Walking in somone else's shoes...sort of

Here are some interesting stats. According to the CDC in the US:

• 10.9% of women ages 15-44 suffer from infertility of some sort
• 6% of women ages 15-44 are infertile
• 11% of couples who already have a child go on to experience secondary infertility
• Women under 35 have about a 15% chance of having a miscarriage 

Chances are you probably know someone who has experienced a miscarriage or who has suffered with infertility of some degree. I used to think that I was a pretty sympathetic person when it came to interacting with people who were experiencing or had experienced infertility or miscarriages. There are many women that I personally know and love that have had to struggle with this trial, or who have had to struggle with it for many hard years. It can be kind of a touchy subject. With most things in life, if you want them bad enough, you can set a goal and make them happen. Having a child is not like that. Sure there are medications like Clomid or pricey treatments like In Vitro that can be tried, but success is not guaranteed. For other women, the struggle is not so much getting pregnant as it is staying pregnant. Sometimes it requires taking shots daily, daily medications, and bed rest. Yet still, after doing all these things, they still end up losing their baby, their dream. Some women never marry or marry later in life and never experience the opportunity to become a mother. Sadly, while these women are often dealing with these struggles in silence, there are many women in the world who are consciously choosing to abort their pregnancies or who choose not to love, nurture, and care for their children as they should.

For me, my first two pregnancies happened rather quickly.  However, this year when we decided to try for a third child things did not go as well as my previous two experiences. The initial getting pregnant happened fairly quickly. I found out that I was pregnant this past March. Our baby #3 would be due next month, in November. Since I've had spring and summer babies I was excited to have a child born in the fall. I think that once you get that positive test there is no way to not get attached. You start thinking, "Hmmm.. I wonder if it will be a boy or girl?", "If it is another boy what will we name him?", "I wonder who the baby will look like?"- you get my point. I even made sure to be prepared. Knowing that I get miserably sick during pregnancy, I stocked up our freezer with freezer meals in preparation. All of the excitement came crashing down the day that I felt the horrible cramps followed by the blood. The moment I saw it I knew what it meant. The tears started falling instantaneously and when I called Isaac to tell him what was happening he could barely understand me through the sobs.

I was eventually able to hold myself together and while I was still disappointed, I figured I was handling things pretty well. I just figured that with any luck we'd be pregnant the following month. The sooner the better! That would be the best possible scenario. But, when the next month came, there was no exciting news and that soon became a pattern.

I'm not sure how many pregnancy tests I blew through. Then the time came that all of the meals in the freezer had to be eaten because I didn't want them to spoil. The hardest part of all for me was the pregnancy announcements.

Oh the pregnancy announcements! Especially the ones that were as far along or close to where I would have been. I'm not going to lie, it hurt! Now PLEASE don't get me wrong, having a baby is a wonderful thing and a very special time in a person's life. It was not so much that I wasn't happy for everyone else, it just made me sad that I didn't have any exciting news to share as well. Soon it felt like everywhere that I turned there was pregnancy. So many pregnancy announcements, growing bellies, comments, gender reveals, baby showers, you name it. It suddenly seemed to be everywhere!

I know it sounds silly, but I honestly began to question if I would ever be able to have children again. What if I did get pregnant again but had another miscarriage? What then? It seemed like my life was being controlled by trying to get pregnant. It became standard when taking a pregnancy test to not expect anything but to hold on to a little hope that maybe just maybe things would be different that month.

I'm sure you've figured out where I am going with all of this given the title of my blog. After trying a total of 8 months I was completely caught off guard to see a positive. I could hardly believe it! I am due May 7, two days before Dylan's birthday. Dylan and Owen were both late and there's no chance of being induced for me, so things could definitely get interesting in May!

Honestly, sharing the news of being pregnant isn't something that I really look forward to. In fact I pretty much dread it. There are several women that I know as well as some that I know but may be unaware of their struggles that this news may sting. For those women, I wish that I could let them know in some way how truly sorry I am to cause them any pain. The words it's not fair have never rang more true. I know that my experience doesn't really compare and come close to the same magnitude of the struggles other women are dealing with. But in my own small way I was able to get just a glimpse.