My Story of Infertility

My sophomore year of college I took a class called, Dating and Courtship. On the first day of class the professor said,

"If you only learn one thing in this class let it be this:

Sex causes pregnancy."

Somedays I feel like calling him a liar.

As you all know Dan and I have struggled with infertility for the majority of our marriage. For most of the time I suffered alone. There were no online infertility support groups, there were no infertility blogs to read. No one was talking about infertility. Our lack of children was the proverbial elephant in the room. I felt alone and misunderstood.

It has been said that dealing with infertility can be a struggle for anyone, but it is especially difficult for women within the LDS culture. Family is such an important and intricate part of our religion and culture. Men hold the priesthood and women work with God to provide bodies for His spirit children. That's what we are here for, right?

In addition to being an infertile woman in "Happy Valley" I also deal with being an infertile woman in an extremely fertile family. Large families are the norm for my in-laws.

Generation after generation after generation.

Dan's ancestors believed that the heart of the home was in the cradle. And that the size of your mansion in heaven was determined by the number of children you bore. Talk about adding salt to the wound.

"Family Planning" was a sore topic for Dan and I when we were engaged. We fought over it. We both had different ideas about how and when children should come into our home. We argued, tears were shed, and we almost didn't get married because of it. Luckily we were able to come to an agreement. Truthfully, while praying one night I felt strongly impressed to concede to Dan on this. I wanted to wait until I had completed my schooling before having children. Dan didn't want to wait. In an answer to prayer I knew that God was mindful of me and my desire to complete my education, and that everything would be fine. I just needed to trust Him.

I was relieved when we didn't conceive right away. It gave me a chance to finish my degree. But that relief was short lived. After about 6 months I began to wonder if something was wrong. I tried to stay relaxed about it, knowing that it would happen when the time was right.

Just shy of the one-year mark I was blind sighted by my first "insensitive comment." We were living in my in-laws basement at the time. It was a Sunday afternoon and the house was full of family. I had just run down stairs to grab a bottle of ketchup from our apartment for dinner. On my way back up the stairs I overheard my mother-in-law talking to my sister-in-law. This sister had just announced she was pregnant, again, and was not happy about it. My MIL, trying to console SIL said, "The Lord must really love you." Never had any words pierced my heart so painfully as those words did that day. All I heard was that God shows his love by sending a baby. And He must not love me because he had sent this baby to someone who was not excited to be pregnant, instead of me. I set the ketchup on the table, turned around and headed straight for my room. I climbed into bed and cried like a baby. The words echoed over and over in my ears. By the time Dan found me I had convinced myself that God hated me and that my SIL got pregnant just to spite me. I hated her for it. It took me a week before I stopped hating my SIL.

No one in the family knew of our struggle. They made comments occasionally, hinted that we should have a kid of our own someday, speculated over whether or not I was already pregnant. My MIL started a rumor that I was pregnant when she caught me looking at baby names on the Internet. My Grandma started a rumor when she saw Dan touch my stomach once. I was questioned every time I had a headache/was tired/felt sick. My visiting teachers suggested I have an "oops baby." The bishopric counseled us not to put off having a family for our education. I had to listen to coworkers complain about getting pregnant on birth control, all while I was not pregnant on fertility drugs.

Baby showers were torture. Baby blessings were worse. I remember one especially sensitive Sunday. I was sitting on my pew in the chapel at church watching baby after baby enter the room. All at once I felt as though I was suffocating. I felt alone and forgotten. I started sobbing and I couldn't stop. Up until then I had been able to hide my emotional outbreaks behind closed doors. But that day I sat in Sacrament Meeting and cried my eyes out. I was able to reign in my emotion by the end of the hour, only to have the waterworks begin again when many well meaning friends and neighbors asked if I was OK. It was embarrassing to say the least.

During this time we had talked about adoption, but never felt right about it. At one point, after holding our friends' hours-old child, we fasted and prayed about it, asking God if we should put all the infertility testing behind us and move on. Our answer was a clear, Not Yet. So we waited, continued going through tests and doctor appointments. Four months later, while on hold with a nurse at a fertility clinic who was giving me the run around, I finally gave up. "I don't want to do this anymore," I told Dan. "Let's just adopt!"

It took him 2 seconds to say, "OK!"

It finally felt right. The burning in my heart let me know without a shadow of a doubt that adoption was the answer for us.

The dark clouds in my heart dissipated and the sun came out.

Twenty minutes later I was at LDS Family Services picking up our first packet.
Three and a half months later we were officially approved and waiting.
Another five months down the road we were sitting in a restaurant talking to a beautiful woman who was pregnant with our son.
Fast forward five more months to when we finally brought Tyson home.

This is not the end of my story. But this is where the pain of infertility stopped controlling my life. We certainly had more ups and downs, more heartache and pain. But it was buffered by the miracle of adoption, and the love of Tyson. Infertility is still a part of who I am. It always will be. But now it takes a lesser role, next to the role of Mother. Even after we concieved Preston, infertility still taints the way I see the world.