I was pregnant! It worked! There was so much joy, we couldn’t help but tell people. There was so much relief knowing that I was pregnant and thinking that life could finally start to move forward. We felt like we could finally, finally, finally exhale and just enjoy life. In some ways, life stayed the same because we just lived normally – except everything was better. We went to a movie, but it was better because I was pregnant. We went to church with joy for the first time in a long time because I was pregnant. We hung out with friends willingly, and we had fun because I was pregnant. We thought we finally, finally, FINALLY jumped over the hurdle, and we were so excited to run the rest of the race.
But then it ended.
We went in for an 8 week check-up to hear the heart-beat.  
There was no heartbeat.
I remember laying on the table and hearing the words the doctor was saying, and my entire body just went numb.  
And then it was time to get up, walk out the door, and leave.  
How does one get up when they get that news?
How does one put one foot in front of the other and walk past strangers to get to their car?
I don’t really know. I don’t really remember. I guess I put one foot in front of the other.
There was a lot of that for the next few months. We simply put one foot in front of the other, and we just went through the motions.
We went through the motions, but we were so raw, so broken, and I just felt so, so empty. We would sit on the couch in the evenings and try to make sense of it, but we couldn’t. We just hurt – we hurt together. We hurt separately. We just hurt.
And mostly I was angry.
I was so angry at God for bringing us so close and then just taking it away. I was so angry to be back where we had started. Actually – I felt miles back from where we started. While rationally, I knew that God loved me, I didn’t feel loved. I remember telling Seth (and I’m not proud of this) that I felt like God was giving me a middle finger, and I was giving it right back at Him.  
I’m sorry I can’t give any words of wisdom on how to get through this. There is so magic formula. But for us we just had to be sad. And angry.
And we just had to put one step in front of the other.  We had to go to work.  We had to celebrate the holidays.  And we had to take a break from thinking about it, so we agreed not to try and figure out our next step for a few months.  

We just had to be.

Side note – As I am writing this, I’m focusing on this specific journey, which was very hard. However, I have to remember there were a lot of good things happening during this time, too. I continued to love teaching, Seth (finally) finished residency and enjoyed his new job at the clinic. We had good community, we traveled, and we tried to embrace the freedoms that came with no children. However, the journey to parenthood was hard, and that is the part of our story that I’m telling. Please know that there were good things, and we were not blind to them.
Eventually, we were faced with no other option than to return to the doctor, so off we went again. For a variety of reasons, I chose another new doctor. Within one visit, we discovered that I did not properly heal from my first surgery. Therefore, she suggested that I have another surgery to clear up the scar tissue that was “clogging things up.” She said this was likely the reason why things still hadn’t worked, but she also suggested since I was already going under, to have the surgeon check to see if I had endometriosis. Endometriosis is a condition where the lining of the uterus starts to grow outside the uterus and into the rest of the body. Sounds painful, right? It is. As least, I have heard that it is. I have a wonderful, dear friend who has it, and life basically has to stop for her once a month as she tries to endure the pain that medication only sort of helped with. I never had any of these symptoms, but I was willing to check in order to rule it out.
And wouldn’t you know it. I had stage 3 endometriosis.  
What?
I can’t even describe how disappointed I was to wake up from that surgery and learn that. I struggled to understand how I could have stage 3 with no symptoms, and apparently – there are very few women for whom this is true. I am grateful to not have the awful symptoms, but I also wish I could have had a warning that this was a possibility. Does that make sense? All of a sudden, we were faced with so many more questions with a lot harder answers. Knowing that I had this, we knew that we would probably not conceive naturally. There is a chance that things can improve after the surgery, but our doctor urged us to think of IVF.
We had thought about IVF before, but until now we never thought it would really be our only option.  
So we took time to digest this information. We took time to pray. And while I know lots of people have their opinions about IVF – I’m honestly not interested in hearing any of them. What I know is that after a lot of prayer and a lot of research, it seemed like that path we were supposed to go down.
So, we put ourselves on the list, we paid for it, we started getting the medications (not cheap), we prayed, and prayed, and prayed some more.  
And then we started.  
And honestly the process wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Yes – it’s a lot of shots, but I’m not squeamish about that, and my doctor husband wasn’t exactly a novice in giving injections. In fact – while the shots can make some woman crazy – I thought they were making me supremely happy. I don’t know if it was the meds, or if I was just excited to feel like I was in control and doing something active to finally achieve what we wanted, but I felt energized throughout the process. Yes – getting to appointments was hard (you have appointments/blood draws/sonograms just about every day), but we made that work, too.  
And finally – the process was done. And when it’s done, there is a two-week wait before a pregnancy can be confirmed.  
So we waited
 and hoped
 and prayed
And finally – the two week wait was over.

