Young and Infertile

After writing my first post I decided that my next two posts would go into more detail about how my life has changed over the past year. I want to explain how I became the caregiver to my mother and then talk about how we became unexpected parents on our trying to conceive journey. I wasn't sure which post I would write until this morning when I saw the pregnancy announcement of two college acquaintances.

I have not always wanted to me a mother. When I was younger I always thought being a parent would be too hard and would not fit into my life plan of being successful in my career. I don't think it was until I was in college dating who I thought would be the love of my life (yeah, that didn't work out) that I realized I wanted to be a mother. However, I don't think it was until I started dating my husband and we had a miscommunication where I thought he didn't want children (ever) that almost ended our relationship did I realize how much I wanted children.

Now from that point forward, I knew that having children would not be easy. Since I was a teenager, I have not has regular cycles. Actually, that is an understatement. I had about four cycles when I was 14 then they stopped. I didn't have another cycle until I started birth control about two months before getting married, I was 22. Needless to say, without having a cycle, it is obvious that I don't ovulate, which makes getting pregnant pretty much impossible. With this knowledge, I have always known my chances of getting pregnant was slim even with fertility treatments but it's something I never allowed myself to think about because I wasn't trying to get pregnant.

Fast forward to 3 years after being married--My husband and I decided we were ready to start trying. We knew that it was going to be difficult which is way we decided not to put it off any more because it could take us some time. So in March of 2013 I stopped taking my birth control. We tried for a month and then in April, BAM period. My first response was "wait, I can have a period without birth control, maybe losing that 50 pounds fixed the problem". I was wrong. I didn't have another cycle May-October. Finally, in October at my yearly checkup I had a conversation with my doctor. After going over my medical history, we decided that I would need to start taking fertility medicine to help me jump start ovulation so we could get pregnant.

I want to stop here for a second and tell you that I didn't handle this news the way I thought I would. For my entire life I knew getting pregnant would be a challenge and that my body was broken but it wasn't until I heard if from my doctor that it really sunk in. I left my doctor’s office, got in my car and cried. I don't know why. I have always known but now it was a reality. I realized at that moment I had been holding on to hope that I would have a miracle and get pregnant quickly after starting. That I would laugh with my entire family and friends about how I always would worry it would be difficult and then it would just happen. This was not the case anymore. It would not be easy. It would not be natural but with the help of medicine and a doctor. I cried because what I had always known was coming true.

October would also be the month that my husband and I would become expectant parents. No, it's not what you think. No we didn’t get pregnant; instead we took in my teenage brother. In my next post, I will explain the difficulties of growing up with a single parent who has medical problems but for now let's keep it short. I have a brother that is 9 years younger than I. For the past 6 years he has lived with one of my older sisters (not with my mother). Then one day I get a call from my sister saying that the military will no longer allow my brother to live with them because he is not a 'legal' dependent. It doesn't matter that they have allowed it for the past six years. It doesn't matter that he is like a son to my sister and a brother to her children. It doesn't matter that he is a junior in high school. All that matters is that he can't live there without being adoptive (something that isn't possible since he will be 18 in less than 6 months) and he has to move in two weeks or my brother-in-law gets the boot from the Navy after 13 years of service. That phone call changed our lives. What are we supposed to do? He has nowhere else and it's unfair to have my brother-in-law to leave his job and jeopardize his family’s well-being to look for another job in this economy. So, two weeks after this phone call we drive to the airport to pick up my brother who now lives with us. This is awkward for everyone. He has to live his entire life to come live with a sister and brother-in-law he barely knows. He has to uproot his life on the beach filled with deep sea fishing to come live in a small town in Oklahoma. It's unfair for him. It's unfair for us because we now a choice to make. Can we really afford the treatments to get pregnant and if we do move forward with it can we afford to have a baby while we have a teenager?

Don't get me wrong. I love my brother and am happy to have him here with us. The past few months have been great but it's been a challenge. We went from a family of two to a family with a teenager. We are having to learn to parent a teenager and wade through girlfriends, sex, learning to drive, getting a first job, ACT/SAT, high school graduation and college. We are not ready for this but what choice do we have?

Fast forward to today. We decided to move forward with the treatments. We are on treatment 3. The first two didn't work. The treatments are not as expensive as we thought they would be. I have to say thought having to schedule out sex for a two week period while a teenager is in your home that's difficult. Having the fear that if we do get pregnant we are still not sure if we can afford it let alone be parents to two children is a constant in our home. Yet, we push forward because we know that we want a baby and because we know that it could still take months of treatments before we conceive.

So why did I decide to write this post first? Because it seems every day since trying to get pregnant and increasingly more since our infertile diagnosis I have seen couple after couple get pregnant easily. It's tough because I am young (26). I am supposed to be able to get pregnant easily but it's not easy and today it seems really unfair.