I hesitate to write my story mainly because I'm not sure if I have one. My husband and I have been dealing with infertility issues for two and a half years, however we have not done IUI or IVF procedures. I've never given myself injections, taken fertility medications, or endured doctor appointment after doctor appointment. Our story is simple but heartfelt.
We got married in May 2010. I was finishing up my last semester of college and Troy was working full time at a marketing company. Upon graduation, I started working full-time at a law firm. After being there a few months, I was getting paid enough that we could afford for Troy to leave his job and return to school. We knew the long term plan was for Troy to graduate and then move on to graduate school. He had about two years of schooling left when he returned to school in the Summer of 2012.
Once he'd started school we began talking about having a child. In my "life plan" I always figured I'd get married, wait two years, then start having children, so this fit quite nicely. We figured it would take a few months to get pregnant, then we'd cook the wee one for 9 months and be able to have him/her a few months before leaving for graduate school. That would give us time to adjust to having a newborn before moving so that we didn't have to deal with moving, starting a graduate program, and having a newborn all at the same time.
Month after month passed with no luck. I felt sad but not worried or stressed; I just figured when the timing was right it would happen. The longer we went without luck though, the less our plan was going to work out. After 15 months of trying, I went to my annual doctor appointment in October 2013. I mentioned to my doctor that we weren't having much luck and she gave me a basic starting plan.
I had some blood work done to check for ovulation and everything was turned out normal. Next, Troy did his tests and we found out his numbers were a bit low. I asked my doctor what the next step was and she referred us to a urologist. The urologist wasn't on our insurance plan though so we had to do some research to find another doctor. By the time we got in for an appointment, they wanted Troy to retest. At this point were were a few months from moving out of state for graduate school so we decided to not pursue any further appointments.
Over the years we've come up with games to make the challenge seem easier. We decided that if 20 of our friends got pregnant before us, we'd go on a cruise. Within 2 months we had 23 people on our list. I stopped counting after that because it became a bit depressing. A cruise is nice, but it can't really compare with holding your own little one. I've also quit Facebook multiple times because it seems like every time I log on, someone else gets pregnant. I am single-handedly keeping the world population up by logging on to Facebook.
We are now settled in Washington but we don't have any kind of infertility insurance. As a young couple in graduate school, we can't afford IVF and probably can't afford IUI either. I'm currently researching some other options (chiropractic, acupuncture, vitamins, etc.) to see what we can do.
Sometimes I feel like we haven't tried very hard since we haven't initiated any kind of medical proceedings. We are doing what we can though. I don't feel like we are incapable of having children nor do I stress myself out about it. I definitely think about it constantly and I feel the sadness infertility brings each day though. If you ask me what is on my mind at any given moment, 90% of the time that is what I'll tell you about.
I don't want this blog to center on fertility. There is more to my life than a fertility issue. The stats are interesting and important but they don't show you the people. One in eight couples are going through the same thing that I am. We all have different stories but we all know the same pains. I've mostly tried to deal with this on my own, but I know that I am not alone.
I'm hopeful that sharing our story will help others know that they aren't alone either.
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