So, at Time Out For Women this year in Calgary Laurel talked about living our Plan A. She said something to the effect of "we are all living our Plan A, we just didn't know this was our Plan A".
I have been thinking a lot lately about my life....where I am, where I am not, where I thought I would be and what I thought I would be doing....and who with. I'm sorry if you are all sick of my "baby talk" but I'm sorry...I am going to keep going with it. And who else to better talk about it with than the "void". (any of my #6 girls know where that word is from?!!)
Anyway, I wanted to be married by the time I was 21. That wasn't a must plan, just an age I thought would be good. Well, I have to say I am glad I didn't get married at 21 but at 24. I learned a lot about life in those few extra years and had great experiences. So marriage came and we didn't really want to start having kids right away, but after six months of marriage we changed our minds. We wanted our family to grow. I usually say that we wanted to start a family, but we already had-by us being married. Sometimes I feel that we aren't considered a family or aren't as important because we don't have kids.
Our fertility (I say fertility journey not infertility in hopes it will still happen for us) started with me getting pain in my right side. I had an ultrasound and found out that I had two cysts, one on each ovary, that were an inch in size. They told me the only thing I could do was to take Tylenol for the pain and come back in three to six months to check. I wouldn't have that so I went back the next month to check and they were gone! But, that didn't fix our situation. We have done I think seven artificial inseminations, one of those being done because I didn't react to the medication for IVF and so they couldn't/wouldn't attempt to take any eggs. To add to that, I have been told my ovaries are shrinking and are smaller than they should be for a woman my age. Nice, eh? So it looks like my body is shutting down....and way sooner than I want it to. We did get pregnant in 2009 but miscarried at six weeks. It is so hard not to have "what ifs" and "I shouldn't have done this or that" because it would have allowed things to end differently but I have to remind myself that I am not to blame. It is amazing how hard it is to not blame myself, but it happened and I can't do anything about it now. So we know we have one little soul waiting for us, which is the sun to our sky.
When do we say enough is enough and stop going through procedures and accepting life as it is? Right now though I feel like I have finally accepted that this is how our life is and I feel content that we have done everything we can do to have children....I can talk about it and not cry my face off but it is still hard. Our wounds are still raw. Now I don't want people to be afraid or nervous to tell me they are pregnant because I am very happy for you and want to share in your good news. I will confess though that I may cry after you tell me, when I am alone of course and say "I wish I had news to share too".
One thing that I hate to say about all of this is that I came very close to losing my testimony. Why when we are commanded to have children would we not be blessed with them? Why us? I didn't expect my life to be perfect but really? Why did this have to be my struggle? I am happy that I haven't had to deal with a lot of death, other than grandparents that were old and had lived good long lives. But not having children...and especially not really being able to do anything about my body shutting down WAY too early is HARD. Hard, hard, hard. If I would have been able to look at a crystal ball and known this was down the path would I have taken it? Maybe not but this is my lot and I have to make the most of it. I trully love Mike and the time we have had together to become closer and to experience great things in life. I love all of my nieces and nephews, which is creeping up on 25, if you can believe it.
Okay, I might add to this but I want to post it, so there might be a Part B to my Plan A!
NOTE: I have read some blogs recently about peoples success with IVF and adoption and I wanted to share my side of things. Everyone's story/journey is different and I wanted people to know what we are going through. We are open to adoption and are so grateful that it can be an option if it happens to come our way.
