The Struggle Is Part Of The Story

I was reading an article the other day about a baby born after infertility needing it's own term. That a baby born after a miscarriage or infant loss is a rainbow baby and a baby born before a miscarriage is a sun baby. They also mention the term for babies born asleep, Angel babies. The article said that babies who are conceived after infertility don't have their own term and there needs to be one. So this got me thinking, I had always thought a baby born in the midst of infertility was a rainbow baby?  So I began to ponder, By definition a rainbow is the beauty after the storm. I read this and I thought my struggle is a storm.... It's scary, and dark. It leaves me feeling hopeless at times. My dreams get blown off in the wind. Why wouldn't my baby be a rainbow baby?  After awhile I realized, it doesn't matter what I label my baby. It can be a rainbow baby after my own storm. It can be my warrior baby after a fight I never gave up to be a mother. A little on...

People who have not experienced infertility treatment may think it is so nice to have a planned pregnancy on a schedule. I have heard comments like Wow, how convenient is it that you don't have to do the work of sex and you can actually schedule the day of conception. From the outside looking in, I can see how it might present that way. The idea that its a controlled process, on a specific date with extra help from medical professionals, but convenience and schedules are the last words I would use to describe my infertility treatment. Setting aside the cost of infertility treatment, the treatment itself is, in my opinion, inconvenient. It is solely based on how much I want it so I make it work. I take medication that alters my body, my feelings, my emotions and my thinking. Though this medication lasts only one week, the effects for me are felt about 3 weeks. I follow that with days of tests until one day I get a smiley face and have the privilege of being inseminated the next day...

The past three years of infertility, I have longed for one thing.... getting pregnant. The closer to achieving pregnancy, the more fears I have about it. Not getting pregnant means I have never had a miscarriage. I have never experienced a still born. I haven't woke in the middle of the night to find my baby a victim of SIDS. After many late night thoughts, I have come to realize getting pregnant doesn't give me a baby.... it doesn't guarantee me the family I always wanted.... Being pregnant and actually having a baby are two separate things.... you can have a baby without being pregnant and be pregnant yet never have a child..... Infertility treatment is all about ways to achieve pregnancy. They can say my chance of achieving  pregnancy is X% but what is my chance of actually having that pregnancy turn into a baby? The chance of my pregnancy making a family?  Realizing that no matter how close I am to pregnancy.... pregnancy is only the next step in line to actually hav...

The dreaded "are you trying" question. Everyone asks it. Everyone wonders. Do they honestly know the baggage that comes with that question? If they did, I am sure they would never ask. Do they want to know how many days a month you test ovulation and how they all come back negative? Do they want to see your temperature charts for the past six months that have no clear rise or drop in them? Do they just want a simple "yes, we are" while your crumble inside knowing you have tried everything you have ever read and still fail. Maybe you say no, because you are so far into trying you have hit the end and want to give it all up. I know I have been there. I have hit that point. The point that you stop all ovulation tests, you stop taking your temperature every morning, you try to stop seeing the dates on the calendar. You say you aren't trying anymore. You say you'll just wait and see if it'll happen because well now you are relaxed and you aren't "tr...

This is for all the women out there who are struggling each and every day with infertility or loss. The women who feel like no matter where they go or where they look someone is pregnant! The women who see people having babies who do not take care of them. The women who feel like life just is not fair! I know exactly how you are feeling, you try, try and try again with no luck while other women can just get pregnant from a guy glancing at them. (Not literally but that is how it feels) You feel like you must have done something horrible in life to be put through this pain of trying with no success. You wonder, "what did I do wrong to deserve a life like this" or "why don't I deserve a baby too?" Believe me, I know these feelings all too well. The pregnancy announcements made me cry. The pregnant women in line at the store made me angry. The stories on the news with babies dying from being left in a car just fueled my anger more and more! Why do these women g...