After nearly 2 years, we decided to see a specialist.  
By this time, I actually was starting to have some weird symptoms that maybe something was off. So off we went. Well – this time – we found something. I had a fibroid. It may sound strange, but I was thrilled to find this out. Yes – I was going to have to have a surgery, but it was a minor one. And maybe – once I did that – things would finally work! Yes – a reason! Yes – a plan!
The surgery was easy – I only missed one day of work. And afterwards – I felt so optimistic, I even let myself start to peek at the baby section at Target. I let myself start to dream. And Seth and I started to make plans to build our house because this will work……right?!?!?  
Again – we didn’t worry about it right away. We gave some time to let my body heal and we were building our house – what an exciting distraction! Building the house became more than a distraction, though. It’s strange, but I think it also became our sanity. So many people talk about how stressful it is to build a house, but we felt the opposite. We had control of building our house. We decided something, and it happened. Wow – so easy.  
So – building our house and seeing things happen made Seth and I feel like we were getting a little life back. We had so much fun picking out finishings, imagining life, and day-dreaming what room would be the nursery. The doctor told us to give it another year before going back, so we felt foot-loose and fancy free. However, as the months did indeed go by, the doubts and worry started to settle back into their old comfortable (?) places. 
And while building the house was still fun, it also started to look too big. What if there were no children in the rooms? What if this great child-friendly neighborhood would be too painful to live in because we would have no children to raise in it? Were we crazy to do this? Were we going to resent this house because we weren’t going to be able to live the life we wanted to in it?  
We were 2 years into it the journey and we were still hopeful, but we also started to think that maybe we were still at the beginning. With those mixed feelings – Seth, Lucy, and I moved into our new house, and we prayed and prayed that God would answer our prayers soon.
And even as I’m writing these posts – I feel like they are moving too fast. I have gone through 2 years in 2 posts. That doesn’t relate to you how long 2 years can feel. The tears and the disappointing results month after month after month. Going through that 24 times with no answer as to when or if it will end is draining. So draining.

So what happens to you emotionally when
. . . every time you open Facebook, and someone is showing off their baby bump,
. . . every time the story line in the show you are watching turns to the main character having a baby,
. . . every time you get another shower invitation,
. . . every time someone celebrates a baptism in church,
. . . every time everyone gets pregnant but you,
. . . every time you lie to yourself and say you won’t get your hopes up this month but then your stupid heart does anyway,
. . . And you schedule your entire life around this thing that isn’t happening and may never happen?
What happens?
Well – I don’t know what happens to everyone else, but I really started to isolate myself. Seth and I together. We isolated ourselves together. I know this journey can really be hard on marriages, and I can understand why, but Seth and I leaned more on each other than ever before. We understood. We loved. And we grew together.  

But our relationships with everyone else suffered.

There were many times we couldn’t bring ourselves to socialize with people. We couldn’t make ourselves go to that party. We couldn’t hang out with those people. We couldn’t face church that day. We didn’t want to see anyone else because we just couldn’t. Yes – we are introverts by nature, but it wasn’t just that. We were about self-preservation by that point. I’m sorry to those people that we may have seem cold to or snubbed (even those we loved the most).

But honestly – I don’t think we could have done more than we did.

