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Who do I think I am? Do people really care about my story? So many have had it worse than me. There are thousands that have felt what I have, but were strong enough to handle it on their own. What will my family think? Will people talk about me…will they laugh? Is this going to make people uncomfortable? Maybe I should just suck it up and suffer in silence like so many others seem to do.

If you don’t think that I had every single one of these thoughts before hitting “POST” on my first Blog, then you’re completely wrong. For every person that has called me BRAVE for sharing my story, there are probably 2 people that have scoffed and thought that I am just seeking attention. With every post, I’m sure that there have been people that have been through so much worse that they see my worries or problems as trivial and unimportant. I am not writing my story for those people. I am writing my story for ME. And I am writing my story for those who feel alone and afraid to share what they are going through because of all of the same fears that I have had. I am writing my story to help even just ONE PERSON who needs to know that they are not alone. Whether it is a fertility journey, starting a new career, deciding to take control of your health, letting go of a toxic relationship, or the battle of the demons in your head….it’s OK to SHARE! It can be so freeing to open up about what you are going through. Do I mean that we all need to start a Blog to express how we are feeling about pivotal moments in our life? No, not necessarily. We all know how we express ourselves best. Some are better off calling their best friend, or playing music, or even just going for a walk and talking to themselves. Writing is just what I have found is my way of healing.

When I was a little kid, probably about 7ish years old, I lost my first horse. His name was Hawk. He was really my moms horse, but I loved him so much! He was older, and had some medical issues. I remember when he died, it really hit me that mortality is a REAL thing. I remember him being buried in our pasture. Then, every time we drove by the pasture and I saw that fresh mound of earth I knew that my friend Hawk was beneath it. I was sad and confused as to why I couldn’t get past it. So, I began to write stories about Hawk. I continued to write stories about him and draw pictures of him well in to middle school. I remember my mom commenting to me at one point that she was surprised that it had taken me so long to get over him. But in my reality, this was HOW I got over him. Writing stories about this creature that had such an impact on me so young in life, was how I memorialized him. As long as I was writing those stories, he was still alive in my heart!

Keeping journals over the years was my way of keeping my wild thoughts and fears at bay. If I took the time to begin writing about any major event in my life, I would find that the words flooded out without hesitation. I have taken several years off of doing this journaling or writing until I started this Blog. So, it comes as no surprise that once I opened my computer and began to type about my fertility journey, it was almost as if I couldn’t stop it. Since the first post that I shared, I have felt a huge weight lift off of my shoulders. I don’t see myself as being “Brave” for sharing our journey or struggles with trying to become parents. It really all began as a selfish act of trying to self medicate with words. This fire lit inside me was sparked by my need to start healing myself. That fire has been fueled by the hundreds of stories that you all have shared with me about your own struggles.

I am glad that I did not listen to the negative voices within me that told me that no one would care. I am glad that I didn’t listen to the worry that this topic would make people feel uncomfortable, or that people would judge me. This isn’t 1951 where women have to keep fertility struggles or failed pregnancies a secret while they cry to themselves into their aprons. We are strong women that just need to have an outlet for our fears, our pain, and our frustrations. I hope that this Blog can be a place for all of you who may be able to relate to my words…whether you are a husband who doesn’t know how to support your wife through this, or if you are a woman who has been trying to conceive for 2 years and are losing hope, you aren’t alone.

I heard a quote on a podcast today, and it resonated with me so much! Turn your MESS into your MESSAGE. Let’s just say that with that theory, I have plenty of MESSAGE left to share….Don’t be afraid to be a mess, and certainly don’t be afraid to SHARE that mess in whatever way helps you to heal.

I thrive on identifying a problem or a need, and then helping to solve it. When we were faced with that word…INFERTITLITY, I went straight in to problem solving mode. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to solve your own problem! We went down the TO Do list from our Dr. We got my hormones checked, my husband’s health checked, and then there was that dreaded HSG test. Once you get all of the tests done, you are faced with the wait. Waiting caused anxiety, and the swirling thoughts of “what if it’s me” or “what if it’s him”….”What if it’s BOTH of us?!”. I had to push those thoughts out of my head and remember that we were moving in the right direction of getting some answers.

