“Plenty of Time”

As promised… this is the first in a series of posts about infertility.

One of the most common misconceptions of infertility right along with “just relax and you will get pregnant” is my personal favorite “but you are too young to be infertile.” If I had a dollar for every time someone told me “but you are so young” during this journey including doctors and nurses, I probably could have paid for my infertility treatments with the money. Believe me….I understand where this misconception comes from…I’m surrounded by women in their 20s getting pregnant on their very first cycle trying, when they were being “very careful” to not get pregnant or my favorite… their husband just looked at them (still trying to figure out how that happens). I previously thought that these women were the exception to the rule (you know the “fertile myrtles”) but now I understand that they are just plain normal…they are the 9 out of 10 couples in their 20s without infertility. But what about us? What about the 1 out of 10 couples in their 20s with infertility? 1 out of 10 is significant.

Shaun and I started dating when we were 15, married at 21, and stopped using birth control right around my 22nd birthday. Not the typical timetable for most couples! When we stopped using birth control, I just knew we were going to get pregnant within a few months. It took something like 60 days for me to get my first period after birth control (of course I just “knew” I was pregnant) and my cycles after that were forever long. I had irregular cycles in college, but we weren’t having sex so I wasn’t keeping up with the amount of days between cycles. Probably about six months into having sex without birth control and my crazy cycles, I started to realize that there was a problem and that it was most definitely with me. I felt so ridiculous to care so much about having a baby when it wasn’t even the right “time” for us. Looking back I now understand why I cried so hard at the negative pregnancy tests…I was slowly realizing that something wasn’t right, and it scared the crap out of me. Even though we were young and Shaun wasn’t ready to try for a baby (which in our world meant starting clomid) mainly for money reasons, I mentioned to my gyn about my concerns. Couple tests later including a semen analysis on Shaun and our suspicions were confirmed, I didn’t ovulate and Shaun was as fertile as a bull. 23 and infertile was a tough pill to swallow. Of course I didn’t realize the extent of our infertility until much later.

Around the time of our diagnosis is when the questions started, “oh when are y’all going to have a baby?” I can remember thinking that I wish I knew the answer to that and being a little disgusted at Shaun’s “when we get our finances in order” answer. Of course what was the poor guy going to say? “Well she doesn’t ovulate so we will just have to see.” No one would have ever guessed that we would have trouble and honestly I don’t blame them for it. This is when I started to feel really alone. I struggled daily with how often my thoughts would turn to thinking about having a baby or trying to conceive. This continued to get worse over the years. What is wrong with me?? I’m in my early 20s!! Why do I care right now? I really beat myself up over this as you can see from this post. Joining the infertility blogging community was seriously one of the most wonderful blessings to me in this journey because I started to see that I wasn’t crazy…there were other girls out there just like me! Around the same time I started this blog, I also was blessed to join a support group in town. I was terrified to go to the first meeting. I knew I needed support, but I was so scared that they were going to think I was crazy for calling myself infertile at my age. I probably said, “I know I’m young” like ten times during my first meeting. They were incredibly sweet to me, and I felt an instant bond with the women in the group. I started to realize that it wasn’t about my age. I was infertile…I knew about it…I desired a child…and I needed to be there. Several meetings later a young woman with severe endometriosis came to the group for the first time that was my same age. I watched her raw emotions after a failed IVF cycle, and all of a sudden my emotions felt validated. I held her hand so tight as we prayed for God to create life in us with tears running down our faces. It was real…real pain, deep desires…nothing young or innocent about it. Through these experiences, I slowly started to accept where I was in my life. This led to more openness with our church, work, family, friends and even some acquaintances and gave us the strength to make difficult decisions about treatments.

There is nothing easy about infertility at any age…nothing comforting about having “plenty of time” when all you want is to hold your baby now. Yes statistics show a more successful response to treatment with a younger age on average, but every couple’s situation is different. My FSH number was higher than a woman in her mid 30s and a woman reaching 40 in my support group. This is a pretty good indication that my clock is tick-tocking at a much faster rate than most women my age. The friend that I mentioned above has such severe endometriosis and pain associated with that disease that she is now considering a hysterectomy after two failed IVF attempts. We aren’t guaranteed “plenty of time,” and there isn’t a perfect age to start seeking treatment or for becoming more aggressive.