My Journey With Unexplained Infertility

Naively, I always thought that once my husband and I decided we were ready to start a family, nine months later, a family we would have. Yes, I realized that SOME people out there struggled with infertility, but it literally never even crossed my mind that I would be one of those people.  Which is shocking, because by nature, I am a worrier.  An infamous “what-iffer”. But “‘what-if’ we struggle to get pregnant?” was not a thought I ever had.

My husband and I are high-school sweethearts. We got married when we were 22, and from the very beginning, we were on the same page about waiting a while before trying to get pregnant. We wanted some time for it to be just the two of us. So that’s what we did, and we had a lot of fun. We slept late on the weekends, napped on Sundays, spent lazy Saturday afternoons drinking coffee and reading books at Barnes and Noble, and even spent a month backpacking through Europe. About three years into married life, we starting having THE conversation. The “are we ready yet?”,  conversation. “What if happens right away? Are we REALLY ready NOW?”, “Yes but what if it DOESN’T happen right away? We know we are ready SOON at least, right?”. “Should we?” “Shouldn’t we?”. Finally, we decided to give it a whirl. My timeline was:

• it will take us three months to get pregnant (because that is just what it should take, right??)
• nine months of pregnancy
• Mini Me will arrive in exactly one year. Perfect.

And then came the game, that so many of you are all too familiar with. Do the deed. Wait a few weeks. See what happens. That game is SUPER fun, at first. At least I thought so. After all, three months was what I was predicting, but up to six months of trying would be fine. So for six months, it was just fun. Anticipation. Suspense. Excitement. I remember playing little games with myself, “Ok, if it happens this month, we could announce the news to our parents in a Valentine’s Day card.” If it happens THIS month, we could write the news on a piece of paper, and hide it in an Easter egg”. Not really a ton of disappointment at first when the tests were negative. But then six months of trying came and went. I began to feel a bit impatient, but still not too worried. Nine months…..frustrated and annoyed, but not that worried. A year. Officially the mark where doctors classify you as having “fertility issues”. Whatever. We do NOT have fertility issues. The year mark is when the tests began. Blood work and sonograms for me. The oh-so-fun semen test that the guys get to endure, to make sure their manhood is up to par. (My husband’s was, thank you very  much). I kept hoping something WOULD be wrong, so that whatever it was would be fixed, and then we could move on down the road. But there wasn’t one darn thing wrong with either of us. Another six months went by. Nada.

I should note, during this time, pretty much every single person I’d ever known had gotten pregnant/had a baby. Apparently THEIR husbands just looked at them, and poof! A child was implanted in their womb. I can honestly say I really was never bitter or jealous. It was more that I started to feel this panic, “if they all have kids, and I never am able to, we’re going to drift apart, and slowly not have anything in common. I will be forced to make friends with a new group. A childless group of women”. “Maybe I WILL eventually get pregnant, but not for like another decade. Then they will all be young, cute moms, and I will be the elderly, decrepit mom. Plus, my baby will have no one to play with, because all of my friends’ kids will be teenagers”.

Strangely, we never saw a fertility specialist. My doctor recommended that we should, but call it denial..I just didn’t feel like we truly had fertility issues (although clearly we did!).  After more than a year and a half of trying, my doctor suggested that we check for endometriosis. Now it probably sounds strange that he waited so long to check that, but here’s the thing: endometriosis almost always has symptoms. Painful, difficult-to-ignore symptoms. I had NO symptoms whatsoever. Never had. But because we had exhausted all other possibilities, the doctor suggested doing laparoscopic surgery to check for it. It was a quick outpatient procedure. After I woke up from the surgery, my doctor informed me that in fact he HAD found and removed a bit of scar tissue (endometriosis) but that it was very VERY minimal, and that he would be incredibly surprised if it was the cause of our fertility issues. Guess what, though? One month later, I finally got that double pink line, and on October 28, 2009, we welcomed our first son into the world.

When he was two, we decided to start trying again. We weren’t really ready to have another one yet, but we knew how long it had taken to make HIM a reality, so we figured we better get started. Basically, re-read the entire story I just told you, regarding our first sons conception, and that was our identical journey the second time. My new doctor, skeptical that endometriosis could be the culprit, with NO pain, and NO symptoms, and the incredibly MINUSCULE amount of scar tissue that had been found the last time, agreed (at my coaxing ) to do the surgery and find out. Same conclusion this time around  “Found a bit of scar tissue. Very small amount. Very doubtful it is the cause of your fertility issues”. Aaaaaaaand guess what? One month later, pregnant. Strangest thing ever.

Only thing stranger is this: 14 months after the arrival of our second son… when having another child was the furthest thing from my mind….a late period, an unmistakable queasy feeling, and the realization that for the last four nights in a row, I’d waken out of a dead sleep to pee, all resulted in me sitting on the floor of my in-laws bathroom, praying with all the strength I had that the pregnancy test  on the counter in front of me was going to show “negative”. So many prayers I had offered up over the years from toilets or bathroom floors….but this was the only time I had prayed “please no”.

But I’ll be darned….it was “yes”. And I’ll be darned again if my little Shocker Baby isn’t just the sweetest thing of all time Ever.

So what did I learn through this journey of “unexplained infertility”, eventually resulting in not one, not two, but THREE boys? A lot, actually. But the biggest thing….that thing that stuck with me the most, and also brought me the most comfort in the moments where I was starting to feel hopeless, was something one of my friends told me. I will summarize her words now:

“God has very specific plans for your future baby. People He wants your baby to meet, and be friends with. People whose lives your baby will impact. Events and circumstances he wants your baby to be a part of. Tasks he wants your baby to accomplish. If your baby is born even ONE DAY earlier than when God has purposed for him to be born, then he may miss out on those plans…the people he is supposed to meet, the lives he is supposed to be a part of, and the events and circumstances he is supposed to be present for.  So instead of feeling sad that one more day has gone by, and you still aren’t pregnant, be happy that God is waiting to give you your baby at the exact right moment, for all of His plans to be able to be accomplished”.