National Infertility Awareness Week #NIAW

Each year I try to spotlight this important and still misunderstood issue that cripples women and marriages emotionally, physically, and even spiritually. I’ve shared my polycystic ovarian syndrome story (I had to have 1/2 of each ovary removed just to function, forget fertility at that time, they were FIVE times the size of normal,) my miscarriage response (I was mad at God and judged His way for a straight year,) and the inconsiderate things people have said when I was struggling (now you know how I feel because I don’t have a boyfriend.)

This year I wanted to spotlight something that still gets little attention that I also experienced, secondary infertility. I admit I’ve been watching more of the Today show these days as women are driving the show and sharing their highs and lows. This week meteorologist Dylan Dreyer shared she went into work after waking up knowing she was miscarrying, and that her and her husband are experiencing secondary infertility.

Secondary infertility is when a woman has “one or more children but struggles to conceive another.”

Women’s Health magazine, April 22, 2019

I knew when we wanted to try to conceive our second child, it wasn’t going to be easy. I still had PCOS, one of the worst cases my surgeon had seen. Years later when I had a hysterectomy at 38, that surgeon said I was also filled with endometriosis. My monthlys were never regular and my hormones remain unbalanced. We tried for a few months, nothing. Went on Clomid, nothing.

One year passed, Then success, only to miscarry at eight weeks. The grief and anger took me a year to heal from, and in that time, we were still trying. I watched the other moms at MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) announce their second pregnancies. Third. Even fourth. Their first borns had playmates.

I was so focused on having another child and judging God for how some families looked at a baby and got pregnant while month after month I was no where. I failed at seeing the blessing I had in our son, although I loved our time together and what a thoughtful, intelligent little guy he was. I kept thinking he deserved a sibling.

People didn’t know what to say, but felt they had to say something. They reminded me I had a child. That God’s ways are best. Things that were true, but it didn’t diminish my obsession or the grief I felt.

When I did become pregnant, it was during a month I felt during prayer was important. I hoped it meant it was the month we’d become pregnant. For my husband, ten years older than me, it was the month he told God he’d have to sit me down and tell me we had to be done trying if I wasn’t pregnant by the end of said month. He didn’t want to be a “Frank Gifford” taking his kid to school. We had one day with my reproductive schedule and our own schedules to give it the old college try. For anyone who understands infertility, there is little love left in the art when you are trying so hard. But try we did. And three pregnancy tests later, we knew.

I struggled for a LOOOONNNNGG time with the time it took for us to conceive and the age gap between the kids. I watched so many siblings grow up together, and there are five years between ours. It seemed so wide and I worried they would not get along, or even know each other as they grew. For all those times I questioned, blamed and judged God, of course He knew His timing was perfect.

Our baby had a lot of chronic health issues. At one point we nearly lost her, and in her first year, she was hospitalized three times. That doesn’t count the ER visits or PICU stay. It doesn’t factor in the therapies that seemed hopeless as she was so sick she was delayed in every possible way, including movement. Not just crawling or walking, but moving. Her body was tired and weak.

Had we had kids close in age, I never, never could have made it work. I’m not saying other families could/can not, I just wasn’t created to juggle all that entailed at the time. There were so many medical appointments and therapies. A lot of this I was able to schedule when our son was in school. There were many times we had to adjust and put more on him because he was older, and he took it all like a champ, My worry that the age gap was too much?

Those moms I was so envious about? Their complaint was those close in age siblings fought all the time. Our kids had a bond so strong that one school conference I comforted the teachers because they were crying. Every day they watched our son walk to his baby sister’s class, take her by the hand, and walk her to the bus. Every. Day. When his peers were checking out girls and their hair and all those tween things, our kid was taking care of his sister. Today, at 15 and 20, they are very close. She misses him when he is away for an extended time with classes and work. There are nights after we’ve fallen asleep that he her asks if she wants a snack and they “sneak” off to Sheetz. That gap is perfect.

But I will never forget my time in the infertility wilderness. It is wrought with emotion and long in loneliness, especially when around other people. If this is your story, I wish I could give you a hug and let you cry all over my shirt. I’d let you vent your heart out because isolation doesn’t help. Sisterhood, the true sorority of women who know, really know, that does help.

A few years ago I shared my story in the mutli-author book, A Walk in the Valley. We share our infertility journeys from diagnosis to where we were at the time of publication. There are six of us, and not one of our experiences was the same, yet the thread of infertility gives all readers something to find hope and encouragement in. I HIGHLY recommend this not just for any woman, but her husband. Their loved ones. We talk about our doctors and the things they said that helped, and didn’t. Every aspect of infertility you can think about, I think it’s in there. It truly is the book I wish had existed for me back then. I promise you, there’s no financial windfall for me to push this book. I want to see you live as free as possible as you surrender everything surrounding infertility.

And know I’m rooting and praying for you.

A Walk in the Valley softcover

A Walk in the Valley kindle/eBook FREE KINDLE UNLIMITED

Infertility Information and Resources