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Here's What Infertility Feels Like...

What is it like trying to get pregnant?

• It’s feeling giddy and excited to FINALLY be trying!
• It’s waking up each day rubbing your belly hoping there is a little human in there.
• It’s running into the bathroom for your morning pee (because you know it’s the best time) to pee on a stick that might change your whole world.
• It’s holding the peed covered stick in your hand staring at it until the timer goes off.
• It’s squinting to see if maybe in the right light that line would appear.
• It’s throwing the test away… but, then picking it out of the trash a few hours later to see if it changed to positive.

What is it like to find out you have infertility issues?

• It’s sitting in the doctor’s office trying not to cry.
• It’s going home and researching everything you can find about your diagnosis. For me? It’s PCOS.
• It’s taking your temperature every morning and logging it.
• It’s turning the fun part of trying into a mechanically choreographed routine, where other fun stuff was cut out because “what’s the point? It won’t make a baby.”
• It’s praying for a period, something I never thought I would do. Because I knew if I never had my period I couldn’t start my round of Clomid, which meant still no baby.
• It’s checking parts of my body I never thought I would be checking.
• It’s taking every vitamin and supplement in the book AND laying with my hips and legs in the air until I was too sore to move…

What is it like to do all of these things and still not be pregnant?

• It. Is. Devastating.
• I cried ALL the time. I would cry on my way home from class. I would ugly cry in the shower where I knew no one could see or hear me. I would tear up behind sunglasses when my friends would tell me their exciting news.
• I felt completely alone.
• No one wanted to talk to me about it. No one cared that I was struggling with getting pregnant. My own husband was tired of hearing about it.
• My husband, oh my wonderful husband was always so positive, which made me so angry! Like, “how can you be so calm and hopeful? Don’t you know it’s not that easy?!”
• I became closed off, pessimistic, and mean.
• I was full of pain and anger. How can so many people get accidentally pregnant? …and here I am over here doing everything right and I still can’t get pregnant.
• I hated myself….I blamed myself….

What did I do next?

• I got fed up with the same rotation of medications that were doing absolutely nothing.
• I was tired of waiting passively for more time to pass. Because to Doctors the more time that passed, the more I am taken seriously.
• I sat patiently in the specialist’s office holding my husband’s hand excited to be taking a step towards being a mom.
• I was scared of what he might say.
• I was scared we would go broke trying to have a baby. I was scared there would be nothing they could do for us. I was scared I would never be a mother…

How did my story of infertility end?

• It ended with me making a bunch of long, early morning drives to the specialist’s office.
• It ended with me getting shots and lots and LOTS of blood work.
• It ended with me finally getting those 2 lines on that sacred stick!!
• It ended with me seeing two little black dots on my ultrasound…

Where are we now?

After a long and difficult pregnancy, my beautiful babies were brought into the world with an emergency c-section. I remember lying on that cold hospital table terrified, praying, and holding my breath for that sacred cry to pierce my ears. Tears began rolling down my face the moment I heard that first scream. I held them close, the smallest and most beautiful babies I had ever seen, while crying tears of pure joy. They were healthy and strong!

Our next recos: The Crappy Parts of Trying To Get Pregnant I Wouldn’t Give Back