I want to tell a story, my story.
In my story there have been happy moments and very sad moments, none the less, it is mine. I am typically a private person, especially when I comes to my personal life.
I share because if I can help encourage or relate to just one person, It is all worth sharing.
I am a 27year old married woman of four years, and have no children. This is not by choice, this is just a fact.
My husband Jon and I met working at a children's shelter. He worked the over night shifts and I worked full time during the day. Being short handed I was asked to cover numerous over night shifts. On these shifts I was trained by Jon on the rules and procedures of the night shift. I slowly got to know Jon during these shifts. Not to long after we started working together, Jon was moved to a full time day position. Jon and I began to work as a team to ensure that we were meeting all expectations from our supervisor. Slowly Jon and I began to realize how much we enjoyed one another's company.
Now let me go back for a minute and share something with you. When we started working together, I was in a long term relationship and was engaged. Jon was also in a relationship. My other relationship began to strain and Jon and my friendship was growing stronger.
After working together close to six months, I realized that I had a very tough decision to make. I had very strong feelings for two people. It was then that I made one of the toughest decisions of my life. I chose to end my engagement and risk everything for a relationship that may or may not be successful.
Needless to say, I had made the right decision. Jon and I started dating in March 2009, got engaged in October 2009, and married in December 2009. Yes you read that correct. We were married by the end of that year.
Now lets get into why I am telling you this story. Once married, we were always asked the dreaded questions: Do you have kids? Why not? When are you going to try? Don't you want kids? And so on... My go to answer was always, we have a lot of kids we care for. You see, we could have up to ten kids placed at one time at the shelter. Not having children of our own allowed us to spend quality time with those in care. We always said that we could play, laugh with, and cry with these children then go home and just be us. We were both On-Call and worked many hours. We did not really have the time to stop and think about this too often.
As much as we loved being us, there was something missing. Most of our friends had children or were having children. We became "that couple." The couple who didn't "understand" what it meant to be a
parent. The couple who would "not enjoy" hanging out with those with children and were often left when they planned activities.
We both love children and enjoy doing things with other couples who have children, however, we learned that they were right. It was difficult to find things to talk about because their world revolved around their children. We became aunt and uncle to our friends children and continued to be the childless couple.
After realizing that we were "that couple" we began to discuss our options.
Our options
As mentioned earlier, most people are quite curious as to why we don't have children. The most common question we are asked is, "are you trying to have kids or are you using something. We all know that this is politically correct way to ask someone if they are using a form of birth control. My answer became, "well, we are not, not trying to get pregnant."
Not to provide more info than you want, but I believe it is important to mention here. We have never used anything to prevent a pregnancy, from day one. I have woman in my family who have had difficulty conceiving and I didn't want to prevent anything if I had a chance of conceiving. Jon and I agreed to this prior to getting married.
Let's get medical.
So we all know that a woman has to meet with a gynecologist once a year. In one of my visits we discovered that I have PCOS. This stands for poly cystic ovarian syndrome. The doctor told us that among many of the symptoms, it can also cause infertility.
This was very difficult to hear. I knew that for some reason I was not getting pregnant, but to have it said out loud was a lot to hear. Jon and I prayed about it and allowed her to discuss our options with us. The doctor told us that it is possible to become pregnant with PCOS, however, there is a greater risk if losing the child then a normal pregnancy. The doctor then told us that we could also try fertility. She said that with fertility, it will increase my chances of getting pregnant, but will still have the risk of it terminating.
Along with PCOS, a woman's cycle can become very irregular. One of the first signs a woman has of being pregnant is a missed period. With PCOS, a woman may go months without one. Let me tell you, this only makes things more difficult. I cannot tell you the number of at home pregnancy tests that I have taken. Can you imagine wanting to get pregnant and having to read the words "not pregnant" each time you feel nauseous and get a little hopeful? I also want to say that this not only became difficult but personal. I felt that it wasn't fair to Jon to have to know each time I took a test. Why should both us of have to experience this sadness right? I began to buy the tests after work, bring them home in my purse, take them, and hide the evidence. I would wrap in paper and bury it in the bottom of the trash. This like all plans did have its flaws. Jon did find a piece of the wrapper or the instructions on the floor that had fallen from the box a few times. If this happened, I played it off and told him that I felt sick and was just checking.
