Parenthood is such a wild ride, isn’t it? I’ve heard all kinds of stories about the many joys and challenges of parenthood, but what I never heard much about from anyone is their journey to becoming parents. For many, the journey goes exactly as it was intended to go. You know, the birds and the bees sort of deal; However, for some folks, the journey to parenthood is a roller coaster. The thing about this kind of roller coaster is, you don’t know when the next drop will be, and you don’t know if it will ever end; and if it does end, will you step off that ride glad you rode it or vowing to never go on one again? I consider my husband and myself a couple of the lucky ones…we rode the roller coaster and, when we got off of it, it was worth all the twists, turns and drops because it gave us our son.
Do you ever have a gut feeling about something not going as planned and then it turns out to be true? A few years back I had a gut feeling that my dream of becoming pregnant and being a mama might not shake out the way I hoped it would. I had been sitting with that fear for quite some time actually, but it became more pronounced as my wedding date approached. I was two weeks shy of my 30th birthday when I got married, and our plan was to begin trying to conceive right away. Our thought process was, why not? We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. And, we were. We had spent our dating years adventuring all over the western United States, going to concerts, car camping and all the things you “can’t do with children” (or at least not as easily). We had recently purchased our first home together. We had giddily talked about which room would be the nursery and how cool it would be for our first child to be born in Colorado, being that we are both Missouri natives. As we optimistically planned our future out loud together, that gut feeling crept in again and I silently wondered, would it be that easy? It wasn’t.
After the first six months of trying for a baby, I went to my first doctor appointment. At my appointment, I was told it could take time, not to worry and to come back in another six months if I still hadn’t become pregnant. So, back home I went, trying to ignore that gut feeling that had been lingering for months. I chose to be hopeful every day for a whole year and, overall, I was. I never did shake my gut feeling, but I also tried not to pay it any attention. It’s not like I wanted it to be true, and I certainly didn’t want to give it power it didn’t deserve. Within the following six months, my husband landed a job that would move us out of the Denver, CO area to Mooresville, NC. I thought maybe once we got to Mooresville, then we’d get pregnant. Surely it was only a timing thing, and once we finally planted some roots, we’d get pregnant. So, after trying for 15 months, I went to the doctor again, this time in Mooresville. We did some general blood tests and, for the most part, everything came back normal. We began some low-level interventions, but after a few months of no change, we asked to be referred to a fertility clinic, which landed us at REACH Fertility Center. Though we were grateful and anxious to hopefully get some answers, being referred to REACH also meant we now had to face our new reality – the roller coaster we found ourselves on was one of infertility.
Stay tuned for the next part of our story in next month’s issue!
