Last Spring, I stumbled upon a video about infertility entitled "What IF?"

At the time when I first saw it, we were knee deep in grief over Peyton and had been trying desperately for nearly 9 months, without success, to achieve another pregnancy. The previous December, I had gotten the news that an infection from my c-section had left both of my tubes scarred beyond any usefulness, and that my only option, and not a guaranteed option at that, was IVF.

I was in shock.

For over a year after Peyton's birth I had complained to my doctor that I wasn't ovulating or menstruating. When she gave us the green light to try again last June, and I failed to conceive, I knew something was wrong. Through it all, my OB explained my infertility away as the result of me "grieving too hard." "If you don't get over this," she would tell me, "you will never get pregnant."

Lying alone and half naked on a steel table at the hospital, my unresponsive tubes glaring down at me from a monitor overhead, a sympathetic doctor delivered to me the news that I would never again be able to conceive on my own. "There is no justice in this world," she told me, taking a deep breath, and as she did, any last shred of hope that I had held onto for a family of my own, flowed out of my eyes and down my cheeks.

In that moment: grief stricken and infertile - I felt my life was over.

Discovering that I had lost my fertility after losing my only child undid several months of healing, and brought a million questions to my mind. Hard questions. Painful questions.

Was I still a woman if I couldn't conceive?
Was I still a mother if my only child was dead?
Was I still a Catholic if I was willing to pursue IVF when the church is so strongly against it?
Was I still a wife if I couldn't give my husband a family?
Were we still a couple if making love could never create a life?

For someone who just a year and a half prior had been a confident 28 year old, with a promising career, thriving social life, happy marriage, and first child on the way - the downward spiral of those 18 months took me to the darkest depths of my life. Everything I believed would be suddenly felt like a lie, and the truths that I was facing were hard to swallow:

I had lost our child.
I had lost our fertility.
I had lost our hopes.

That's not a typo. I HAD LOST these things, or at least that's how I felt. In my mind, the blame for all of our losses and failures, were mine and mine alone.

I don't know why I always viewed hubs in a different light than myself. In many ways, I saw him as a victim in all this. He had married me and I had failed to hold up my end of the bargain.

Maybe it was because our IF issues were with my body?
Maybe it was because when he proposed he told me he wanted to "grow old together and have lots and lots of children," and the realization I couldn't give him that made me pity him for staying with me?
Maybe it was because I was Peyton's mother, and our miscarried baby's mother, and mothers always blame themselves.

All I know is that when I stumbled across this video, it struck a deep chord with me. I had, for months, been asking myself many of the same questions posed in the video.

What IF I lost my sense of self to my infertility?
What IF I lost my sexiness to infertility?
What IF I lost my spouse to infertility?

What IF?
What IF?
What IF?

Today I was looking around on the internet, and once again came across this video. As I did, the tears came, but they were different somehow. Today I cried tears of gratitude. Though I had felt so sure just six months ago that infertility would beat me, today I realized that I have beaten infertility.

It took over a year of trying, months of hormone injections, the pain of twisting an ovary, Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome, 4 weeks of bed rest for the Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome, the heartbreak of learning our first cycle had failed, many, many, MANY hours of therapy to deal with the above mentioned feelings, facing a second cycle after failing the first with no explanation, a bleed that has kept me on bed rest since week 12 and in all likelihood will continue to keep me bed ridden for the next 20 or so weeks, tens of thousands of dollars, countless tears, fears and anxieties, and all the emotions that go into having a high risk pregnancy after loss, but I am here - pregnant - full of hope - and very grateful.

I guess that is why I am writing this post. To let others on their own infertility journey know that I get it. I have been there, at the bottom, the very bottom. I have questioned every aspect of myself, my worth, and my life. I have wondered if joy would ever again return to my heart. If I could ever give my husband a family. If I could ever survive this, and the answer is yes.

There is always a chance.

Sometimes we have to wrestle with these big questions to find our way, but in the end, we can all get there. For us, a couple who lost their fertility to birthing a dying child, our chance came with IVF. For others it comes with surrogacy, or IUI. Medications, or adoption.

I don't know what the future holds for us, but I do know that it is looking brighter once again, and that is something that once felt impossible.

I guess that what I am trying to say is that it is only when we open our eyes and our minds to all of the possibilities in front of us, even those that we fear or resent or are unsure of, that we can find pathways to hope.

