Infertility

This isn't the kind of story you can pick up in the middle and the full length of it is just too long.

So. I'll try to be brief.

For a long time, we stayed quiet about it. I think, for me, it was for fear of how others may feel and, in some way, I wanted to manage their response.

(Reference: Ill-advised, ranting email I sent to closest friends, who love me most, telling them how to handle me. Sigh.)

This topic is like a spot on my heart, that people and life, inadvertently and blamelessly, thump over and over again. Most of the time, I flex, take my hit and move on, but there are times when I'm tired and beaten. Each thump is entirely tolerable on it's own, but it bruises and tears and wounds after a while. Then I isolate, heal and reemerge to take another lickin'. And there are moments, when we are in the process, and the hope that THIS time it worked, keeps you very, very strong...until it doesn't.

Tim and I have completed 3 IUIs, which is a procedure meant to get me pregnant.

All three have failed. I discovered the last one failed today.

There have been countless shots, blood tests, sonograms, pills, acupuncture appointments, hours away from work, and time spent hoping. One test caused me to pass out from pain, but at least the results showed no problems.

In this process, I've learned that I'm not alone. There are many women who struggle with this issue. Many who achieve what they want via a means that no one ever hopes for. The question at the moment is when is enough enough? How far are we willing to go? And at this moment, I don't know.

As a person who had no interest in children at one point, who thought it would all be easy once I did and who shook my head wondering why it was SO important for women in my position to conceive a child, I understand how hard it is for others to understand where we're coming from or what we're dealing with. That's okay. I hope you never have to understand.

I just decided I didn't want to be quiet about it anymore. I don't want to talk about it all the time, but I'm over feeling like there is something intrinsically wrong with me or us. This is just our battle at the moment and since my reading audience is small and few, I figured if you cared enough to read, you may also care about what we're going through.

I also wanted to write this, just in case, God forbid you or your partner find yourself in the same position. The reason I was willing to get help in the first place was because someone was open enough to tell me what she had been through.

We will regroup and decide what we will do next summer and hopefully learn more about why things aren't currently working. In the meantime, I just thought it would be nice not to keep it a secret anymore.

Thanks for reading.

Much Love and Merry Christmas,

Elizabeth