I'm coming out...

One year ago I remember National Infertility Awareness Week coming and going and doing all I could not to read posts about it. At that time, we had just found that our second round of IUI had not taken and IVF (in vitro) was likely our next and necessary option. I wasn't ready for that. I had been so sure that IUI would work and we would be pregnant by spring, I just wasn't prepared to start looking down the IVF road mentally or financially.

The NIAW (National Infertility Awareness Week) posts in my Facebook and Twitter feed last year encouraged me to stay strong and to rely on friends and family and to be proud of who I was as an infertile. But I just couldn't get to that place in my head. I felt like a huge, fat, failure. I wasn't strong. I wasn't proud. I cried almost every day and hated myself on the rare days I wasn't crying. I blamed genetics and bad luck and any God that was out there for what was happening to me. I didn't want people to see me at my absolute worst. Ironically, that's probably when I needed them the most.

In the end, I let Infertility Awareness Week pass me by without sharing my story. Now, a year later, things have changed. At 18 weeks pregnant via the miracle of IVF, I finally feel like I'm ready. I'm still not strong by any means and I won't lie, I'm a little nervous to let people in. But here's why I'm so sure I want to. Last year when w was so upset and angry and confused, I would have loved to have known there were more people out there that were experiencing what I was experiencing. I personally only knew of a handful. But I also knew that infertility affects 1 in 8 couples, so the number of people that I knew didn't line up with the numbers. That meant there were other women and couples our there like me that were suffering and staying silent, which is their absolute right. But this year, I want to be the person that's there for someone who is struggling and doesn't necessarily want to come right out and shout it from the rooftops. Someone who feels like this tunnel of tests and probing and more testing and more probing will never end. Someone who wonders if anyone out there can possibly imagine what they are going through.

I can. And I did. And I do.

I am so immensely grateful for the people in our lives this last year who gave a listening ear, opened their homes while we crashed for two weeks, sent me flowers and cards and who just called to say, "how are you?" as I went through my IVF cycle. I will never be able to repay those friends who walked me through the process they themselves had been through, or those that said, without prompting, "Colorado flights are expensive, here's my Southwest points to use." That kind of kindness will never be able to be repaid. I want more of that kindness to be spread to those going through infertility. 

The best time to start repaying that kindness is now, so here I am.

If you're reading this blog for the first time after finding it via my FB post, maybe you know someone who is dealing with infertility. Maybe you yourself are. Perhaps you've never even heard the word "infertility". Regardless, I am here as an ear to listen, to share, to help in any way I can. I don't have all the answers but I might have some. I don't have any guarantees but I do have some funny stories to help take your mind off that giant elephant on your back. That's the least I can do.

This blog started as an infertility venting session. Now it's grown into life stories, pregnancy stories, and in a few short months, parenting stories. I hope if you stumbled across it and like what you read, you'll stick around and join in the conversation. Even though I may be pregnant, I may never fully heal from the scars that infertility left behind. Writing about those experiences will help me heal, and hopefully it can help you out, too.

So, I'm coming out. I am an infertile. I still think about it every day. My baby was created in a totally different way than the majority of other babies, and so what? I am stronger because of it. I know there are a lot of women and couples out there who are bobbing along in them fertility boat with me, just trying to keep it from sinking. We have nothing to hide from. We have nothing to be ashamed of.

We're all in this together.

XOXO,