where both parents either choose to or are required to work outside the home, families with two moms or two dads and more.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, inherently literally means ” ‘stuck in’, an essential character of something”, natural, habitual, built in. So if something is ‘inherently wrong’ there is an extrinsic (antonym) or a fundamental and fatal flaw in something. The phrase ‘aren’t inherently wrong’ now defined adds further insult, as it reads as this group of people are not ‘technically’ wrong about not following something that should be something so part of nature and built into the normal flow of human existence, that there’s no way they wouldn’t want children. Her tone-deaf declaration of lumping those who can’t have and don’t want children into the same category is insulting to those individuals and couples who desperately ache for a child. What about couples who’ve lost a child where they ‘inherently wrong,’ if they were no longer currently parents. Okay rant over!

Someone recently asked if I was a little prickly. Well wouldn’t you be after 10 years of not being able to obtain something you so much want?

A quick recap of our history:

My husband and I both grew up in conservative christian families. Future children are mentioned up just moments after marriage is official. These comments and questions are brought up by family members, members of our church, the well meaning man at the home depot and even on occasion distant acquaintances of our parents or siblings. Not being able to “multiply and replenish” causes even the best of us to feel shame, defeat and all in all this journey certainly takes a toll on a person’s mental health.

In April my husband Brent and I celebrated 10 years of marriage, but still no babes. Bullet Points of our 10 years together

• 10 moves [Texas – Lubbock; Utah – Provo (3 different apartments), Springville; California – Marina, Santa Clara, Foster City, San Mateo; Back to Utah]
• 9 – Years of trying for a baby!
• 8 – Companies worked for by Brent
• 7 Pets: 1 Puppy – Muffler who is now 8.5 and still our good boy, 3 – different fish tanks (loads of different fish, currently have one with about 20 fish), 1 Cat: Socks (only had for a few weeks, but he went to an amazing guy who had just lost his 15 year old cat) 2 turtles (we sold them to an 8 year-old boy to transition back to fish)
• 6 – brands of cars owned (Chevy, Toyota, Mazda, Nissan, Hyuandi, Ford)
• 5 – Companies worked for by Me
• 4 – Countries over 3 different big trips – Peru, Hawaii, United Kingdom, and Italy
• 3 – College degrees – Bachelor’s Degrees – 1 each & 1 Master’s Degree – Brent
• 2 -Unsuccessful Intrauterine insemination (IUI)s to try to get pregnant
• 1 – House Bought a house 2020
• DOZENS OF FERTILITY TESTS!! 

We began trying for a baby, or at least not actively preventing a baby somewhere between 14 and 18 months into marriage. (June- October 2014). Then in 2015 I had a laparoscopy surgery for endometriosis (uterine tissue that grows outside the uterus and creates burn like scar tissue). We believed the endometriosis was a possible cause for not getting pregnant. 

Then in 2017 we learned that the root of our fertility issues was in fact something entirely different. Though my fertility was not 100% figured out, we learned through a supplement study that my husband was actually a large part of our fertility issues.  When we lived in California from 2017 to 2020 we restarted our fertility tests with a new clinic, but as we were busy with work and grad school we didn’t make as much headway towards having a baby as we would have liked. Finally at the end of 2020 we purchased a home back in Utah and moved back for a new job for Brent. In both 2021 and earlier this year we attempted to get pregnant via IUI, but to no avail. The devastation of the two week torturous wait which both times ended in the start of my period is indescribable to anyone who has never had fertility issues.  

Well more on our new and old fertility journey later! For today, “start where you are now,” and move forward today no matter your past struggles.