Our Infertility Story

I have been going back and forth about putting our story out there for many reasons. First off, the blog's name is A Traveling Family. No one wants to read about us wanting another child. They want to read about far off places that they might want to visit one day. Then I remembered why I set up this blog in the first place. For readers to have a glimpse into our lives. I want readers to know our good times and our sad times. Another thing is the hurtful comments I might get out of putting our infertility story out there. The ones that say "You already have kids. Isn't three enough?". Or having loved ones call you dumb. (This has actually happened and has burned us from telling everyone) The people that are suppose to be your support system. The ones that know you are hurting but still want to make you hurt even more. I have just told a handful of people for this reason. I am afraid of putting this out there for the public but here goes.

I have always wanted to be a mother. I never strived to be a teacher or a doctor. I knew my calling in life was to be someone's mom.  James agrees with me that his calling was to be someone's father. He always imagined himself being a dad. In 2009, after having our youngest, we decided that James would get a Vasectomy. We were young and naive with judgmental people breathing down our necks telling us three was enough and we didn't need anymore. We were so worried, at the time, about what other people thought that James went ahead with the surgery.

At first, it didn't sink in that we would no longer be able to have another child. We had a toddler, a baby, and the next year Brody would come to live with us. We didn't really have time to think about it.  We went from having one child to pretty much three over night. After moving to North Carolina from Alaska, I started to feel an ache in my heart. I didn't understand what the ache meant at that time.  I started feeling sad and I didn't know why. Our marriage suffered some heavy blows at this time. I was sad and felt like something was missing from my life. From our lives. I really did some soul searching. I finally realized that something, someone, was missing in our family.

I was so afraid to tell James how I felt because he had went through physical pain from the surgery because he thought we were done having children. I was afraid he would think I was crazy for even thinking about having another child. I thought he was like everyone else and thought three was enough. That's where I was wrong. He isn't like everyone else. He is my husband. In some ways, a male reflection of myself. I told him how I felt and to my astonishment he felt the same way. Through tears we talked about how we were feeling and what we could do to try. To try for our family, no matter what others may say.

The next few months were kind of a blur. We drove up north for James to have the Vasectomy Reversal. People were swarming us with questions on why he was having day surgery and when a few found out they still told us we were dumb. Even though we knew this was a long road ahead for us, it was a breath of fresh air to know we were on our way to having another child. A year went by and nothing. Every month was filled with sadness. I felt like I was grieving for a child I had lost even though it never had existed. I finally went to the doctor. I was diagnosed with PCOS. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome affects your hormone levels, your menstrual cycles, and ovulation. I won't go into all the details but basically I wasn't able to get pregnant as quickly as I was with my other two pregnancies.

My doctor prescribed me Metformin. I asked around about what the side effects were to this new pill I was taking. I got a few answers and a few questions as well. Negative responses yet again. This was not helping our grief, our sadness.  But we kept going forward. We knew that this wasn't going to be easy when we started this journey.  There have been countless tears shed and long talks. There have been days where the negative comments have made me want to give up but James is my motivator. He assures me that everything will work out in time. We will have a child one day. I am so blessed that I have such a supportive partner that is going through the same thing. He gets down about it every month, he gets happy again when talking about our future child, he supports me and makes me feel whole again when I feel a loss every month.

Two years have came and gone and now we have accepted that a pregnancy may never happen for us. Moving across the world has opened our eyes to things. We still have the ache for a child but we aren't obsessing over a negative outcome every month. We have options that we are looking into and we feel that breath of fresh air again. Options. I love that word.

*Close friends and family- While we love if you would like to talk about our story please refrain from talking to our children about this very sensitive subject. They do know we would like to add another child to our family and they are in agreement with it. If the day comes where we are given the chance to have another child we will talk about it with them in an age appropriate manner.