Is it just me or are more and more people having infertility issues these days? Perhaps my own experiences have just made me pay more attention, or maybe it's just talked about more? It is crazy how many people I know that have had to have the help of an RE (reproductive endocrinologist for those that don't know) to have their dreams of having a family come true. (I have just been thinking a lot about this lately and needed to purge my brain so I could actually get some work done, so here we go!) I can't help but wonder if there is some environmental factor in play here. It is just odd how many people in my life have had to experience difficulty or loss when it comes to having a family. And most of those people are my age.
I have had family members (myself included) and numerous friends from college struggle to have a family or to expand their family, all for various reasons and with various procedures and medications used. The majority that I know have had success, some still struggling and doing everything in their power to have that dream realized. People don't realize how much it can affect you mentally, emotionally and physically to want to get pregnant so badly and to try and try have nothing happen. I was near depression and my dear hub was suggesting we stop and I go to therapy because I was struggling so much. Needing a lot of help to even ovulate so the possibility of getting pregnant could even be in my future changed me. I am so thankful that I found that combination of pills and procedures to help me get there. I was terrified to get my hopes up so I think I had planned for the worst, expecting nothing to work. We had even discussed selling our house to pay for IVF or adoption if/when it came to that, and as much as I wanted to carry our baby I wasn't sure I was strong enough to try IVF and have it not work. But for us it didn't come to that and we were blessed with a wonderfully perfect-for-us little boy. I really feel like the journey to him makes me love him differently than I might if I had gotten pregnant right away and on my own. (Now, this is NOT to say that I love my kid more than anyone else loves their kid(s) - this is just me talking about my feelings pertaining to my family. Please no one be offended!) I feel like I look at every little milestone and every little experience with him in a more thankful way, like I appreciate it more. Perhaps my experience was put into my life to teach to truly be thankful and not take anything for granted - that is what I like to think anyway. Mind you I will love whatever sibling Eli has some day (hopefully) just as much as I love him whether we have that baby on our own or with help again. I think Eli just opened my heart up a little more and allowed me to love the people in my life a little deeper and to be more appreciative of their presence in my life.
For any reading this, I have four special friends (at least, there could be more that I don't know of) that are currently either expecting or working with their own REs to have babies. All have been having their own troubles, some have had VERY long and hard roads and some are at the beginning of their journey - all of them want desperately to have a baby though and all of them would be or are tremendous mothers! Please pray for my friends, that they may know the love that I have come to know and probably couldn't survive without. My journey to Eli was, in a twist, one of the best things to happen to me. I pray that my friends can say the same thing someday when they look at their children. The love you feel for your child and from your child is like no other....
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