(in)Fertility: All-In

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Married by 25, check. Ready to start a family by 30, check-check. Done growing my family by 35…No check mark. Not even close. I was 36 and still not pregnant.

It seemed like everything I had planned for was falling apart. All the plans I had made, adjusting my career to follow my husband’s so that I could stay home with our babies. Setting up our entire life’s timeline around starting a family. All of this planning was a complete and utter waste.

I felt like my body had failed me. Or I had failed it. I was in the depths of the infertility valley and I was grappling with feelings of inadequacy and defeat. I felt alone in my struggles.

At some point I realized I needed to find a community. I needed to learn more. I started to research, learning all I could about the hand I had been dealt. I needed to find a way to pull myself up out of the pit and while my faith was a major part of keeping the long-lasting depression at bay, I also knew I needed to take some sort of action.

I needed to feel like I was accomplishing something. Doing some kind of good, changing for the better, even though I was at such a low point in the valley. I took it upon myself to push through the pain, learn and educate myself, and eventually use my own experience to help others in any way I could.

That started here, with this blog, Country Wife Chronicles. Then it became sharing my story by way of other avenues—other blogs, social media, Bible study, and even writing a devotional, Streams in the Wasteland.

Now it is sharing my story as a chapter of a book on the subject, titled (In)Fertility: Secrets, Struggles, & Successes. Here is a brief snippet of my chapter, all about my all-in approach to fertility, Intentional Fertility.

Once I accepted that my pain, my health issues, my infertility, had a cause and a name, endometriosis, I found power in that knowledge. I dove into learning all that I could about endometriosis and its impact on fertility. Specifically, what, if anything, I could do or change in my daily life to make a difference in my healing. I explored all possible paths to becoming a mama—domestic adoption, international adoption, adopting through foster care, and IVF. My husband and I prayed, intensely, for guidance.

While I was placing a whole lot of faith in God to bring me complete healing from endometriosis and fulfill the desires of my heart to become a mama someday soon; I decided that I wanted to do my part while I waited on God to do His. I became consumed with researching and replacing all things plastic in our home. I learned more about how we could tweak our diet and include whole foods to improve our chances of naturally conceiving. I explored DIY fertility massage, acupuncture, and the use of essential oils for fertility.

I became committed to do everything in my power to provide the best environment for my body to conceive a baby naturally, as God intricately designed it to, or at least set it up for success in the event that we would need to pursue IVF. But I also knew, deep down, that the whole baby-making thing wasn’t in my hands…it was in His. I was intentional about allowing room for God to work in my life while I began to make small shifts towards improving my fertility.

I implemented my own holistic approach to healing from endometriosis and improving our odds of conceiving with or without the assistance of IVF and I prayed for healing daily. I made massive changes with nutrition, exercise, and self-care. I prioritized building up my marriage and I worked at strengthening my faith and my resolve. I was shifting into a natural, nontoxic lifestyle with an “all-in” approach to the natural conception game that I began to refer to as Intentional Fertility.

I waited a few months before I felt the courage to share my story of endometriosis and infertility on the pages of my blog. But I was still very much in the valley at the time of writing those blog posts. My heart was still yearning to become a mama.

Writing those blog posts helped heal parts of myself I didn’t realize still needed healing. They helped to organize my thoughts and even prepare me in creating my own Intentional Fertility plan. I devoted myself to learning everything I could to help my situation improve.

Now, over two years after I fell pregnant by way of natural conception, I am sharing my story in this book. To help support other mothers-in-waiting.

I so desire the opportunity to make a difference for others facing similar circumstances. I pray that my story will help other wanna-be-mamas process their infertility experience and help them pursue their path to motherhood. The valley of infertility is a deep one. It can be incredibly overwhelming, traumatic even. It rocks us to our core and pushes us beyond our boundaries, often mentally, emotionally, and even physically.

No matter what you had envisioned when you started trying for your family, no matter what you had planned and prepared for, infertility stretches you. It makes you look at your plan and goals through a different lens. It pushes you to go beyond what you had planned for and find a new route to your goal. It makes you search for the Streams in the Wasteland.

I never planned for infertility to be a part of my story. It has pushed me beyond what I thought I was capable of in sharing this part of my life. I am a private person, a self-proclaimed introvert. But this book is beyond what I want, there is a bigger picture at play here. I feel called to share my story in an effort to help other women who are in the shoes I was in not so long ago.

If that is something you are searching for, or if you know someone that needs that kind of support and community surrounding infertility, would you please share this book with them? I could not be more proud to be a part of such a collaboration, and I so wish I had this book to reference when I was walking the valley of infertility.

Be Still & Know…