Here is the video that had such an impact on me. I am sure for those of you haven't seen it before, or are viewing it a second time, you will feel it resonates at some level with you too. (Be sure to pause the music player in the right column of this blog to hear the video.)

Last Spring, I stumbled upon a video about infertility entitled "What IF?"

At the time when I first saw it, we were knee deep in grief over Peyton and had been trying desperately for nearly 9 months, without success, to achieve another pregnancy. The previous December, I had gotten the news that an infection from my c-section had left both of my tubes scarred beyond any usefulness, and that my only option, and not a guaranteed option at that, was IVF.

I was in shock.

For over a year after Peyton's birth I had complained to my doctor that I wasn't ovulating or menstruating. When she gave us the green light to try again last June, and I failed to conceive, I knew something was wrong. Through it all, my OB explained my infertility away as the result of me "grieving too hard." "If you don't get over this," she would tell me, "you will never get pregnant."

Lying alone and half naked on a steel table at the hospital, my unresponsive tubes glaring down at me from a monitor overhead, a sympathetic doctor delivered to me the news that I would never again be able to conceive on my own. "There is no justice in this world," she told me, taking a deep breath, and as she did, any last shred of hope that I had held onto for a family of my own, flowed out of my eyes and down my cheeks.

In that moment: grief stricken and infertile - I felt my life was over.

Discovering that I had lost my fertility after losing my only child undid several months of healing, and brought a million questions to my mind. Hard questions. Painful questions.

Was I still a woman if I couldn't conceive?
Was I still a mother if my only child was dead?
Was I still a Catholic if I was willing to pursue IVF when the church is so strongly against it?
Was I still a wife if I couldn't give my husband a family?
Were we still a couple if making love could never create a life?

For someone who just a year and a half prior had been a confident 28 year old, with a promising career, thriving social life, happy marriage, and first child on the way - the downward spiral of those 18 months took me to the darkest depths of my life. Everything I believed would be suddenly felt like a lie, and the truths that I was facing were hard to swallow:

I had lost our child.
I had lost our fertility.
I had lost our hopes.

That's not a typo. I HAD LOST these things, or at least that's how I felt. In my mind, the blame for all of our losses and failures, were mine and mine alone.

I don't know why I always viewed hubs in a different light than myself. In many ways, I saw him as a victim in all this. He had married me and I had failed to hold up my end of the bargain.

Maybe it was because our IF issues were with my body?
Maybe it was because when he proposed he told me he wanted to "grow old together and have lots and lots of children," and the realization I couldn't give him that made me pity him for staying with me?
Maybe it was because I was Peyton's mother, and our miscarried baby's mother, and mothers always blame themselves.

All I know is that when I stumbled across this video, it struck a deep chord with me. I had, for months, been asking myself many of the same questions posed in the video.

What IF I lost my sense of self to my infertility?
What IF I lost my sexiness to infertility?
What IF I lost my spouse to infertility?

What IF?
What IF?
What IF?

Today I was looking around on the internet, and once again came across this video. As I did, the tears came, but they were different somehow. Today I cried tears of gratitude. Though I had felt so sure just six months ago that infertility would beat me, today I realized that I have beaten infertility.

It took over a year of trying, months of hormone injections, the pain of twisting an ovary, Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome, 4 weeks of bed rest for the Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome, the heartbreak of learning our first cycle had failed, many, many, MANY hours of therapy to deal with the above mentioned feelings, facing a second cycle after failing the first with no explanation, a bleed that has kept me on bed rest since week 12 and in all likelihood will continue to keep me bed ridden for the next 20 or so weeks, tens of thousands of dollars, countless tears, fears and anxieties, and all the emotions that go into having a high risk pregnancy after loss, but I am here - pregnant - full of hope - and very grateful.

I guess that is why I am writing this post. To let others on their own infertility journey know that I get it. I have been there, at the bottom, the very bottom. I have questioned every aspect of myself, my worth, and my life. I have wondered if joy would ever again return to my heart. If I could ever give my husband a family. If I could ever survive this, and the answer is yes.

There is always a chance.

Sometimes we have to wrestle with these big questions to find our way, but in the end, we can all get there. For us, a couple who lost their fertility to birthing a dying child, our chance came with IVF. For others it comes with surrogacy, or IUI. Medications, or adoption.

