Hello my name is Callie and I am an infertility survivor. I remember when I was a little girl…maybe ten talking to my Aunt Donna in her kitchen. All I ever wanted was children. I mean I was dead set on being a Kindergarten teacher, and I was. I remember looking at her and saying out loud my biggest fear in life was to not be able to have children.
Infertility hit me. I knew it was there all along. In my first marriage before we even tried I remember asking the doctor. I was 25. Could I have a fertility problem? No she said-your cycles are regular, you have no signs. It hit me. We tried for a year and nothing. Then he came home and said he didn’t want children…it was over.
I moved on and grew and fell in love. I married and amazingly got pregnant just like that…not even trying. Then it hit me. I bled, I miscarried. Two months later I was pregnant again. It hit me. Two days later I miscarried. My doctor told me it was bad luck. I didn’t need a specialist. Not until I miscarried again. I left and never came back.
I started seeing a reproductive endocrinologist, I took pills, and did tests, and nothing came up. I did IUI’s and got pregnant and miscarried. It hit me over and over again.
Four years in we got pregnant again….and there was a heartbeat, and I held my breath, but the heartbeat was still there. I held my breath. We went to our regular doctor. Let’s do an ultrasound she said, there’s your baby she said, and then silence. Our baby had died. It hit me.
My doctor told me in the next consultation that I would never have a child of my own. I shouldn’t even try IVF. In that moment I died. My whole life fell to pieces. I was broken and alone,even though he was right beside me, and even though HE was right beside me.
My life changed in that moment. In all of those moments. Infertility changes you-forever. Those around you too. People are silent,they don’t know what to say and worse they don’t want it to happen to them.
I prayed, I followed, I listened, I believed, I sacrificed,I trusted. That alone did not get her here. I fought-we fought-he encouraged and agreed and was willing-my love and partner.
People ask me,”How can you keep going”? I say what choice do I have?
Through it all she is here, my child, our child.
I have often been asked how can you believe with everything you have been through. The loss, the IUI’s, the IVF’s failed time and time again. If your God was real He wouldn’t let this happen. I look at our Row and think my body was broken. She wasn’t meant to be, yet she is here. My eyes looking into my eyes. There is my God.
You never get over infertility. It changes you. I pray that no one has to struggle the way we did and do. My heart still yearns for more children. I pray that my struggle may help others. That my diagnosis and treatment will help those to follow. That the children I lost were ushered into Heaven through my sacrifice and pain. That my body and heart was strong enough to be their vessel. It was the greatest gift I could give.
If you’re struggling my heart and hope is with you. Keep fighting. If you know someone struggling be there, it’s okay to say I don’t know what to say, I’m sorry. Silence is so painful.
You can survive. You may not know where your journey ends. It may not be the way you hoped or planned. One way it will end though. My heart is with you.