My infertility journey

 Everyone that I've talked to about their infertility journey has a different story.  They have different reasons, different ways they went about it, and different outcomes.  One thing that worked for someone did not work for others.  People are full of advice on what would have helped me during my journey.  "Just stop trying and relax."  "Well so-and-so got pregnant right after they stopped trying/adopted."  "You should take this wonder drug or natural supplement.  It helped my sister's cousin's next door neighbor's best friend!"  I'm lucky that those around me meant well and absolutely did not say anything to purposefully hurt my feelings.  Of that I am grateful.  We all want to help, but sometimes we aren't sure how to go about doing that.  Hence the purpose of this post.  I want give a personal point of view of my journey so we can be more aware of those is similar situations.   Then maybe we can help each other and can be sensitive to those going through the pain of infertility.

Our journey started right after we got married.  I was on birth control for a whole month before we decided to throw caution to the wind and try to start our family.  Roger and I were married when I was 25 and he was 26.  If we were going to have 12 kids by the time I was 40, we needed to get going!  Not to mention we started late.  We grew up in Utah and most of my friends were married by the time I got hitched.  Yay Mormons!  (But seriously...I was happy to travel and experience life before I got married)  The first little while was exciting, new, and hopeful.  My cycle was always spot on time and I've never had issues of my fertility to my knowledge other than heavy days and pain.  But then, didn't everyone?  

After about 6 months of trying, we started wondering if there were issues.  We went in and checked my thryoid (which was zapped into inactivity by Radioiodine therapy when I was 18) and other markers that might have caused some issues.  But my insurance will not cover any fertility treatments until you have been trying for at least a year.  So we tracked, took vitamins, ect. until that time came.

At around a year, I went back to the doctor where we ran some more blood tests.  Nothing seemed out of place.  We were put on more supplements and just kept tracking away my cycles.  

2 years after we were married, we moved to Cache valley to pursue more schooling.  That is when we started to really crack down on our baby making plan.  I started some new meds that made me a tad crazy and did 3 IUI's.  At this point, we were moving along, doing what we could.  It wasn't very painful because we were going to have kids soon!  We just had to do what the doctor said.  We weren't too sad about it, just impatient.  

When those didn't work, we were sort of taken aback.  I didn't want to do another IUI because the last time they used a tenaculum and was so painful.  We looked into our options and decided to give IVF a try.  We went to UofU to a specialist with a high success rate.  I really had no reason I should not have gotten pregnant.  So we started the process!

I first had to get some fibroids removed from my uterus.  But as far as we knew, they were pretty common.  I got started on my meds which included a few shots a day in the stomach and in the buttocks.  I was able to do the ones in my stomach myself, but Roger helped me with the bum stick.  The meds had to be kept chilled, so if we went anywhere, we had to plan for the care of the meds.  And boy, were they expensive.  My body didn't like the meds.  They made me sick to my stomach, my ovaries were angry with me, and I was an emotional wreck.  It wasn't fun, but anything for a baby!  When the time came for egg retrieval, we were so excited!  We looked at the ultrasound to count how many eggs we grew....and it wasn't good.  They weren't big enough and not enough to extract.  The familiar feeling of disappointment dwelled in us.  But what can you do?  Up the meds and try again!!  What's another 15k for your future child?

So we tried again!  Doubled the meds!  More needles! Focus on your goal!  And when we went in for retrieval, we had enough!  Not a lot, but enough! Roger dutifully contributed his part and we waited for the date to come in.  But then the phone call came.  None of them developed enough for transfer.  Disappointment again.  What can you do?  Up the meds and try again!!  So we decided we would go with the max med dosage and give it one last go.  We were so close!  Next time it would work.

This time, I took the max dosage my body would allow.  I took multiple supplements.  I wasn't allowed to exercise.  I ate healthy.  I did everything in my power to make this work.  When the time came to retrieve, we pulled out 7 eggs.  4 took to the implantation and 3 developed to the point where they could be transferred.  We did it.  We had 3 eggs.  It took everything we had, but we did it!  We implanted 2 and then we waited.  I went into the doctor at my appointment to get my blood drawn.  They would call me in a few hours to let me know the results.  