So we tried to get pregnant simply by no longer trying to not get pregnant. We didn’t plan anything, we didn’t think about it too much, and before we knew it a few months had gone by. We weren’t too concerned, we just decided to try being a little more intentional about trying – timing things out, buying a few ovulation kits. We kept it light, and I tried not to voice my fears that something was wrong. I was really trying not to worry. However, as the months started to go by, I started to have the feeling that the paranoid voice in my head that I can often excuse was maybe, in fact, this time, correct. That sinking dread of realizing that the fear is maybe turning into a reality is . . . Well . . . A bit desperate feeling. There were tears, there were way too many hours spent on the internet trying to figure out what else we could do to help, and I also read way too many stories on-line of couples who tried for upwards of 10 years with no happy result. And I started to see what could be our life. I admit – my hope started dwindling very quickly while Seth, at least to me, seemed to still be positive and not too worried. That lack of worry, while a bit comforting, was also frustrating.  
We told ourselves after a year – if nothing happened – we would go to the doctor. A year came, and I remember gathering up the courage to call my regular doctor to make the appointment.  
The receptionist asked in her cheerful voice, “And what is this appointment for?”  
And I took a deep breath and answered, “We are worried about infertility.”
I hung up the phone and cried. Just saying the word out loud made me feel so helpless and angry. To this day – I hate, hate, hate that word, and I hate that it is connected to me. But – at the same time, I was relieved to go to the doctor and possibly get some answers. So we went – and I went through a battery of blood tests, physicals, and sonograms, but nada. Zilch. There was nothing to suggest why nothing had happened yet. That may sound like good news, but I found it more frustrating. If there is nothing to fix, then why isn’t it working. If there is nothing to fix, then there is nothing to do to change what is or what is not happening.  

The doctor suggested to just be patient.

I wanted to punch her in the face.

But I didn’t. So I decided to just be patient. . . . Or whatever.

You see – the cavalier attitude about having children that I had for most of my life had changed. It was now almost all I could think about. I wanted a baby. I craved a baby. And this made me wonder if I only wanted it because it was seemingly something I could never have, or maybe it wasn’t happening because God thought I wouldn’t be a good mom, or maybe God was punishing me for not wanting children before, or . . . .  and the thought process can just veer off into a terrible place so quickly, can’t it? However, the truth of it was, I really wanted a baby. And I didn’t want to be patient.  

But what else could I do. 

Marriage was great. It was easy. We both agreed this was the time to focus just on us and our careers without thinking about kids yet, so that was what we pursued. Seth went to medical school, and I started teaching. We thought about our future family – but we felt no rush to start. I also never felt like I needed biological children and always talked about adoption. Either way – kids were not on our radar.
Medical school is a lot of work.  Teaching is a lot of work. However, we were each other’s haven in the hard work – the mess – the nights on call – the angry parents of students – the demanding schedule of residency – the papers, papers, and papers to grade.  

We eventually bought a little house and got our little dog, Lucy. I say little because she was a puppy when we got her, but she quickly grew into a full-size furball of love – golden retriever. That was us – that was our little family. Seth worked, I worked, and we came home to Lucy. I graded papers, he tried to catch up on sleep, we watched movies, we went on walks, we discovered fun restaurants, we took a few exotic trips, we had fun with friends, we cooked together, and we became youth group leaders at church. It was fun. Yes – work and residency were hard, but we both really loved our jobs and felt like we were fulfilling our callings. I even started to take some grad school classes, and I really enjoyed those too. Overall – we felt busy, fulfilled, and as residency started to wind down – we started to feel like there was space in our life to possibly add someone else to our family.

And don’t ask me why, but something deep down inside me told me that this was not going to be easy. There was no reason to think that. There was nothing to suggest that things weren’t working like they should – but I just had this feeling that life had been too easy. That this – the trying to have a baby – was going to be our big struggle. How could I have known that? What would make me think that? I don’t know. Seth just shook his head at me and basically said I was crazy to worry about that. That’s not to make him sound callous, but as a doctor, he knew that neither of us exhibited any symptoms that there would be any trouble, so why bother worrying about it. So I tried not to worry. But I’m not too good about not worrying about things. Especially when I felt like I just knew. I knew it.

