Our Story

Our story isn't anything extraordinary. It isn't that different than may people's stories. It just isn't what we had planned.

My husband and I met at college and were married in 2004. We always knew we wanted children. The discussion was how many. Somewhere between 3 and 5, but we weren't sure. We had time to worry about that later.

In 2005 we decided it was time to stay trying for children. No luck the first year. My cycle was all over the place, so I figured there was something wrong. I went to my doctor and discovered I had PCOS. He put me on some medication and six months later we were pregnant. In 2007 my son was born.

In 2009 we were ready for another child. Knowing I had some problems, we involved my OB/GYN from the beginning. We tried medication again. Nothing happened. After months of medication, my doctor started to suspect we had some other problems. We scheduled a laparoscopy. A large growth was removed, which was benign. Other than that, he couldn't see any problems. Then my blood work came back. I had sperm antibodies.

What followed was more medication, HCG shots, and IUIs (artificial insemination). None of it worked. Finally, IVF (in vitro fertilisation) was brought up. In the mist of all this, my husband took a job across the country. We moved and picked up were we left off with a fertility specialist.

The fertility specialist assured us that there were more steps we could try before jumping all the way to IVF, but he also let us know there was more testing he wanted to do. Now we were back on more medication. All of this started to translate to more money, time, and emotional roller coasters.

We had enough. Many people will understand how tired I was of thinking "this will be the month," only to start spotting. I was devastating, and it was happening month after month for 2 years. It was financially draining every time you got a new doctor bill. My husband finally asked the question of when do we draw the line in the sand? When do we finally accept it won't happen for us? For a while my answer was not any time soon. I always thought maybe the next medication or procedure would be the "the one". Finally, after a very discouraging week, we called it quits. No rhyme or reason to when we decided to stop. We had both just had enough.

It was recently this decision was made. Some days I feel so relieved to not be scheduling my life and occupying my thoughts with my cycle calender, like a burden has been lifted. Other days I think we were too rash in making this choice. Either way, we are done for now. What the future will hold, I don't know. What I do know is I have one amazing little boy. He will be 4 soon, and I am amazed the Lord blessed me with him. The more problems I have had trying for another child, the more I know my son is indeed a blessing beyond measure.

I know others who have spend more money or time than we did, and still didn't have a child. Some people will not even be able to have one. Like I mentioned before, our story isn't extraordinary, but it is my life. For better or worse.