Seven Years: An Infertility Journey

I’ve been thinking a lot about seven-year cycles recently.

My darling husband of eight years and I just hit our 7th year of infertility this week and it leaves me with a lot of thoughts.

I read recently that some consider the seven-year span of ages 28-35 as “the body in full bloom” and this struck me because our experience has been closer to my body in full attack. During our years of TTC (Trying to Conceive), we have watched my body do anything and everything...but bloom. I have been ravaged by several incurable autoimmune diseases that affect not only my joints, but also my energy level, my psychology, and my fertility.

Over the years, we have thrown my body into the gauntlet of fertility regimens ranging from woo-woo holistic to IVF with all of the bells and whistles. Legs up in the air, charting, supplements galore, procedure after procedure, acupuncture, “take a vacation and it’ll happen”... yep, we’ve tried all of those, friends. Every single old wives tale. Every single “well my friend’s cousin’s sister did this…”. Yep, we’ve done that too.

We’ve been to Houston several times to see an expert surgeon for endometriosis removal. We even treaded up to Detroit from Louisiana to see a highly sought-after reproductive specialist who has amazing success rates with “people like me”. Boy, was that a traumatic visit.

Over the years, I’ve worked with nearly a dozen top-notch doctors who specialize in different types of fertility work and although none have been able to get or keep me pregnant, I have been lucky to learn a great deal from each.

SEVEN years in this terrible club that no one asks to be in.

Seven years, y’all.

Seven years with this traumatic, soul-crushing condition that is hard to put into words.

Seven years of watching your friends and family grow their families in the timeframe that they desire.

Seven years of watching the baby name you’ve been quietly dreaming about for years get used by someone in your inner circle.

Seven years of baby announcements that leave you in tears on your bathroom floor and baby showers that leave you in tears in your car on the drive home.

Seven years of racing anxiety as soon as you pull into the woman’s hospital parking lot.

Seven years of reading “NO” on the stick month after month after month.

Seven years of watching your steady husband feel helpless as he watches you be poked and prodded.

Seven years of being the last to know that those closest to you are expecting.

Seven years of anniversary cards to each other beginning with something like “I know it’s been a really tough year, but…”

Seven really, really hard years.

In these seven years though, there has been so much beauty.

Scott and I have built such a beautiful life together and have forged a relationship that is solid and unshakable. We fulfilled the deep desire in our hearts to grow our family through adoption and added our incredible daughter, Sumner, into our family four years ago. That precious girl gives us more joy and life than we could have ever imagined and she is truly the Sun that our lives revolve around. These years have given us a great old home to renovate, gardens to tend, and several beloved pets to spoil. It has also given us perspective.

We did not ask to become field experts in this variety of trials and tribulations, but it has allowed us to bloom in ways we never imagined. Every few weeks my social media or text messages will ding from someone I haven’t seen in years, maybe distant family or a friend-of-a-friend.

It always starts the same: “Hey, it’s been a while. Can I pour my heart out about infertility, miscarriage, adoption, fill in the blank?” And they do. And we listen.

In our unique ways, Scott and I are both empaths who have a strong pull to put action to our ideas. We enjoy having hard conversations and reminding people about the importance of mental wellness before proceeding to adoption or IVF. We chat about both the beauty and pain that come with adoption. We fight for better coverage from insurance through our businesses for families who are growing their families in non-traditional ways. This journey has become so deeply ingrained in who we are that we can't keep our knowledge to ourselves.

What's ahead in the next seven years?

Looking ahead, we have been making a lot of careful considerations about what we want our next seven years to look like. We pray that God fulfills our daughter’s daily prayer for a baby sibling (she’s rooting for a sister). We pray that this season gives us the opportunity to travel and stretch other parts of our lives that we have suppressed for so many years now.

Just weeks after my thirty-fifth birthday I looked at my husband and said, “I’m tired. I’m tired of my body being put through the wringer. I’m tired of not always being able to be a present mom and wife because of the toll of all of this. I’m scared of not ever getting pregnant again, but I’m more scared of the hell I’d have to put my body through to try to stay pregnant: 40+ weeks of shots, infusions, high-dose steroids… No, I just can’t do it anymore. It’s been seven years and it’s time to turn the page.”

And with that conversation and a good cry, we decided together to close that chapter of our lives.

And you know what? For the first time in seven years, we finally exhaled.

Most of these types of posts have a neat little bow to wrap the end up, but that just isn’t our story. We aren’t the ones who finally had the biological baby after X number of years. Those stories are important to garner hope for those in the thick of things, but I think our story is just as important because there are so many out there who do not get that miracle rainbow pregnancy at the end of the storm.

There are many of us who have to learn how to move forward knowing that our body can’t do the one thing that a woman’s is “supposed to do”. It’s important to see this reality, even if it’s difficult for some.

Here are my words to you, dear couple, who are in the fight for a biological child: this burden that you carry does not have to be yours to carry alone.

• Find an amazing perinatal counselor to help you unpack this trauma.
• Set up boundaries where you can.
• Skip the baby shower if you need to.
• Remember that people who give you platitudes and generic advice just don’t get it.
• And lastly, if you choose to close this door, then that is okay. Sometimes the “never give up” rhetoric just aint it.

We don’t know what the future holds, but here’s to the next seven years.