I have been giving a lot of thought to how I should handle our struggle with infertility. I had started keeping a baby journal, which was just a journal where I could write my feelings about the whole process of trying to start our family. It was nice to have a place to put my feelings out there, but a journal didn’t really provide a lot of support in return. I then decided to reach out to my female friends & share some of my struggle with them. The response was awesome and overwhelming. Many of my girlfriends shared similar struggles and stories with me. I’ve known some of these ladies for years and yet I hadn’t known that several of them had quietly suffered miscarriages and battles with infertility. I was amazed to hear how many women deal with this issue on their own (not to discount spousal support). Once I realized that I was not alone in this struggle I really started to feel more hopeful. Silence is deadly, and I’ve decided I’m not going to let this be a silent topic in my life any longer. So, I’ve decided to share my struggle & baby journal in an online journal. I hope that people will be kind, but I know putting things in a public forum always opens us up to crazies. My wish is that this journal be available to other women facing similar issues so that they too know they are not alone.
I should probably provide a little background info. I’ve been happily married for 12 years. I’ve got a Masters in clinical psychology and focused my training on working with children and families. I put my husband through med-school, a journey which we just recently completed. When med-school ended we needed to relocate to a new state so that my husband could begin a residency at a small (but fabulous) pediatric hospital in the midwest. Due to licensing differences between states, I was unable to continue working in my field. This made the move difficult, but we managed the transition and I am now happily maintaining our household as we try to start our new family.
We have always known we wanted children, but we also knew that we wanted to be able to provide them with a stable and healthy environment. Grad-school and med-school are not great for the finances or stability of a household. Now that we are settled and have excellent health care, it is the perfect time to start our family. We had a “whoops” pregnancy just over 2 years ago which ended in a miscarriage. We were devastated. As I started this on line journal we had been solidly trying for 3 months. At 6 months we began fertility treatments.
Time marched on and we had 1 pregnancy and miscarriage during fertility treatments. It was an earth shattering and nearly life ending event. After 2.5 years of fertility treatments we decided it was time to throw in the towel. Two months after we gave up, I got pregnant. I have continued to journal about the process of becoming a mother and hope to continue to journal as we welcome a son into the world. I have found this journal to be a wonderful place to share my journey as well as hear from friends about theirs. It is a slightly different experience becoming a mother when you are married to a pediatrician, because my husband generally knows more about babies and health than I do! :-)
Time marched on and we had 1 pregnancy and miscarriage during fertility treatments. It was an earth shattering and nearly life ending event. After 2.5 years of fertility treatments we decided it was time to throw in the towel. Two months after we gave up, I got pregnant. I have continued to journal about the process of becoming a mother and hope to continue to journal as we welcome a son into the world. I have found this journal to be a wonderful place to share my journey as well as hear from friends about theirs. It is a slightly different experience becoming a mother when you are married to a pediatrician, because my husband generally knows more about babies and health than I do! :-)