In this day and age of technology giving us access to our health care providers at our fingertips provides a double edge sword consequence. I was laying in bed relaxing on a Saturday morning when I casually strolled through my emails. My Blood Test Results WERE IN! I clicked to open that email faster than a shopaholic clicks on a Nordstrom sale link! I franticly started reading through the list that might as well have been in a foreign language….Luteinizing Hormone, Prolactin, FSH, Glyco..something or other. I had to Google search each item on the list of results to find out what exactly that particular hormone meant. Once my mind calmed a bit, and I read through the list several times, I realized that this all showed that I was NORMAL. I am perfectly HEALTHY!  As far as this test result is concerned, I am not the PROBLEM. Phew! Well, check that off of the list.

My HSG test was a little bit different. Directly after suffering through the pain of the test, then passing out, and the seizure, my doctor was able to show me a quick view of the radiograph on the screen. She explained that the picture showed no major abnormalities. This made the wait for the full results a lot less anxiety ridden. It took two short days and I received another email that provided my full results….again, I’m NORMAL! This made me feel a sense of relief, but also made my mind wonder on to what my husband’s semen analysis would show.

It had been two weeks since my husband’s test, and we had heard no word back yet. One thing that I’m learning about infertility specialists and doctor’s offices is that they will be very prompt in getting you in to a visit where you are paying fully out of pocket…but when it comes to contacting you to go over results, it’s a different story. With that newfound knowledge, I decided to reach out to the infertility specialist that had done my husbands test. The nurse that answered sounded irritated that the Dr hadn’t’ called us yet to go over the results. CRAP! Did this mean there was a problem?! It was at this moment that I realized that I would have been able to deal with the PROBLEM being me a lot better than it being my husband. I don’t know why, other than I had guessed all along that it would probably be me. The nurse came back on the phone and began reading off all of the details of the test results. Everything was NORMAL! I had a huge sense of relief at first…. But NOW WHAT?!

We have hit a dead end on our To Do list, and we no longer have a PLAN! But I NEED A PLAN! I need a next step, a path, a direction, something! With this new information that there was no real PROBLEM, we were faced with the decision to either move forward with medical intervention or to continue trying naturally and pray that it’s just been a timing issue. We ultimately landed on the latter of the two being the best option for us. We aren’t completely against IUI (Intrauterine Inception) or even IFV, but we just felt like we needed to give ourselves the opportunity to have this happen naturally. So, what’s the new plan? The new plan is as follows:

• Continue using the fertility app to track my cycles and symptoms
• Continue to take ovulation tests each month
• Work on our general health and well being
• Get back to doing the things that we love (hunting for him, and riding horses for me)
• Meditate
• Take care of US!!

Once we found out that our PROBLEM was that there was no PROBLEM per say, we were able to take a deep breath and realize that we need to live our lives while being on this trying to conceive journey. I needed to stop giving myself the excuse of “I may be pregnant”, to avoid being motivated to have intense gym workouts or to go ride my horses. In fact, my husband encouraged me to buy a second horse and to get back in to competing….something that I’ve always loved and just hadn’t made a priority for years!  This new plan had given us a breath of fresh air, and I don’t think I have ever been happier or felt more calm about my direction in life. I want nothing more than to be a mother, and to see my husband be a father. But the most important thing right now is that I focus on being the best wife and friend to my husband as I can. We are in this together. At the end of the journey whether we end up parents, or not….we will still have each other. Whether we have a child or not, we are still a FAMILY.  I thank God every day for that…

We all have physical and mental fears. Sometimes the mental fears can manifest themselves in a physical reaction. I had come to a point in our infertility journey that required me to face both of these in one appointment. I had done some research on this HSG test that I was scheduled for. There was a wide range of reactions on how painful or uncomfortable this test could be. However, I decided that I would try to push all of the negative and “scary” stories out of my mind, and face this like any other hurdle in my life. What did I have to be afraid of?!…..I’ll tell you exactly what I was afraid of. I feared that this test would be as painful as the women that compared it to labor pains had described it. I also feared that this test would give a result that showed that there was something WRONG with me…that it would prove that its my FAULT that we haven’t been able to have a child yet. I had to keep telling myself that we were in the year and a half point of trying to conceive, and that it was time to get some answers. Suck it up! Get this test done, and move forward with whatever information is gleaned from it.