At one point in this process I began to really have trouble being irregular and had a lot if lower pelvic pain. The doctor asked to put me on birth control. I argued with her and explained that I was against birth control and did not want to take it. The pain worsened and I gave in and agreed to take it. I took the birth control for one month and stopped. I could not make myself take it any longer. I wanted to get pregnant, not prevent it!
Jon and I decided to pray about our options and see what happened. Over the next year we did not conceive and did not talk much on the subject.
We are very spontaneous people and enjoy doing things last minute. We took trips, went out to eat when we pleased, and bought what we wanted to own. We were two people who enjoyed just being us.
After a year went by, we started to discuss our options. Do we try fertility? Adoption? Foster Care?
The first option we discussed was fertility. Please hear me out, this is our opinion on the matter and was our personal choice.
I believe that if I was meant to have a child, I would have one. We are Christians and believe that God had a plan for us. If his plan is not for me to get pregnant, we were not going to question or try to change that. We have both family and friends who have beautiful children from IVF. We just decided that this was not for us. I also felt that I would not be able to emotionally handle losing a child during this process.
Foster Care is what we discussed next. This would be very similar to what we were already doing at work. We decided that we would not have the time or energy to give a child in care who would desperately need it. We decided that we would discuss this later in life if we felt that it was an option.
Adoption was the last thing we discussed. Jon and I have both received extensive training in attachment disorders. These disorders often effect those who are adopted. We both felt that we have the training necessary to raise a child who may have an attachment disorder. We also did the research on the laws surrounding adoption and the different types of adoption that exist. We decided that this may be an option down the line if we could not conceive a child.
With discussing all of these options and trying to decide what was best for us, life continued to move quickly around us. Days turned to weeks and we stopped discussing these options all together.
Things started to look up
Last year things began to look hopeful for us. Jon and I were asked if we would consider a private adoption. We had a woman we knew who was pregnant with a child that she did not wish to keep. That is all I will say about these details.
Anyways, we were asked to adopt. We prayed that God do what is best for this child. We found a lawyer, began to get ready for a home study, and began to make small purchases as it got closer to the due date. The closer the date got, the more we purchased.
We knew that adoptions are never certain and that they can fail at any time. We said at the beginning that we would purchase very little until it got closer to the due date.
We had our family and church praying for this baby and what was best. We had friends getting us gifts and things that they had when their children were babies. We never prayed and asked that we receive this child. We always prayed that God do what is best.
We also chose a name. He was a baby boy.
I want to pause and tell you that when writing this I paused at this point for close to 9 months. I got here and could not go on. I did not want to write it down, that made it more real. So why continue? I explain at the end. So here it goes:
Let the floor fall from beneath our feet
This last section has a story within the story. You see in December I had a positive pregnancy test. Yes thats right, i was pregnant. We were so excited and scared. (The photo below is an actual photo I took that night).
I remember taking the test, as I did so many other times, right before I took a bath. I picked up the test expecting those two little words: not pregnant. I could not believe what I was seeing! The test said pregnant. I jumped up, grabbed a towel, and ran into the living room with Jon. I remember shaking so hard I could barely walk. I was crying and laughing at the same time when I handed it to him. Jon looked just as shocked as I did. I told him that I only had one test and wanted to take more.
Now we don't live in the city. So around 10pm there is nothing open near us but a Walmart in the next town. Let me tell you, those were the longest 45 minutes! Over the next hour I tested positive on two more tests.
Our first thought was how can we raise two babies at once? Maybe this is God telling us that the adoption will fall through and we are having our own biological child. The days went by and I had my doctor confirm I was pregnant. She said that my count was very low and she sent me to get an ultrasound immediately. During this test I was told that they did not see anything. I was then told that this was normal IF I was only a few weeks along.
I was then sent to a specialist and had blood work every week. The count was not raising. We were told that I was more than likely having an abnormal pregnancy. She said that my body may abort it naturally or I would have to allow the doctors to terminate it due to health risks. The doctor explained that if there was a fetus growing, the test were showing that it was outside my uterus. The other thing that could have happened is that my body had already terminated it.
