National Infertility Awareness Week

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. It’s a week I honestly wish I knew nothing personally about. But that’s not the case, I know all about infertility first hand. I’ve written our story about how we were blessed with Hannah and the journey it took us to get her here. At the time I felt grateful for our journey and maybe one day I will feel that way again but so far I’m just not there. This is why awareness is so important about this heartbreaking issue.

Infertility comes from many different causes. It is usually defined as a couple being unable to have a child after more than a year of trying naturally. Some people just need a little assistance and others need more. I fall under the second group.

I’m going to do another post later in the week about our struggles to conceive since the year after Hannah was born. The journey to have a second child is going VERY differently than it did with Hannah. It is 100 times harder than it was the first time and we’ve had many more unexpected struggles.

As I’ve said in the past, I’m very guarded on this blog. This is my family journal where I love documenting what we do but it’s also the internet. Even if my blog was private I wouldn’t include a lot of things that happen, but if our names and pictures weren’t on the blog that would be a different story. It’s just not the right decision for us. I don’t think I’m being fake, I’m just being private. I’ve suffered a lot of pain this year and instead of sugar coating things I usually just fall silent which is why some of you may have noticed the lack of blogging compared to the past years. There are very few people who know what we are going through right now and even less that know the day to day but now more than ever I’ve realized how important infertility awareness is because I wish more than anything that my journey to having children wasn’t this hard. But until that changes, raising awareness is the best thing we can do.

Having a child is the best blessing in life (in my opinion). Being able to get pregnant is one of the greatest privileges I’ve ever experienced. When you struggle like I have, you understand the true meaning of the word “grateful” in a way you never knew before. Infertility can strip you of that privilege and that’s one of the reasons that awareness is so important. I believe a child, no matter how they come to you whether it is from your DNA or someone else’s, is truly a miracle. I also think that all parents are grateful for their children and love them in a way they never thought possible but when you have to fight so hard like families who experience infertility it’s just a different kind of grateful. I don’t want to seem like some parents don’t love their children as much as others, I just want to express the challenges I guess. I feel very strongly that every woman should have the opportunity to have a child if that is what they wish. It’s what we are made for. It’s our right. When you are told that may not happen, it’s heartbreaking and it’s unfair. But life isn’t always fair, and sometimes it’s heartbreaking. I just hope and pray that one day women won’t have to experience this kind of heartbreak and unfairness anymore. I hope that maybe because of something I’ve experienced others won’t have to. Maybe all insurance companies will start paying to help more. Maybe something that happened to me my doctor will learn from and share with other doctors. Maybe one day the odds will be in our favor and not against us. You never know. That’s what awareness is all about.

Later this week I’ll share our story about this past year and hopefully someone will find something useful out of it. We haven’t reached our happy ending yet and it’s not wrapped up in a pretty bow but one of my favorite things about blogging is the information and relationships I’ve found by reading other peoples stories. Real life stories. Those are helpful to me so I can only hope our story will be helpful to someone else.  I’m sharing because I hope that my story will help others and raise awareness and hopefully bringing positive changes to infertility.