How about I go back to the beginning. No – I’m not going to tell you everything, but I feel you need to know about the two main characters – Me and Seth, my husband.
Seth and I met in high school in 1995. (What? Just looking at the year makes me feel ancient). Trust me – I never thought I would meet the love of my life in high school – it felt so cheesy and small town. But small town I was, and meet him I did. Our first meeting was in the hallway on my first day of of sophomore year (his first day of freshman year.). It was a rather uneventful first meeting – I remember thinking he was nice. He remembers a yarn braid thingy I had in my hair (ah yes . . 90s fashion), but nothing too more than that.    
And then we took a class together, and we were in a play together. And he quickly became my most favorite person in the world. We didn’t start dating right away – but we were good friends. He made me laugh harder than anyone else, and he made me feel more comfortable than anyone else. And while it took us a while to actually take steps beyond the friend zone – I knew that eventually he would be my boyfriend. And I think I also knew, deep down, that he was it. He was my person.  
The night things finally turned a corner in our friendship was a night that we went to a hockey game with some other friends. Our friends were in the front seat, and Seth and I were in the back. I accidentally on purpose put my hand on his when I went to change sitting positions, and he slowly twisted his hand around to hold mine. And time stopped. I didn’t want to move, or blink, or breathe. All the nerve endings in my hand were firing (who knew a hand could feel like that?), and it was magic. So cliche. And so exactly how it was.  
How could a 17 year old girl know? How could she know that she was holding her future husband’s hand? Well – I don’t think I did. 

 But I also think that I did.

We dated for 5 years, and we got married 2 weeks after college graduation. And off we went – off with that college graduate optimism that so many have when you’re certain of everything and scared of nothing. We were ready. Ready for all of life had to throw at us.

Ok.  I’m doing this.  I’m going to write.  I’m going to share.  I’m doing this.

This is rather frightening to me because what if –

1. No one reads this

– or even more frightening – what if –

2. People read this.

Whatever.  I’m doing this.

So what am I doing exactly?  I’m going to write and share.  I’m going to write a huge part of my story that has already been written and try to delve into my yet unwritten story.  No – I havn’t been writing a novel in all my spare time that I’m about to share with you (although the character of Agnes Lou Stankelwitz is still rolling around in my mind grapes).  I’m writing my story – my life story – specifically the story of trying to add children to our family.

I realize that I may have lost you right there.  Who wants to read another (or any) blog about that?

I don’t know.  Maybe no one.

But – if there are people out there who need/want to read this because they have sat in doctor’s offices, been poked and prodded more times than they can count, have taken millions of drugs that have turned them into hormonal monsters, and who have walked around like a zombie in their own life because they don’t know what to do anymore – then maybe this will make you feel like you are not alone.  Because I’ve been there.  Man – have I been there.

And I have come out the other side.

My story is simply that.  My story.  I don’t pretend to know what everyone else has gone through, and I realize that my story has an extremely happy ending (even though that isn’t the right word – because the birth of my son was the most amazing beginning) that might turn away people who have not reached that yet.  But I do know this.

When I was in the thick of it, when I was the saddest, most confused, and angry, it was the people who had gone through similar things that helped me the most.  They encouraged me, prayed for me,  and loved me.  We were members of a rather dreary club – but those members gave me so much support and validation to all of my feelings that it kept me sane.  If I can be that person for someone – well, then that’s the least I can do.

For those of you who have not gone through this – or a version of this – well you should read this, too.  Chances are you know someone who has gone through infertility and miscarriages.  And trust me – you need to have some insight on what they are going through.  You need to have an idea of how to talk to them, to pray for them, or when to give them space if they need it.

Why am I doing this now?  As I look back over the last 7 years – when things didn’t make sense and when I was the most confused –  things are now starting to come into focus.  I’m starting to understand.  I see God’s plan, and I see how He was with me through all of it.  Let me tell you – when you see that – it’s exciting.  I have looked through a lot of my old prayer journals – and it’s amazing to see how God has answered those prayers.  I’m going to share some of them with you.  I want you to see it too.  I want to share them because I don’t want to forget that God’s plan is perfect.  God’s ways are not my ways.  God’s timing is not my timing.  And really – as I look how life has unfolded – thank God for that.

And I need to remember it.  I need to remember it because we’re about to do something big.  Something life-changing.  Something I didn’t think I would ever do.

What is it?

Well – it would be nice if I told you, but it would certainly be a lot less fun.

You’ll find out – but first I want to show you the first part of the story and how God got us to this part of the story.  Let’s see. . . How far back should I go . . . .

Yep – I’m doing this.