Today is the day of my HSG test. Today, I will have a catheter inserted through my cervix to have a dye shot in to my uterus. This dye will fill my uterus and fallopian tubes to allow for radiographs to get a good picture of all my important lady bits. Today is the day that I face this physical and mental fear. I woke up with a positive mindset, and even mentioned to my best friend that I had a sense of calm come over me. I was READY for this! I went about my morning routine and got some work done. This day was a great reminder to try to be patient with other people on a daily basis. Have you ever heard that saying “be kind, you never know what someone is going through”? This day reminded me of that. I had a few small issues on the work front, and had let everyone that I worked with know that I would be unavailable from 11am until late in the afternoon. I had a couple people that weren’t very patient with this request, but I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this was the least of my problems on this day.

It was TIME. We loaded up and headed to town for my HSG test appointment. We got half way there when I realized that I had been so distracted that I had forgotten to take the pain killer an hour before, like my Dr had suggested. Thank God my husband had ibuprofen in the car, so I took some and crossed my fingers. When we arrived at the Dr office, I checked in and the nurse looked at my chart. She confirmed that I was there for my hysta…..blah blah…I still can’t pronounce the name of this test, so I always call it an HSG. She gave me a sympathetic look and told me to take a seat….they would be ready for me in a couple of minutes. I had no nerves at this point. I felt calm. My husband and I made small talk while we waited. Then an adorable middle aged, short statured nurse with dark hair and an adorable smile appeared in the waiting room to call my name…Sarah. I stood up and walked to the door. She gave me a look….you know that look that someone gives you when you’re in terrible grief, or loss, or in some dark place in your life? It’s a combination of sympathy and sadness, sprinkled with a layer of goodwill and condolences.  She gave me THAT look. I still to this day don’t know why, but I immediately felt a lump in my throat and a tear come from my eye. I didn’t see THAT coming. The nurse told me that her name was Colleen, and that she would be the nurse assisting in my HSG. She walked me down a long hallway lined with small dressing rooms. She gave me the look again. DAMN IT! But this time it was followed by the comment that this test can be very painful. She said that she wanted to give me that heads up in case no one else had yet. Yes, Colleen, I’ve been warned, thank you. She stopped at a dressing room and handed me a medical robe to put on. She explained to put it on and to wait in the dressing room. She said that she would come back to get me. I took the 2 minutes of undressing to let a few more tears out and to say a little prayer.

“Lord, you’ve protected me through so much so far in life. I am giving this test and my FEARS up to you. I am trusting that this is part of my process, and that everything will be fine. AMEN”

I felt a huge relief and got my determination back that this would all be fine!….now where the heck is Colleen? I need to get out of this tiny gray dressing room to get this over with! I was now standing with the dressing room door open, clothed in only a hospital gown, with my clothes all shoved in my purse. It was at this moment that I knew I could not be the only woman who had this rollercoaster of emotions during this test day. It was at this moment that I KNEW that I had to share this story with the world. As I was chuckling to myself because of how ridiculous I probably looked, my moment of levity was interrupted by Colleen. She still had THE LOOK on her face, but her voice was bubbly. She said “are you ready for this?”. I thought it would be rude to reply sarcastically, so I made an awkward joke instead. “As ready as I’ll ever be!”

Colleen walked me in to a huge room with a tall table that had a computer screen and what I assumed was the radiograph machine. This didn’t look scary. I’ll be fine. Colleen sat me in chair and went over my medical chart. We made small talk about infertility, and she shared some success stories to reassure me that this is just a piece of the puzzle. She showed me the instruments that would be used in the test. She held up the catheter and there was a tiny balloon at the end of it. She said that once the catheter was inserted the Dr would inflate that balloon. She said, “I know that it looks tiny, but it will cause quite a bit of pressure. Just try not to move because if you do the catheter can come out.  I actually felt much better after being given all of this information.