A few weeks after testing positive I went to the ER. I was bleeding and was not feeling well. My doctor told me to go straight to the ER. I was told again that I was experiencing an abnormal pregnancy. The doctor said that my blood count was low and he thought that my body was terminating this pregnancy. The weeks to follow contained more lab work. The doctor said that my numbers were dropping and I would eventually stop testing positive. She said that the body had to realize on its own that it was not pregnant.
So here I was, months from first testing positive, no baby, and having all of the symptoms of being pregnant. I gained weight, my hormones were crazy, I felt sick, and I was exhausted. The doctors told me that my body would naturally realize that I was no longer pregnant. Eventually all of these things slowly went away.
We only told our parents, siblings, and a few close friends about this experience. It was too difficult to share at the time. We felt as if it was our burden to bear. We found out days before Christmas and told both parents Christmas Eve that I was pregnant. Through tears and laughs we were all so happy. Telling them that it had terminated was very difficult. Neither of our parents have pressured us about having grandchildren but we knew how excited they were.
Now I know you have the same question we did: is this a sign that I can or cannot get pregnant?
The doctor told me that there was no way to tell. She said that a lot of woman have abnormal pregnancies and never even know it. She said that this is a sign that I can indeed get pregnant naturally, however, did not necessarily mean that all would be abnormal. She then advised that I come back in the near future for fertility testing to determine if and what problems I may have getting pregnant other than the PCOS. This will definetly be in the future. I am not ready for more bad news.
At least we are still adopting right?
So we just found out that the pregnancy was abnormal and had terminated. I cry as I type this with unsteady hands. The emotions are still very real and sitting on the surface.
I prayed that I know God has a plan and that I was not sure I would emotionally be ok if the adoption failed. I thought surely God would not allow that to happen. His plan must be for us to adopt.
I was wrong.
At the beginning of 2013, weeks after the pregnancy terminated, we got the news that the mother was keeping her baby. He was to be born in a month.
Through our tears we prayed that this baby be kept safe and raised as a Christian. This was all we could do. You would think that this was the most difficult part of this right? Being told that you were no longer going to get this child? Not for me. Having to tell our family, friends, having a nursery ready, having the name picked out... This was the reality. This was the most difficult for me. This occurred in the end of 2012 early 2013.
Jon and I decided that we would just be us for a while and allow our hearts to heal. We closed the door of the nursery and tried to pretend that we were ok.
We were not ok.
It took a while before we could discuss what had happened. We asked our friends and family to please not discuss it around us or to ask us questions. We had to tell people on our time.
I would be a liar if I said that I did not question God and ask him why he allowed all of this to happen to us. I would pray and cry and ask why this happened on a daily basis when I was alone. Eventually I stood back up and prayed for forgiveness. I know that God would not allow us to go through something that we could not handle.
We both have our days where we have to encourage the other one.
I have heard of people who have failed adoptions and know people who have had miscarriages. These are just words if you have not experienced them. Yes we always have empathy and sympathy for those who are hurting but I will tell you that these losses were that hardest thing that I have been through. I know that I could not have done this without my faith and Jon.
Jon is my rock and definitely balance one another out.
God did have a plan.
In March 2013 a baby moved in with Jon and I. If we had not already had a nursery set up, I don't know how we could have done this. She was 4months old. The details of this are not important and cannot be discussed, only know that Jon and I were truly blessed to by this precious little girl.
It is 2014 now and this sweet baby girl is now 14 months old. We are in the process of adoption! We are too far in the process for it to fail and are counting the days until it becomes official.
I thank my God everyday for this blessing. Without my faith I would not have been able to pick myself back up and take care of myself, much less a baby.
I'm not going to tell you that everything is perfect and we lived happily ever after. We are a family who lives one day at a time with a goal of pleasing our Maker. Somedays are really difficult and others we can't believe this is our life now.
Please feel free to comment or share anything you want to share. I would like to one day expand on this story and publish a book to encourage families who are struggling with these issues. My idea is to lead with this story then follow it with short stories of others and how they have or maybe have not managed to continue to live life after a failed adoption, miscarriage, loss of a child, or infertility.
If this has reached you and you have a short story that you would like to share you can email it to me at thisismystorytoshare@gmail.com
Please sign with your first name and state or the word anonymous and your state. If I get a response I will post on here in a new post.
Beth
