A Personal Journey About Infertility

​It is National Infertility Awareness Week, and I wanted to bring awareness and break the horrible stigma of the subject by sharing my own story with infertility.

​One in eight couples are affected by infertility, and yet it’s still surrounded by secrecy and shame and is the number one reason why so many decide to suffer in silence. If you are one of the eight, please remind yourself that you are NOT alone in this journey. I’ve been through it, I
understand the frustration, and I’m here for you if you need me! You can also find a group that will provide the support you may need.
 
Being diagnosed with Infertility completely caught my husband and me by surprise. It was one of the most challenging things we ever endure together as a couple, and all we could do was prepared ourselves for the emotional and challenging road that was ahead of us. 
 
I decided to share my infertility issues with family and friends in hopes that I would get the emotional support that I needed, but the truth is, I still felt very alone through this journey. It's tough for people to understand what you are going through unless they’ve lived it themselves. Yes, they show you compassion and love, but they can’t relate to the pain and shame you feel inside. 
 
For me, infertility after having two children was extremely devastating. It's something that I would have never thought in a million years could happen to me. I mean, I already had two children so how can this be possible, but it was!
 
After I made the difficult decision of sharing my infertility story, I remember someone asking me, "If I already had two kids, what was the big deal if I didn’t conceive again?" I thought to myself, so because I’m already a mother, I don’t have a right to be one again or give my husband the gift of fatherhood? People don’t realize that comments like that are just plain hurtful!  It’s bad enough that I felt ashamed because I couldn’t give my husband the joy of being a father and experience the miracle of life together but, I also had to deal with people’s judgments, insensitivity, lack of understanding and compassion and this is why it is so crucial for me to raise awareness about infertility.
 
Before I met my husband, in my mind, I thought I was done having kids, but I always kept my heart open to the possibility of meeting my prince charming, and deep inside I knew that I would love to have another child if the right person came along. 
 
A few years into our relationship we started trying, but every month was disappointment after disappointment! After seven or eight months of not getting pregnant, I finally decided to see my doctor. She explained that if I did not get pregnant after a year of trying that’s when they would look further into it. Honestly, I was not pleased with her answer, so I decided to seek a second opinion from another doctor, and I’m happy I did!
 
On my first appointment with my new OBGYN, she decided to do a sonogram and found that I had a cyst on my right ovary that needed to be removed immediately. Two weeks later I had a three-hour surgery. I had the surgery three months before our wedding. As you can only imagine, my stress levels were through the roof! On my post-op appointment, my doctor told me that she was able to remove the cyst; however, I had stage four endometriosis. The good news was that the surgery was a success, but the damage from the endometriosis was so severe, that one of my fallopian tubes needed to be removed, and the other one was completely clogged and my only option of ever becoming a mother again was through IVF.
 
In my next post, I will be writing about my experience with IVF.
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​XO-Cinthia
Faith can move mountains -Mathew 17:20