Painted picture

This month is infertility and child loss awareness month.  My heart goes out to anyone who is trying to have a baby and has struggled for any length of time.  Whether you have children, or not, it is hard to want a child and not have it come easily or at all.  To those of you still venturing on this "lovely" road...keep on truckin".  For those of you who are wondering what it is like to bare they burden of infertility let me draw you a picture.  

Imagine, first of all, something you want more than anything in the world.  Some days you decide maybe I don't want a baby because the road ahead is so daunting, uncertain and full of mystery.  Still you move forward because there is this glimmer of hope that fertility treatments will work for you.  A glimmer that can often times be clouded over by the fact that nothing else has worked and you feel "broken".  

You visit the doctor and after a few months of tests and maybe some treatments the doctor finally suggests ivf.  You are heartbroken because of the amount of money you will need to find or scrounge up but you still can't imagine letting go of the dream of having your own children.  

Day one of IVF.  You don't realize this now but over the next year or more you will be poked, pinched and given ultrasounds in places you never knew was possible.  Your tummy becomes a pin cushion and covered in bruises.  You get rid of a bruise on your tummy just in time to give it another shot.  At the same time your hormones are not "normal" and you feel on edge a lot of the time.  You don't really feel like it's you inside your own body at times.  BUT...you keep moving forward with that hope.  Then comes the retrieval.  The best part of all of this is when they put you under light sedation to take those beautiful eggs out that you and your body worked so hard to grow.  You wake up and get to deal with the aftermath.  You feel nauseous, tired and sometimes sore.  All worth it...hopefully.  You wait a month or two and then retrieve again.  Then for some you implant and have to go through the 2 week waiting period to know if it was all worth the effort.  For others you get to wait another 2 or more months to start a transfer cycle.  This month consists of more birth control, a full month of shots every night as well as medication to help control EVERYTHING!  You have a million decisions to make during this month.  All of which you make while bouncing back and forth about whether your ready to have kids or if you even WANT them anymore.  Then your moment comes and it's time to transfer that embryo you've chosen and you get to wait 2 more weeks to know if it works or not. If it doesn't, for whatever reason you get to wait a few months just to be lit up with shots once again.  If it does work it is so wonderful and exciting and you STILL get to start injections or suppositories,daily, to help keep that baby safe and comfortable.  Then you get to wait 9 months for that baby to make it out safe.  The whole time you hope you are as sick as a dog with morning sickness just to be reassured that your baby is safe inside thriving.  From conception to birth the worry NEVER goes away...even after that.  

1 in 8 couples will face some sort of infertility. Infertility causes emotions in us women, and men, that we would rather not talk about. Sometimes we don't even understand it. In my experience I have felt CRAZY.   Injecting hundreds of shots into your abdomen, (most of which can cause some strange and unpleasant side effects), taking pills, ultrasounds sometimes once a day for a week...all to help our body do what the doctors need it to do to give you the best chances.  All in the hope of having a baby.  Who wouldn't that push off their rocker just a little bit?  

Understand that no matter where a person is in their own journey it is hard!  I have had to come to realize that infertility is THE trial for a lot of people.  For those who are able to have children easily maybe their trial is having children.  We all need to be patient with one another and more importantly ourselves.  

I know that as we go through these trials of infertility and child loss (or any trial in life.) we can become stronger people.  If we pray for COURAGE to accept His will,  our lives will be filled with peace.  Finding peace in such a tumultuous world is hard.  If we can do it through this trial we can find peace in any trial that is placed before us.