Road Block

Infertility. 1 in 8 couples are affected by it. You see others go through it. Hear about family that went through it, but you never anticipate that it will be you.


I used to joke that I've been ready to be a mom since I was 17. You see, my sister is 10 years older than me. When I was about 10, she had her first child. I began babysitting. Since then, she has had 3 more, my other sister had one child, and my brother had one as well. I have been the fun single aunt for a long time so I baby sat, burped and fed them, and changed a fair amount of poopy diapers. It was from that young age that I knew I wanted to be a mom. I grew up, got married and continued to be the cool aunt and help out my siblings when I could with baby sitting and other things- anticipating the time that it would be my turn to have kids of my own. The timing wasn't right when we first got married, and so we waited. I finally graduated from college, started my first 'real job', and we felt that it was time. I was excited, and figured both my sisters got pregnant fairly easy so I thought it would be easy for me too. Month after month my heart broke as I realized I still wasn't pregnant. I was friends with a few couples that had been trying for months, and others that had been trying for years. It was then that I realized that I wasn't alone on this journey, but it didn't make it any easier. I saw post after post of more pregnant friends- I was so very happy for them, but I still wished it were me. I finally went to the doctor and got some testing done after about 5 months. (I know, doesn't seem like a long time, but it seemed like ages to me!!) We found out that I hadn't been ovulating and that a simple medicine could fix that. We got started and a few months later found out that we were expecting! I was so ecstatic! I wanted to tell everyone! I even did a cute announcement to tell Devan. However, that happiness faded as one week later I miscarried. It was early, only 5 weeks, but that didn't ease the grief and pain that we went through. I lost hope then. I thought "i'll never be a mom". I heard more and more people say: it'll happen when its supposed to. They were trying to help, but it killed me inside.

Fast forward a few months: I was in the middle of getting ready to leave my home, my job, and my family to move to Colorado with my husband. My doctor had done blood work and said it didn't look like I was pregnant, but I should test in 7 days just to make sure. I did it just because he told me to, but when I looked it was positive. It was late at night and I thought for sure it was fake so I put it back in the box and under the sink. The next morning I did it again, again it was positive. I should have told Devan, but instead I stuffed it under the sink again. Later that day I asked him if we could go buy more tests and he said "yes, but didn't we just buy some?" It was then that I told him and he responded "I know, I knew you tested so I searched for them and found them both under the sink!" He was so excited, but I was scared that the same thing would happen and we would lose this baby too. I didn't tell him a fun way or anything because of that fear.

Here I am, 15 weeks in, and baby is still happy and healthy. After trying for almost a year, our desires finally became reality. I still fear something will go wrong, and I will lose this baby too. But I keep faith whenever morning sickness or cravings hit.

I still know other couples that are trying. I pray for them everyday that things will work out.

For now, I am so excited to be a mommy!

Oops...

Ten years ago if you would have asked me what my life would look like now I would have listed the following: I'd be married at 20, have a couple kids and be a stay at home mom, I'd be in a house, have a dog, I'd be a great friend, and have time to pursue all my hobbies and dreams. As I sat thinking about this a few nights ago all I could think was "OOPS!" You see, I AM married, later than I thought it would happen, but I'm married and happily at that! But, I don't stay at home, I work full time as a teacher. I don't have a house (in fact I live in a crappy apartment), or a dog and unfortunately I still don't have any kids. I rarely have time for my friends, even though I try to be a good one, and I have so many dream jobs with no time or money to go after them. If my 15 year-old self could see me now, she would probably freak out. I would probably have to scoop her jaw off the floor before she would say "What happened?!" And so lately I've been thinking.... what did happen?




Its moments like these that I start letting myself be sucked into moments of self doubt. My anxiety and depression rear their ugly head and I am left with nothing but the thoughts of "You are worthless, you can't do anything right, and you are failing at EVERYTHING." We all come to this point I think at some time in our lives. Social media doesn't help... I scroll through Facebook or Instagram and see another friend smiling in front their brand new house. I see another playing with their cute puppy, I see long lost friends who I haven't talked to in a decade and think about how I wish I knew what was happening in their life, and I see baby announcement after baby announcement. I let myself start to think "Why them? Why not me?". My brain starts to think "how am I so far behind all these people? How can they have a house, a job, a dog, AND a baby?! Is that really fair?! They must be so much more successful than me...." That's when I stopped. Success. What does that mean? Who measures success? Is there really a God watching over me saying "you fail at life, therefore you get NOTHING!" .... I don't think so. Then why do I feel so unsuccessful? It was then, only after weeks, months, years of moping about how my life didn't turn out the way that I planned that maybe, just maybe, it turned out better (or at least the way it needed to). And I began to think....


Well, I may not be a stay at home mom BUT I did graduate from college and successfully complete my first year of teaching.
I may not have a house, BUT I was able to get me and my husband through school without gaining too much student debt by saving money on rent.
I don't have a dog, BUT I have lots of really cute stuffed animals that require less clean up and don't try to run away from me.
I may not be able to pursue other dream jobs and hobbies, BUT I make one pretty great teacher and I worked extremely hard to go to school to do that.
And my biggest one: I don't have kids yet, BUT I am the best dang Aunt that I have ever met and I have the cutest nieces and nephews around.


"You see", I say to my imaginary 15 year old self. "Your life isn't so bad..."
And so, while I have hit road blocks, forks in my road, avalanches and every other oops there is, I still ended up being "successful", just not in the way that I imagined.


I guess what I'm trying to say is that just because someone else's life looks perfect, and more like what I want, I have the life I need. Yes, I still want to get a house, I still want a dog, I want to be a better friend, wife, sister, I want to have kids! But, I know that those things will happen when they are right for me. I deserve those things! I deserve to chase after dreams! I guess sometimes, we just have to put on the brakes for a second and enjoy the scenery.


So blog, I'm back. I'll write about my roadblocks with infertility, I'll share about my forks in the road of finding a new job, I'll share my avalanches of anxiety and depression my big OOPS moments, but I'll also share the beautiful scenery I find along the way. So, will you join my quest? The quest of constant perfection.