I am 1 in 8.

I have unexplained secondary infertility.  I have one miracle and I thank God every day for the blessing he is in my life. I do not take it for granted that he is a miracle and that I have NO idea how we actually were able to conceive him with all of the other unexplained issues we had after he was born. Infertility was one of the hardest, longest, most isolating trial that I’ve ever been through. I’m no stranger to trials, but this one almost broke me, as a woman there is nothing more heart wrenching  than to not be able to be a mother.

All I ever wanted was be a mother.

All I ever dreamed of was having a daughter of my own.

That dream did not become a reality, and finally, after many, many years of pain and heartbreak, it’s OK!

I learned a long time ago that life doesn’t always work out the way we want it to work out and it’s not EVER fair.  I’ve also learned that sometimes that is the BEST answer there is.  I married young and it took us 3.5 years to have our son. We tried for over 10 years to have another one. We did several rounds of Clomid {that stuff messed me up!}, we went to multiple Dr’s, we saw a specialist, and started the process several times, each time as we were moving forward, we knew the answer was to NOT do anything more. I did not understand it at the time. I cried many, many tears. I begged and pleaded with God to give us another miracle. I lost part of who I was because I couldn’t have another child. I hated mother’s day. I didn’t celebrate pregnancies or baby showers. I was angry and hurt and didn’t think that I would ever be good enough. I felt unloved, unworthy and totally completely alone. I felt like I was being punished for something that I must have done to deserve this. It was a very, very dark time in my life.

After one particularly hard doctors appointment, I sat in my car and sobbed for over an hour. When I was finally able to calm down, I drove home and crawled into bed and didn’t get out the remainder of the weekend. I didn’t care anymore.  I knew that I could NOT do treatments, I mentally was NOT able to handle it, I knew that I was severely depressed, I knew that I was not going to receive the answer that I wanted and I was so angry that it all had to be SO DANG HARD. {thankfully I had angels looking out for me and they got me the help I needed}!!

But, my infertility did not go away once I was on depression treatments or seeing a therapist, I thought I would never be able to be happy or find joy unless I could have another child and since that was proving to be impossible, I had to do some serious soul searching. I needed to figure out HOW to LIVE even though this trial was not ever going away.

Those were some of the hardest and darkest years of my life.

It wasn’t until many, many years later, after thousands of tears, so may prayers that I can’t even count, and literally begging God to change this trial for me that I looked back and realized that little by little, VERY slowly, and one tiny moment at a time, my broken heart had been healed. It wasn’t that I didn’t WANT to have another baby, I still TOTALLY DID and would have taken one at any moment. The difference was that the hole in my heart had been filled. God had changed me. I still yearned for a baby, but the soul crushing, life altering pain was not as intense and I started to recognize that I could feel joy and happiness again.

It still took many years to be at peace with MY plan, but as I look back on the events of my life and as I think about where we are now, being a divorced single mom, I KNOW WITHOUT ANY DOUBT that this WAS the right path for our family. I am at complete peace that this was my path and that God knew the end from the beginning. He knew what was to come, he knew how it would change me and he KNEW that I could find peace, happiness and joy again EVEN THOUGH the answer was NO.

This boy is my world. He makes me laugh, he makes me so angry I want to scream, he breaks my heart and he gives the best hugs. He is funny, sarcastic, witty and such a light in my life. He is worth being happy for. He is enough, and I never, EVER want him to feel like he is not enough.

For those of you still struggling, for those who are just starting the journey, for all of the wanna-be-mom’s out there, PLEASE remember this:

God LOVES you!!! You are his daughter and he wants nothing more than to give you your hearts’ desires, but sometimes that is not what is best.

He does NOT want you to lose yourself through the trial of  infertility.

He wants you to know that YOU ARE ENOUGH!!

You did not do anything wrong.

You are not being punished.

You ARE good enough to be a mother, you are wonderful, beautiful and He has a plan SPECIFICALLY FOR YOU!!!

It is NOT fair that so many of us know the pain of infertility and child loss. It’s not fair that we must grieve month after month after month for that which is not to be, and for that which is too painful to talk about. It is not fair, and that’s ok.

I read this on a blog post long ago, and it still touches my heart today:

“I find myself saying ‘it’s not fair’ so often, and then one day I realized that the biggest blessing in our lives is that it’s not fair. If it were all fair, we would have had to have suffered in the garden and on the cross just like Jesus did so that He could say that it’s fair. But since we didn’t have to suffer, it really isn’t fair, and that’s a miracle.”

It totally gave me a new perspective on my infertility. At least for today. How many times I’ve said “it’s not fair” to my husband is beyond me. Each time somebody announces a pregnancy. Each time somebody announces a second, or a third pregnancy. Each time somebody gets pregnant accidentally. I always seem to echo that same phrase. But now I realized that it isn’t fair. Nothing’s fair. And if it were I would have suffered far worse pain. What a miracle that this life doesn’t play by the rules that says everything has to be fair. Infertility is awful. And though some would argue, I think there are worse things. And if life were fair then everybody would be infertile, and we’d all have bigger things to deal with.

So this week, I’m going to try to refrain from using that phrase in a negative way. This week I’m going to try to say,

“It’s not fair and I’m so glad”.