Colleen had me hop up on the table and she placed a couple of pillows under my back. She grabbed my hand and said, “ok sweetie, I’m going to see if the Dr is ready.” I felt completely at ease and made yet another dad joke of some sort….this is normal behavior for me. A short minute later a tiny little woman walked into the room. Colleen introduced her to me, but I must have blocked it out because I have no memory of what it was. Colleen helped the Dr with her protective vest and placed one on herself as well. We all made light and relaxed talk while the Dr set everything up. She had me scoot to the very end of the table where my feet had to brace the whole weight of my body….I never thought that I would wish for those dang stirrups that the lady Dr has! I wasn’t comfortable at all. I could tell that my feet and legs were going to get tired if I had to brace myself like this for very long. The Dr began her process. I will spare you the details but it took several uncomfortable minutes of the Dr trying to get the catheter in to my cervix. Colleen saw my legs struggling in the position that I was in, so she came to my side to help me by holding my leg. She began to ask me questions about how I grew up. We quickly realized that we had both grown up raising livestock, and we both love horses. This almost made me forget about that tiny woman prodding around my cervix….ALMOST. I did think to myself that if this was the “painful” part, that I would be totally fine. With my pain tolerance being relatively high, this pain was about a 3 out of 10…so not bad at all. “Okay, I have the catheter in place and I am ready to inflate the balloon”, the Dr announced. Perfect! We are in the home stretch! This wasn’t bad at all! Colleen remained by my side and she told me to take a deep breath and to let it out. I remembered her telling me that this part would just be the feeling of pressure and can feel similar to a menstrual cramp.

PAIN! A stabbing pain hit me along with a pressure that made me feel like something was going to rip. I thought to myself, is this going to stay like this? Is something wrong? I could feel myself losing control, and I shouted, “I think I am going to pass out”!

Being woken up abruptly is an annoying and almost scary feeling. I was being shook violently. Someone REALLY wanted me to wake up. I was trying to make myself open my eyes, but the shaking was distracting and I was trying to piece together where I was, and who was trying to wake me up. My eyes slowly started to cooperate, but they were greeted with a harsh bright light. They wanted to close again. Thankfully the shaking had stopped, so I was able to concentrate a little better. I heard a voice…it was Colleen! I was at my HSG appointment still! I must have passed out! The FEAR was now coming from Colleens voice. She was holding my face and ask “have you ever had seizures before?” I mumbled that I had once, but it was a long time ago. She told me that I had passed out and had a seizure. My body was hot and drenched in sweat. My eyes were able to focus a bit more now, and I noticed that there were some new faces in the room. Another doctor and a handful of nurses were all standing over me ready to take my vitals. Blood pressure, pulse, and blood sugar all seemed to be stable now. The new Dr asked me a few questions, and determined that I was fine. He had my Dr check the catheter and it was still in place, but my legs were all the way off of the table and I was now laying there with my legs dangling at the knee. The new Dr told my Dr that she could continue if I wanted to, or we would just have to reschedule the test. I told them to give me a minute to catch my breath, and that I wanted to proceed. There was no way I was going to be able to get myself to come back and do this AGAIN! The circus of nurses and the extra Dr filed out of the room while all giving me a smile and telling me that they hope I feel better. Colleen said that I had given her a scare and that she had NEVER had that happen before….I told her that I hadn’t either!

My Dr asked if I was sure that I wanted to continue. I told her that I was willing to try. Colleen said that if I felt like I was going to pass out again that I should say something. I told her that I HAD said something that last time! She informed me that not one word came out of my mouth. My shout must have been completely internal! Okay! Let’s all take a deep breath and try this again. I got resituated on the table and the Dr said that she would only inflate the balloon a little bit to see how I felt and then we could go from there. “1,2,3…Ok, how does that feel?”, the Dr asked. It felt totally fine. I could feel a slight pressure but hardly noticeable. “Ok, we will try that again. 1,2,3…how does that feel?” I was fine! “Ok, one last time. How is that?” I felt FINE! The Dr and Colleen both looked relieved! They had me carefully scoot back under the X Ray machine and they clicked the images that they needed. The Dr deflated the balloon and removed the catheter. I felt completely, but Colleen had me lay on the table for a extra minute before instructing me to turn on my side and to rise slowly. I DID feel a bit light headed. She lead me to the restroom that was attached to the exam room. I gave her a smile to assure her that I was fine! I told her that I felt ok and to not worry.  She gave me my clothes, and I shut the door. I dressed and sat on a chair for a minute to collect myself. I felt tears coming again, but I had to pull myself together. All I wanted to do was get out to my husband.

