The Road of Infertility

So, it's national infertility week. I felt I needed to post something here, but I haven't know what. As many people know I struggle with infertility. What most people don't know is exactly how that affects me and my family. We have been lucky enough to be pregnant twice (both ended in early term labor and neither baby survived), once as soon as I got off birth control and with no other medical help and the second on medication to help. The two doctors I have had said the first pregnancy is abnormal for me because since then I can not get pregnant without medical help. We are blessed to have one amazing and healthy son whom we adopted just over two years ago.

What most everyone doesn't know is that since I was 18 I have known that I have PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome) and that it was likely I would struggle with infertility. I even had a doctor that told me way back then I may never have my own biological children and I told my husband this when we were dating. Lucky for me he comes from a family who understands and embraces adoption. What I didn't know is how emotional that would be for me once I was ready to have kids, wondering every month if I could finally be pregnant again and finding out at age 27 that I likely also have endometriosis. We have not been able to have the surgical test to prove the endometriosis but I suffer from many of the classic symptoms and since there are many different symptoms between PCOS and endometriosis the doctor who told me I have it is very confident in her diagnosis. We have had to decide going forward what is the best thing for us to do to grow our family? We have great medical help where we live and many of my doctors have been confident with medical help we can get and stay pregnant until the baby is healthy enough to be born. This gives us hope. We are also confident in the adoption process since that has worked for us before. 

I don't have all the answers for myself or my family and we take things one day at a time and hope we follow the path we should. My hope is that my struggle with infertility and infant loss will give someone else hope or at least help them not feel alone. I hope that this week has helped many understand and at least gain some compassion about infertility.