I don't know what the future holds for us, but I do know that it is looking brighter once again, and that is something that once felt impossible.

I guess that what I am trying to say is that it is only when we open our eyes and our minds to all of the possibilities in front of us, even those that we fear or resent or are unsure of, that we can find pathways to hope.

Here is the video that had such an impact on me. I am sure for those of you haven't seen it before, or are viewing it a second time, you will feel it resonates at some level with you too. (Be sure to pause the music player in the right column of this blog to hear the video.)

A few months ago, I heard about a woman who had lost two of her three children to infant leukemia. She is the only known case of this happening with non identical twins. Her story sent a ripple of shock and horror through the infant leukemia community because we had all been promised by our own doctors and experts that such a thing could never happen.

Last night my cousin asked me to pray for a 3 year old little girl who was in the battle of her life. Today I learned that her parents, a couple who recently lost their five month old to a congenital issue, have now been dealt the incredibly unfair blow of having to say good bye to her too. Her tiny body couldn't fight off a freak case of bacterial meningitis, something her pediatrician originally wrote off as nothing more than bronchitis.

A woman in my grieving mom's group, a very kind and special and encouraging woman, I learned yesterday, is losing her battle with cancer. Her husband who unfairly had to bury his son, now must prepare to bury her too.

Seems so unfair, doesn't it?

There are a lot of really shitty people in this world. People who hurt and take and think of no one but themselves, and yet, you don't hear about these things happening to them. Why?

You would think that after all a bereaved parent goes through in loving and losing and grieving their beloved children, there would be some sort of free pass. A Get Out Of Heartache Free card. Something along the lines of:

"Your survival through the hell of losing a child entitles you to a life void of any further tragedy."

- God.

I guess this just goes to show that what my doctor told me when she diagnosed my infertility is true: "There is no justice in this world."

These stories are tragic. And heartbreaking. They bring tears to our eyes, and prayers for these families' healing to our hearts. We cry out in anger at God and the Universe for allowing such pain to exist. Hearing them sends us down a road of "Oh, what's the point in even trying," but there is another message here too. An eye opening one. One that must not be ignored.

You are still here. 
You are still alive.
Don't waste it.

It is so important that we not allow our grief to make us complacent in our living. We must not turn our backs on the day to day joys, no matter how minuscule they seem in comparison to the dark cloud that sorrow has cast over our lives. As tough a task as our circumstances make it, and as small as they feel in contrast to our pain, we must remind ourselves of what blessings we do have, and be grateful, because as these stories so cruelly illustrate, there are no guarantees in this life.

I have gotten into the habit of reminding myself before bed of what I do have. Among other things, this practice helps to calm the anxieties that cause my insomnia, and allows me a more peaceful transition to sleep.

I remind myself that I have my health.
My husband.
My family.
My friends.
A house to keep me warm.
Food to fill my belly.
A dog who has brought great joy into my life.
A love for writing.
A bed to sleep in.

You get the picture.

I know this may seem a bit odd, especially coming from someone who wrote in her last post that her life is ruined, and believe me when I say that that feeling is genuine, but even I, the girl with the dead kid and blocked tubes, have to remind myself that while my life may feel ruined, while it may feel at my core as if it has been broken beyond repair, I don't know that yet.

My story has not yet been told in its entirety, and I have to believe, even if believing means pushing through indescribable pain and heartache, that there is a possibility things will get better. The opportunity to live each day with the above blessings is proof of that.

Most of you who read here have lost a child, or loved one, or your fertility. You fight your own daily battles, and struggle through your own dark places.

Life, as we have learned, is not fair. Or easy. Or just.
It is just life.

We have each lost so much, far more than any person should have to endure losing, but I guess my point is that we haven't lost everything.

Each time we wake to see another day, draw another breath into our lungs, or allow a sense of love into our hearts; each time we find enough strength within ourselves to laugh through our tears, or feel that we are in the presence of a message or sign from our children; each time we recognize something beautiful in our surroundings, or feel some measure of peace in our souls, no matter how short lived those peaceful moments may be, we have to remind ourselves that in this broken world of no guarantees, each of these moments is a gift not be overlooked or taken for granted, but instead to be celebrated.