Colleen escorted me out to the waiting room to my husband. She looked directly at him, and said “you keep a close eye on her today”. He said ok, and grabbed my hand. We walked out to the truck and he mentioned that the test took a lot longer than he thought it would. I then realized that none of the Dr’s or nurses had informed him of what had happened! He had a concerned look on his face as I described what had just occurred. He went in to protection mode and told me that he was taking me to get food. I couldn’t help but chuckle at this, but he was just trying to make me feel better. I said that I didn’t know if I would be able to eat. He said, “you’re gonna eat something! It will make you feel better”. We both seemed to take a sigh of relief, knowing that this part was over. But now we both had the concern that this reaction to the HSG test, might be a bad sign for how I may handle any other procedures down the road.

We had to focus on the positive here, though. We were following our PLAN. We would know soon, how all of our test results were going to come out, and what our next steps would be. I had faced this FEAR….on to the next….

I don’t know if there’s anyone that likes to avoid Doctor’s appointments more than me. This is a terrible trait for someone that is facing possible infertility. I met with my Doctor for a consultation when we were in about month 4 of trying to conceive. I had recently switched Doctors, due to my previous Doctor being approximately 104 years old, with a stoic and cold bedside manor. I had been going to him for my yearly exams from the time that I was 18 years old…that was 16 years ago. I knew that now that we had begun to try to conceive, that I would need someone that was a bit warmer, and more caring. Perhaps someone that would remember my name, would make me feel more comfortable?

Walking in to the Doctor’s office knowing that I was solely there to talk to my new Doctor about the exciting news that we were TRYING was very exciting. I went in to the room and waited for a short couple of minutes before this beautiful, young, bubbly woman bounced in the room. Immediately I was relieved! She sat down, and with a huge smile on her face said, “So, we are trying to make a baby?!” I said, “That’s right!” We went on to discuss that it had already been about 4 months, but she reassured me that there was no need to worry or look in to anything further until we had hit the 10-12 month mark. So what does a person that hates Doctor Appointments do?….I waited a solid 14 months before I called to make another appointment.  Since my last meeting with her, my Doctor had become very popular and was scheduled out for 2 months. I’m no math whiz, but this meant that we would be in month 16 by the time we would be able to get in to be seen. No need to panic, I told myself. I’m sure that we will end up getting pregnant in the meantime, and we can just use that appointment as our first check up! Spoiler alert! We did not get pregnant in that time.

Appointment number 2 with my Doctor had finally arrived. My husband had decided to come with me to this one so that we could get all of our questions answered, and make a plan for what we were to do next. Once we were in the room, the Doctor buzzed in the with scrubs on, fresh from the hospital where I’m sure she had been delivering babies all morning. She was in a little bit more of a hurry this time. The information and test orders came flying at us, and I suddenly lost my warm fuzzy feelings that I had from the first appointment. She said the word. The word that I had been dreading all along. INFERTILITY. I had well surpassed the 12 month mark and was deep in the woods of infertility. What do we do now? Blood Tests, semen analysis, hysterosalpingogram (HSG Test), just to start and then we will go from there. If this were a cartoon, this would have been the point where my head would spin around, fall off and roll out the door. I think my Doctor could see my panic, so she reassured me that these were all simple and non invasive ways to check our reproductive health and to have a direction for the next steps. She knows the way to my heart…. A PLAN.

I walked directly out of that appointment over to the lab to have my blood drawn for all of my hormone checks. My husband set his appointment for his semen analysis, and I got all of the information about the HSG test. The receptionist told me that I would be making an appointment with radiology as soon as I started AF (remember those fun acronyms?? AF=Aunt Flow). She let me know that this test can be very painful, and that I should take a painkiller 1 hour before to avoid the full onset of the potential pain. Hmm…that doesn’t sound very noninvasive, but I can handle it! After all, the main goal here is to give birth…and we all know that is no walk in the park.

