Hey, you’re joining us in part two of Infertility and Me, a Love Story. Click here to see Part 1!

Infertility wasn’t an issue in high school. Infertility wasn’t an issue in college, either. It really became an issue for us after we realized we were kind of at a wall. We’d both graduated college, he had his career established, I was working my way into my career and finding my way quite nicely, we had a mortgage, we had a dog. Where’s the baby? The baby wasn’t coming. I wouldn’t be carrying our child. That’s our wall.

 

It’s not that we just looked at having a child as the natural next step for us. It wasn’t that. It was that we had everything we wanted to have, we had the room both physically and emotionally to care for a child, we had room to grow the family we so desperately wanted.

It was around this time that one of my best friends went through with adoption for her son. She found an agency she loved that treated her well, and the couple she placed her baby boy with were equally, if not more, amazing. Overall it sounded like she had as positive an experience one can have doing something as selfless as placing your child in another home.

So, we made an appointment.

Adoption had never been off the table for me, even before I knew about my infertility. Walking into the adoption agency I was filled with hope. We were going to talk through the process, get some numbers, and get things set in motion. I was so excited, and told just about everyone where we were going. This was the start of something amazing, after all.

What actually happened was a little different.

The counselor we met with was nice enough, but she made it clear that people our age rarely come by their office. They typically work with people in their mid-to-late thirties. That wasn’t a problem, of course, but it put me off right away. It makes sense that they would typically work with people older than us. Most people don’t start trying to have a baby until our age, and only after a few years will they find out what is wrong. After they find out something is wrong, then they’ll spend time trying to correct whatever it is before they finally decide on adoption. I felt the need to apologize for being diagnosed so young, for marrying so young, and for wanting to grow my family at a reasonable age. We knew this would be a long process, so we wanted to get started as soon as possible.

Then she pulled out her packet and walked us through what a typical adoption looks like with their agency. The initial application, the thorough application with the home study, the waiting, the placement, etc. It was all very straightforward, very cut and dry. If I’m honest, it’s all things I already knew. But looking at the packet on her desk I couldn’t help but feel that it was all very transactional. I didn’t know if I was buying stock in their company, or becoming a mom. I was disappointed. I don’t know what I expected to be different, but this was not what I anticipated for this meeting.

I started crying as soon as we got back to our car. As cheesy as it is to some people, I have always felt that in that moment God was telling me “this isn’t a part of your plan”. I knew our first child would not be adopted via traditional domestic infant adoption. I can’t tell you how disappointing it is to have your heart so set on something only to be told no by God. I wish I could say I trusted Him, and trusted that everything would work out, but I didn’t. I was just heartbroken. There’s no other way to explain it.

If not adoption, then what? Medical intervention and foster-to-adopt, that’s what.

Stay tuned for part three.

Samm

I’ve written about my struggle with infertility in the past, you can find a pretty emotional post here. But I thought it time to write about what infertility means to me, and how it all began. So here we are.

Warning: This post may be considered graphic. Women have periods, weird.

I was sixteen or seventeen when I bled for nine months straight. The first few months I convinced myself that it was normal. I had just gotten off birth control. My body was making up for lost time. This happens, I thought. About month five or so I thought something was wrong. No, something was definitely wrong. But being the worry wart I am, I refused to go to the doctor. Cancer. I surely had cancer. I’m not going to go to the doctor for him to tell me have cancer. I refused. I was in high school, I was not going to be a cancer patient.

Month nine I started to get sick. I get easily dehydrated, but couldn’t seem to hydrate myself. I kept feeling faint, and just off.  I went to urgent care. It was there that my blood was taken, I of course was told I should have come sooner, and upon me leaving, he told me to “prepare myself for the worst” when I meet with my OB/GYN next week.

Cancer. Surely I had cancer.

I was given pills to stop bleeding, which eventually I did. The next week I went to my OB/GYN who ran tests and assured me, no I did not have cancer. I was so relieved, but that relief was short lived. Suddenly she was saying things like “Endometriosis” and “Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome”. Before I could process what either one of those were, she said “It’s going to be very difficult for you to have children.” I started crying and she immediately began telling me stories of people she knew that were still able to get pregnant. This, I would soon learn, was what people do during conversations about infertility.

Comfortable words to end uncomfortable conversations. 

I was in a relationship at the time with the man who would later become my husband. I was certain he would no longer want me. I knew he wanted kids. I knew he wanted a family. So surely he wouldn’t want me. But he did. He took the news very matter of factly. Seemingly without hesitation he accepted that this wasn’t just my reality, but his as well. A very noble and naive thing for an eighteen year old boy to do, and something I will forever appreciate.

Infertility isn’t so much an issue when you’re in high school or college. To be completely honest, it was helpful in many ways. But every once and a while I would get down. It pissed me off that I’d likely never be given the choice to have my own children, and it really pissed me off that no one seemed to understand. No one was in the place that they were even thinking about kids, or the possibility of not being able to have them. I felt like I was on an island.

Infertility when you’re married, now that is an issue. Your friends and family have babies and you’re expected to be their cheerleader on the sidelines. If you gripe at all, you’re selfish. People ask you when you’ll have yours, which hurts. People will stop asking, which will almost hurt more.

So you’ll try, you’ll fail. And in part two, you’ll find yourself at an adoption agency.

Find part two here. 

Samm