That call is one that I'll never forget until the day I die.  "I'm so sorry.  You tested negative."  This was our last chance.  We failed.  Our journey to start our family was over before it had begun.  There have been few times in my life where I've felt complete despair.  But this was one of those moments.  We had been trying to treat our infertility for over a year and now it was just...done.  And it was all for nothing.  I wrote in a journal the following entry a few weeks after that day:

"As I clean up my room, which had been shamefully cluttered and dirty for quite a bit longer than it should have been, I can't help but feel my heart drop every time I come across something that reminds me of the IVF treatment that didn't turn out the way we would have liked.  I look at the alcohol swabs, the needle disposal  container (My second one, the first one was full to capacity), Band-Aids, paper towels and Kleenexes that we used when we had a bleeder.  I look at my pill container, the one we had to buy that was bigger to accommodate all the pills and vitamins I was to take everyday.  The meds that were so very expensive still sit in my fridge, unsure what to do with them.  Should I throw them away?  Should I keep them just in case?  I still have two grocery bags full of needles that still need to be used.  My rear end has 6 bruises still there, still hurting even though it was for nothing.  I'm trying not to think that way though.  That it was all for nothing.  But it's hard because every time I got a shot, it was for a purpose that no longer is.  I had so much hope.  I had so many dreams.  What do I do with all the baby stuff I so foolishly bought that now sits in the bottom left hand drawer in the room that was to be our nursery?  That Noah's ark picture...we got it on such a steal.  Why keep it now?  Daily reminders like this hurt me and remind me what I lost...even though I feel as if I didn't really have anything to lose in the first place.  But I did.  I had two little embryos.  They were perfect.  They were so small, but Roger and I created them.  That is a miracle in and of itself.  I will never know what it's like to be pregnant, but I know what it's like to create something like that and the feeling of awe of the creation.  Instead of feeling loss, I'm trying to feel closure.  At least we know now that I'll never bare children.  I'm trying to look forward to having my own body again.  To not have drugs and hormones rushing through me.  To be able to exercise and do what I want.  I'm trying to be grateful that I don't have to have a two inch needle in my rear end anymore.  I'm trying to look to the future and be happy with what I have.  I tried my hardest to be an apple tree.  I did everything I could.  I even got two little seeds to call my own.  But I'm a current bush.  I'll be the best current bush I know how to be.  At least I know for certain what I am."

When I spoke of the currant bush, it was a story that became very close to my heart.  It was an article in a religious magazine by Hugh B. Brown in 1973.  It affected how I saw my situation so much. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2002/03/the-currant-bush?lang=eng

"I had purchased a farm. It was run-down. I went out one morning and saw a currant bush. It had grown up over six feet (two meters) high. It was going all to wood. There were no blossoms and no currants. I was raised on a fruit farm in Salt Lake before we went to Canada, and I knew what ought to happen to that currant bush. So I got some pruning shears and clipped it back until there was nothing left but stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it and smiled and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush say this:

“How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.”

That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’”

That talk turned my depressive state into a much more hopeful one.  That an my visiting teacher.  She would come and visit me every month without fail.  One day, she came over when I was feeling rather low.  I had stopped going to church because I blamed God for my situation.  What I wanted was a GOOD thing.  Why were other people blessed with children and I wasn't?  I tried my best to follow Christ's example, to be a good human, to grow and learn every day.  But I wasn't good enough to be a mother?  I was prideful and angry.  I felt entitled to something.  I wanted a child so badly.  It just wasn't fair.  I expressed these thoughts to my loving sister of the church and she looked at me with determination.  Then she said something that shocked me.  "Michelle.  The Lord is not going to give you what you don't deserve.  You are not acting like the mother you are supposed to be."  There was a bit of an awkward silence before she said a short good bye and left.  I was a little taken aback.  But...she wasn't wrong.  I was moping around whining about why I couldn't have what I wanted.  But what was I doing to be a better mother?  Nothing!  I later got a letter from her saying that she usually didn't say such things but felt prompted to.  She gave me love and concern.  I have that letter to this day.  That is when I turned things around.  I tried to be the best currant bush I could be!  We started our adoption papers and now I have three amazing kids.  It's not the path I set out on those many years ago.  But It's that path I was meant to be on all along.