My husband and I met in March 1985, got engaged May 1985 and were married in October 1985, we were young, crazy in love and thought we had the world in the palm of our hands. By 1987 everyone kept asking when we were going to have kids. By 1989 we began wondering when we were going to have kids. I wasn’t on birth control but I wasn’t pregnant.
Finally we went to an infertility specialist and they said my husband was fine and that we should try fertility pills. The moment I took them, my body temperature went crazy I had constant hot flashes, blotchy skin and profuse sweating. Those pills messed me up for the rest of my life. I’ve had hot flashes since I was in my 20’s.
We tried special diets, keeping my feet up in the air for 20 minutes after sex, tracking my temperature and many other crazy methods. Oh yea, and my husband switched to boxers.
The greatest advice I was given as I’m sure all you of heard this one, was to “JUST RELAX!” Really, I’m trying to create life here and you’re telling me to “JUST RELAX!
By this time we had been married 9 years. Most people stopped asking when we were going to have kids but I knew they were whispering and asking my parents behind our back.
While we were NOT HAVING KIDS, everyone and their mother were getting pregnant, I stopped going to baby showers, especially for a co-worker that was on drugs and still got pregnant. Why was it so easy for everyone else to conceive except me?
I was BARREN, AN INCOMPLETE WOMEN, that my husband deserves better, someone that wasn’t broken and could give him children, HIS OWN BIOLOGICAL CHILDREN.
What I didn’t understand was why God gave me such a strong desire to be a mom, but not let me get pregnant. It seemed cruel. I was beginning to get mad at God, I became bitter and if someone got pregnant, I would just scream at God and not even feel happiness for them. That is really sad that I wasn’t happy that a beautiful life was being created.
Like I said, we tried different options on and off for 14 years. Medications, Laparoscopies, we never did IVF only because we couldn’t afford it. My last procedure was in 1997, it was an HSG procedure, short for Hysterosalpinogram (they blow out your fallopian tubes).
I walked out of that hospital in severe pain but it got worse. As I was leaving a cute, young couple were also leaving the hospital with their cute little baby. I barely made it to the car where I screamed and cried ALL the way home.
My husband came home to find me hysterically crying on our bed. I told him “I’m done! No more procedures, no more medicines and no more hoping.” I also gave him a “get out of jail free card”
I said “if you truly need to have a biological child, then walk away now, I will let you go so you can find a healthy woman that can give you a baby. I won’t be mad, just go.” He held me as we both cried, then he said “I married you for you, not so you can give me a biological baby, we can adopt. I love you”.
If ever I was not joyful, immature and incomplete it was during our infertility journey. Infertility is like Cancer but no one’s sending you encouraging notes, bringing meals or has a specific plan on curing you. Now I’m not saying this is worse than Cancer, not at all. What I’m saying is for me, it felt like a death sentence. This was the death of a dream, a dream that I thought God put inside my heart because He had plans to make me a mom…and He did, just not the way I planned.
James 1:2-4 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.