I had a plan that I put together back when I was in high school that included a timeline of when I thought important events would happen in my life. The first would be a teaching job right after I graduated (check). The second would be marriage by the time I was 23 (check) and the third would be becoming a mom by the time I was 25 (no check). Two out of the three events happened, along with many other unplanned events. Fast forward to to present day - I am 32 - I am still teaching and married, but the whole starting a family thing hasn't panned out like it has for so many people I know. I am a dog mom to two adorable "dog-ters", but that wasn't the mom I was referring to when I created my timeline. Brad and I have been actively trying to get pregnant since July 2011. We took some time off here and there, but it has always been in the back of my mind.
Not getting pregnant led me in the direction of clean eating, clean living, mental health, new friendships, and a disconnection from social media. I wanted to prepare my body for pregnancy, so I learned all that I could about healthy eating, which turned into a hobby/passion of mine. I loaded up on raw whole milk, organic produce, free-range eggs, free-range meat, and threw away anything that was in a 100 calorie pack or that said fat-free. I ventured into juicing, making almond milk, sprouting nuts, reading labels on everything I bought, etc. Eating clean, made me want to live clean, so I slowly changed out our pots, pans, plates, cups, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. All of the changes I made were good, and are now still very much a part of my life, but the root of starting it all was to try and get pregnant. I decided to stop Facebook and Instagram years ago, too, because seeing all the baby posts wasn't good for me mentally. I am well aware that I have an internal clock that is ticking, and seeing all the baby posts only made that ticking noise louder. I was and am so very happy for all the people that have babies/children, but seeing that daily, wasn't helping me think positively about my own journey.
Brad and I made our first appointment to see an infertility specialist through Kaiser back in December 2015. Making the initial appointment was emotional for me, more emotional than I had planned. I had tried for years to survive off the thought that it would happen when it was meant to, and that it would happen naturally. Finally taking that first step towards treatment, exposed all those wounds I had been trying to cover up. I had numbed myself about babies. I went through transitions of how I thought and spoke throughout the passing years. Long gone were the days of me saying, "When we have kids," or, "When I'm pregnant," etc. Those sayings were slowly replaced with, "If we have kids," and were then finally replaced with no comments at all. I didn't allow myself to think about having kids because it only brought on sadness and fear. I could no longer be disappointed or sad about not having kids if I didn't let myself think about that option in the first place. I avoided the topic completely.
Deciding to see a specialist was part of my due diligence. I had and have a deep feeling inside of me that tells me I'm supposed to be a mom. I tried so very hard to ignore the feeling, but as time passed, I realized that if I hadn't decided to see a specialist, I wouldn't have been able to feel like I had done all that I could to become a mom to something other than a fur baby. And yes, I am a teacher and consider my students to be near and dear to my heart, like my fur babies, but they are not my own and that yearning to be a mom is still very much present.
Going to Kaiser for our appointment was an experience. The first thing I noticed was that the infertility department was on the same floor as OBGYN and it shared the same waiting room. There were pregnant women and babies all around. It didn't make any sense to me, and caused me to cry unexpectedly. The best comparison I can think of is having a liquor store right next to the location of an AA meeting, and the two sharing a parking lot and register/check-in desk. Why Kaiser did that, I will never know.
Meeting with our doctor, I couldn't help but feel like she was reading from a script. I shared a little about our journey with her, which made me feel vulnerable and exposed, and then she jumped right into telling us statistics about different fertility treatments. Fertility treatments were foreign to me, and because of the clean eating that I had become passionate about, all the fertility drugs scared me. She ordered tests for us and then wanted to meet again to go over them. I'll share about the tests and results in my next post.
This has been a long journey and in some ways, it is just the beginning...
