I have a story to tell. It does not have a happy ending. But, perhaps, it has no ending at all. Perhaps we are still in the middle of the story, and this is just the hard part. This is the story of the past seven years, which I will share in segments over a series of posts. This first post was an essay I submitted to The Fertility Center as a part of their "Fertility Diaries" contest. Though I did not win anything from it, it gave me the opportunity to write down my experience and it was therapeutic to recount our history. And now, I share it with you.



Life. Life was not a choice we were given. It was a gift. A gift and a treasure, set into our hands from a time beyond our earliest memories. Life is the greatest gift and to be a giver of life to others is the greatest of joys. That was my desire: to bring new life into the world and to raise up children who would make a positive impact in the lives of others. Life is hard, though, and we often find ourselves in situations we had not desired and that are outside of our control. Though troubles and hardship may come unbidden, we have but one responsibility. In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, "all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." My time on this earth has been full of joy, but also full of hardship, pain and sorrow. This is a story of my life, of my desire to bring new life into the world and a peek into my journey as I daily decide what to do with the time given to me.

Life has given me a number of opportunities to learn how to live well in the midst of hardship, and I am no stranger to finding myself in unwanted circumstances. In 2003, at the ripe age of 18, just a couple of weeks before my high school graduation, I went to the hospital with excruciating pelvic pain. The result was an emergency surgery for a large ovarian cyst, which was contorting and cutting off the blood supply to my ovary. Much to my dismay, I awoke from surgery to find that not only had they taken the cyst, but my right ovary and fallopian tube, as well. "Don't worry," the doctors said. "You still have your other ovary and it will compensate for the loss of the one. You'll have no problem having kids someday." Though upset about losing an organ, I was happy to be pain-free and glad to know it wouldn't have lasting implications on my health.

Just a year later, a freshman in college, I presented with unusual, persistent and worsening pain in my hands and feet, followed by pain in nearly every part of my body. I was soon was diagnosed with rheumatoid disease -- a chronic autoimmune illness that attacks the body's own healthy cells. It has been a long journey with lots of ups and downs, but I am happy to say that my rheumatoid disease has been steady for several years now with minimal symptoms. My doctor assured me that we can work through family planning, and with my disease well under control, it shouldn't impact my fertility.

Young adulthood, despite these medical challenges, was good. I graduated college a year early and a year later married my best friend. My husband, Tom, and I met when I was just 16 years old. We started dating when I was 18 and he walked with me through the uncertainties in my health. In 2007, we were married and started our new life together. We always envisioned having children and had discussed potential complications given my health, but doctors said the outlook was good. Tom and I bought our first house together, he returned to school to finish his undergraduate degree and I enjoyed getting into my career in marketing. I started a garden, joined women's ministries at church and became active with a non-profit advocating for others with rheumatoid disease. Life was good. In 2012, once Tom finished his degree, we decided it was time to think about growing our family. I didn't want to be too old of a mom, you see. I thought I'd like to have a couple of kids in my late 20s and be done by the time I was 30. It was a great plan, I thought. And God laughed.

I had already watched friends struggle with infertility and despite the doctors' reassurances, I had always suspected that as a possibility for myself. So, I was not discouraged when we did not get pregnant right away. "Just relax, enjoy this time, and sooner or later it will happen," I thought to myself. After a year and a half, it hadn't happened. But, life got busy, life got stressful, and we decided it was time for a break from trying to conceive -- time to re-center our marriage and refocus our lives. We took a year off, and during that time, we adopted our first dog -- our first living being to love and care for together. It was wonderful. We took time for ourselves and explored several countries together overseas. We got back to a healthy place and decided from there to continue our journey to grow our family.

This time, I didn't wait long before going in to the doctor. After six more months of trying, plus a year and a half prior to that, I thought it was time to seek out options. My OB/GYN prescribed Clomid and progesterone to try to optimize my cycles. We tried this for several months to no avail. We had diagnostic tests. I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I had a laparoscopy. Our friends had kids. We lost our dog. We cried. We adopted a new dog. We laughed. We tried the fertility drugs again. We tried natural cycles again. Our friends had more kids. We cried some more. We laughed some more. And on it went. For four years. Some seasons were harder than others and there was occasionally a sense of being "left behind" as the lives of those around us moved into new stages and ours seemed at a standstill. But still I thought, "We need to just enjoy this time for what it is. If I can just be patient and keep waiting, it will eventually happen." And so we waited. And I hoped.

Hope. Hope is a fragile thing. Easily crushed. Quickly dashed. But it is a wellspring of life, and it is what we cling to when we have nothing else left. It keeps us going. Until it doesn't.

I hit my wall last November. I was on a mission last fall: to try three more cycles of Clomid and progesterone, to be as healthy as I could be, and to do one last push through the end of the year to conceive naturally. If nothing happened, I would consider other options I had been closed to before. But those three months did not go as planned. I began experiencing intense abdominal pain following my dose of Clomid. I took pain medicine. It did nothing. I endured, but my hope waned and I began to despair. My endometriosis, I assumed, had flared. It would calm down next month, wouldn't it? Negative. Progressive pelvic pain left me limping along, literally and figuratively, as I tried to navigate next steps. I did not want to do IVF. I could not endure this pain. I wanted to grow my family. Infant adoption was off the table. We were not prepared to handle an older child. What was I to do? I was trapped in a limbo of indecision and uncertainty. At some point in this time, I had started a simple journal -- not with my own thoughts, but with simple words of truth -- Bible verses that spoke to me and met me where I was at. As I began to focus on these words, to re-center my mind and calm my soul, the veil of despair slowly lifted, and I began to move forward.

I had already scheduled an appointment with The Fertility Center, which began our path to explore other fertility options. After more diagnostics and testing and appointments and questions and answers and increasing pelvic pain, we finally decided two things this spring. First, I was done trying to conceive naturally. I needed to take care of my body, do another laparoscopy, find out what's wrong and control the pain. I grieved, for this was the end of what I had really wanted. Two, we would proceed with IVF as our last chance at having biological children. I dared to hope, for while this is not the situation in which I wanted to be, we still have a chance to grow our family. Our procedure was scheduled for June. Having made the decision lifted another weight off of me. It is out of my hands. It will work, or it will not, and either way, I will be at peace. A door will open as a way into the life I had dreamed of, or a door will close, forcing us down a different, though not lesser, path.

I sit here writing this on the very day of my IVF nurse consultation. When we arrived home after the appointment, I saw in my front yard a bright yellow daffodil -- the very first one of the season. It was a perfect picture of the hope that has sprung up within me: the hope of new life. It reminded me also that my life is a gift, and that even if I do not become a mother, I can still be a life giver -- by pouring into people, by being an encouragement, a friend, a listening ear or a helping hand. My life is a gift as well as a responsibility. Whatever may come, my prayer is that I may I use my time on this earth to bring life to others.

Click here to read parts two and three of our story.