The very next morning I received the test results from my blood panel, and everything was in the normal ranges. This was a huge relief!  Now it was time for my husband’s test. We had to travel about an hour away from home to the Infertility Specialist for this test…there’s that darned word again…INFERTILITY….but I was just glad to be checking all of these items off of our to do list. When we arrived at the office address that was given to us by my Doctor we were greeted with a sign on the door that notified us that their office had been moved from Davis, CA to Sacramento, CA. We had arrived 10 minutes early, but had now found out that even if we hit zero traffic, that we would be 15 minutes late for our appointment. GREAT!!! I called the office and let them know the situation. They were very understanding, and told us that they would hold our appointment. We arrive to the actual location of the infertility specialist and checked in. While waiting in the waiting room, I observed the different patients that were waiting….one pregnant woman (I thought, “What the heck is she doing here?!”), one couple with 3 children (I had the similar thought about that), and a couple that looked equally as awkward and uncomfortable as we did (they fit my mind’s expectation perfectly). My evaluation of the waiting room, and curiosity of each person’s story, was broken up by a little old man in a white doctor’s coat, with a checkered bow tie, and round coke bottle glasses, calling our name. Super! We have an incredibly hip Doctor…if we had somehow time warped back to 1942. But I quickly tried to squelch that negativity, and tried to keep an open mind. We went in to his office and sat down in two chairs placed in front of a desk scattered with papers. The Doctor didn’t make eye contact as he flipped through our paperwork, but he began to tell us a story.

To paraphrase, he recounted a day back when he was in medical school, and it was the day of a very important exam. He had been given the location that the exam was to be taken at 8am that morning….(you guessed it, this was the point when I was wondering what the heck this had to do with us!?…but I continued to listen.) He showed up to the class room right on time, just to see that the classroom was dark and the door was locked. He asked around and quickly found out that the exam location had been moved to another room on to the far opposite side of the campus. He said that if he sprinted he may be able to make it right before they locked the door. He got to the correct classroom and the door was locked. He knocked on the door, and the professor opened it, but did not look amused. He said that he asked politely that the professor give him a chance to take the exam. The professor informed him that this exam had never started one minute passed 8:00 am in the 25 years that he had been administering it. He immediately felt defeated, and his medical career flashed before his eyes. However, he was relieved when the professor told him that he would make an exception for him, and that he would allow him to take the exam.

The Doctor finally looked up at us and with a soft smile in his eyes, and he said “If that Professor could see the potential in me to allow me to take that exam that day, then I can see the potential in you two to push my other patients back to keep this appointment for you today”. This was all quite dramatic as we were about to see a PowerPoint presentation on sperm…but it is a moment that I will never forget.  Now that we had broken the ice with story time, we got right down to the brass tacks of sperm mobility, quality, and all kinds of terms that I’m hoping I’ll never need again. Long story short, we had yet another completely normal test result! We had completed everything in our PLAN so far.

Now, it was time for the dreaded HSG test. This test is the one that the receptionist had described as “very painful”. Because of that description, I had decided to Google this test until I was nearly panicked at the variety of responses of women that had experienced it. One woman said that she had already given birth, and would prefer labor to the pain of this test. Another woman explained that she barely felt anything, but had mild cramping afterward. I assumed that because I have a fairly high pain tolerance, that I would fall somewhere around the “it was uncomfortable, but not unbearable” description. Boy, was I wrong.

I was about to have the shock of a lifetime…..

Keeping the secret of trying to conceive was a fun game for us in the beginning. Month 1, Month 2, Month 3, Month 4…….Ok, the fun is wearing off a bit. In all the research that I had done, all signs pointed to the 12 month of trying to conceive as being the point of needing to go back in to see the Dr for further investigation. So far I had made it to about the 10^th month without speaking to another soul, other than my husband, about this “secret”.  I felt like I was going to lose it. I thought back to those friends that had been through this before, and I wondered at what point I may need to reach out and ask for some support. I’m one to talk to my Mother and Sister about EVERYTHING, but they have both had such an easy time of falling pregnant that I didn’t think they would understand. In fact, they both make pregnancy seem less cumbersome than my seasonal allergies. So, they will just have to forgive me for looking to other sources for some guidance on this one.

A simple text to a dear friend:

“So, can I tell you something that I haven’t told any other soul on the planet accept for my husband?” 😦 “

Of course she said YES! The conversation flowed on as I poured out all of my frustrations, worries, and concerns. With every text, I felt the weight lifting more and more off of my shoulders. You see, this friend has been through MUCH more than I had at this point, and still to this day. She never once compared her struggles to mine. She never made me feel like my measly 10 months with no Dr intervention or any medical issues were nothing compared to what she had endured. She LISTENED. She gave me some amazing advice, and she helped calm my nerves. I now had some NEXT STEPS such as some changes in diet and even acupuncture. I do very well with having a PLAN.

