I will likely ugly cry while I write this, but I want to give hope and let those who are struggling with IF right now know that some (in fact many) do find their dreams. Please hold and don’t give up! Take breaks if needed, but hold onto hope.  Growing up I knew I had Endo, but as a teen and in my early 20^th I figured WHATEVER. I wasn’t until I got married and we decided we wanted a baby right away that I really thought about my endo. We tried and tried. I had all the stupid apps on my phone. I took my temp every morning before I even moved. I attended heartbreaking baby shower after stupid annoying heartbreaking baby shower. I watched all my friends have their first and many have their 2^nd babies. I did my best to be fake happy for them… but I was so sad, so broken, so unhappy. My marriage suffered, I had miscarriages. My DH just didn’t get the pain. But really, he was just feeling a different pain that I also could not understand because I was so deep in my own sadness.

We did IUI’s and popped pills and ran more tests and had so much scheduled sex. We did this for years! We discussed adoption and fought about it all the time!!! It was so hard. Life was not good. We did IVF it failed. We couldn’t afford it, but we did it again. My younger sibling started families. I was an aunty over and over again. I again was fake happy and would cry myself to sleep all the time. I avoided the annoying rude family who would ask me constantly why we don’t have kids yet (I still kinda hate them).  The end was near, we had one frozen embryo left. I was convinced we just needed to get it over with and move on with our lives.

Not sure what that meant at the time. But I had convinced myself it was just over and we needed to transfer that last embryo and decide what we would do next. Maybe sell the stupid big house with empty bedrooms and move to a condo in the city. I didn’t know what we would do next because having a baby was all I had thought about for so so long. For years and years a baby and a family was the plan!  My life had been on hold for so long I don’t know how to think of anything else.

Well the transfer works! I got a BFP. I didn’t even tell DH. I figured there was no point because I would just have a MC in a few weeks anyway. But I didn’t. I didn’t have an MC. So at 7 weeks I told DH and he was convinced I was getting my hopes up again only to be let down. So we didn’t talk about it, we didn’t get excited. IF has made us so jaded we didn’t want to even talk about it anymore. But at 10 weeks we kinda had too talk about it. I booked a doc appoint. I was still pregnant. I have never made it to 10 weeks. We had actively tried for well over 5 years and never made it this far. The Ultra sound tech and Docs all said it all looked good. At 15 weeks we were still nervous every day. At 16 weeks a lady a work asked if I was pregnant. I didn’t know what to say. So I just said “I think so”! Then I text DH that people are noticing, we need to tell our families. So we told everyone over email because we were afraid to actually talk about it openly. But at 20 weeks we started to believe this might happen. We might have a baby! We were in shock… but so happy. Things started to get real and fast. We went shopping for some stuff and picked which room could be the nursery. We started to plan. It was surreal! My sister hosted a baby shower which I insisted be small, because I had hated showers for so long I was not even sure I wanted one at all. We got a crib and that was a real game changer for us. That made it real. We were so excited. We picked out names. Suddenly the years of suffering (which left scares seemed a distant memory).

On March 8^th 2013 I had a baby. His name is Luke and he was and amazing little baby. He still is amazing. He is in kindergarten now, has lots of friends and a strong opinion about everything. When Luke was 2 was wasn’t feeling good so I went to the Doc and I he asked me to take a pregnancy test. I didn’t really think about it… and 10 mins later I found out Luke would be a Big Bro. In 2015 Cole was born. Cole is my free-spirited son, who never follows the rules but gives the best hugs and plays so well with his cousins.

At one point I never thought I would be a Mom. I still don’t know how Cole is here. That is just a miracle. But he completes our family. DH and I are better parents because of IF.  We have such a strong relationship because of IF. I believe we could survive anything after dealing with all that we do deal with just to become parents. We worked so hard for something that comes so easy to others and everyday we know we are better people and better parents because of our struggles.   

So don’t give up hope. Hold on… do what you need to do to protect yourself. Skip the baby showers. Cry and cry. Avoid family if needed. Go to counselling, so whatever helps or whatever help that day. But hold on. Please hold on. It can happen.