April Fool's Day for the Infertile

There are many difficult days in the life of a couple facing infertility.  Going to the grocery store, doctor's offices, and to church can be brutal.  It's not like you can become a hermit and not face the world outside your home.

I was exposed to infertility through my sister-in-law's journey to conceive when I first met Brandon.  She was so open to share with me, but I still did not understand her feelings and desire to have a child.  It took Brandon and I being married and experiencing month after month of negative pregnancy tests to finally know how she felt.  Our two journeys were so different, but we both pursued IVF to expand our families.  She endure multiple attempts along the way to conceive her now almost 4 year old son.

Brandon and I were lucky in our journey that our first FET attempt was successful.  There are no "givens" when going through treatment, and you're constantly hoping and praying to be one of the positive statistics.

That brings me to this day.  I love practical jokes as much as the next person, but joking about being on pregnant on April Fool's Day is cruel.  On this day last year, I had just recovered from my second reproductive surgery and was waiting through a 6-week time period to begin IVF.  Our initial plan to start the IVF process had already been cancelled and both Brandon and myself were devastated.  When I saw on Facebook that day that people who I knew were joking about being pregnant...  wow.  There are no words.    Would you joke about having cancer?  Would you joke about having any other disease?  Most individuals who have not struggled to conceive children have no idea that INFERTILITY IS DEFINED AS A DISEASE OF THE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM by the World Health Organization (WHO).

I gave up Facebook for Lent and it was easier than I had imagined.  Writing here is more important to me.  I've struggled about making too many posts (on FB) about being pregnant, because those posts broke my heart when we were trying to get pregnant.  There are no ultrasound pictures or intentional pregnancy bump photos of myself on my page.  I have chosen to keep all of that within my blog.  My readers/followers must choose to look at my posts or pictures.  It doesn't hurt my feelings to lose a follower because I've "unfollowed" my fair share of blogs throughout the course of our infertility journey.

Just because I am pregnant and awaiting my daughter's arrival does not mean that I am still not plagued with negative thoughts from infertility each day.  It's not something that you just get over.  There's no magical cure-not even having a child.