The biggest change?…..I no longer had a “secret”. This was no longer something that we were keeping to ourselves completely. I had ripped off the band aid, and it felt like freedom!

As time crept closer to the holidays, the friends and family that began to ask the innocent questions of “When are you two going to have a baby” or the comments of “you’re not getting any younger” or “you’re too much of a workaholic, you need to just slow down and start a family” began to flow our way. Initially, we combatted those questions and comments with the old “We are too busy right now” or “We just aren’t ready yet”. Little did I realize, those were the WORST reactions that we could have given. I can’t tell you how many times I sat cornered at a social event with someone “talking me into” being a mother. When in reality my whole universe was revolving around acupuncture, diets, workouts, teas, essential oils, and podcasts all geared toward fertility. I would just smile and nod and then we would walk out of the party and take a huge breath a relief that we got through another interrogation. Looking back on this point, I wish that I would have changed my canned response much sooner. I wish that I would have thought to say “ We are trying, it’s just taking longer than we thought”….the first time I used that line, it worked like nail strip in a high speed chase!  I had no idea how much a simple tweak in my response would effect the outcome of these conversations.

It was in December (month 12 of trying to conceive) that I finally spilled the beans to my sister. This came shortly after her announcement of her SURPRISE second child. She has a 9 year old son and hadn’t expected to have any more children. When she gave my mom and I the news, we were both completely shocked. We sat at our favorite sushi restaurant for lunch, and my sister hands us both an envelope. I thought maybe it was a Christmas card, or an engagement announcement. When I opened it and saw a sonogram picture, I was confused! Once the shock wore off, I became instantly excited for her and knew that God was putting this new baby in our family for a reason. I also knew that this would spurn an influx of the BABY questions coming my way, and that I had to start telling more people of our struggles. I waited a few weeks, and then decided the time was right to finally divulge to my sister that we had been trying for right about a year with no success. She responded with the thought that I must hate her for her not even planning hers. Now, I haven’t really understood the idea or the feeling of being mad that someone else is able to have a baby or has an unplanned pregnancy…yet. Our inability to conceive hasn’t been brought on because the universe has wasted a baby on someone else. I can see how some women, in the desperation of trying every procedure and pill may feel the pang of jealousy or the hurt of defeat when they hear that someone lucked out or just had an accidental conception. But I really think that these are subconscious, and fleeting feelings.

Now, one of my best friends AND my sister know…it’s for SURE not a secret anymore. I still had a pretty big hurdle to jump in sharing this with my mom. I don’t know why, but telling my mom would make it all seem too real. I talk to my mom about everything, and I felt like actually speaking the words out loud to her would put it out in to the universe that there really may be a problem. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but my mom was one of the only people in my life that never broached the subject of children with me. She never asked if we wanted children, how many, or when we would want to have them. Ironically, I finally felt the right moment to tell my mom was while we were at yet another lunch date….you guessed it…at that very same sushi restaurant. We were talking about when my sister’s baby would be due and all of the things that would lead up to that exciting time. I blurted out without much finesse that we had been trying for a while. She responded with somewhat surprise, but no concern in her voice. I clarified that it had been a year since we had been trying…and nothing yet. At that point I did see some concern creep in to her eyes. CRAP! This is what I feared. It’s real now. Yep. It’s real that I should be concerned.

As the conversation went on, my mom does what she does best, she brought my thought process back to the realistic next steps and the fact that we should be going back in to the Dr to see if there is anything simple that we can do to help the process, and to eliminate any major concerns. She also made mention that my sister and I needed to stop sneaking up on her with huge news while she’s trying to enjoy her sushi! I can’t blame her there. No one wants to be startled while trying to partake in spicy edamame.

I had now broken the ice completely. My mother and sister knew, and I had begun to open up to my closest friends. I still don’t know what took me so long, other than I just kept hoping to be able to surprise everyone with the happy news of a pregnancy announcement. Looking back, I wish I would have opened up much sooner. There’s no shame in trying to conceive and it not happening in month 3. There’s no shame in needing some support. And there is certainly no shame in if your answer REALLY is that you aren’t ready yet. I know in my heart, that every single person that inquired about our plan for having children, did so with the best of intentions. I just wish that I wouldn’t have kept that SECRET for so long.

The call to the Dr was my very next step. Here come the appoiments……