She Said...

Where to begin? I love my husband. We want children but we can not have a biological child. We are going to adopt. We have been fighting for the past year.

Exactly one year ago this month was our first of what would become six unsuccessful donor IUIs. For the past year we have been battling infertility on our own. I use the word battling on purpose. I do try to use positive words, like challenge instead of problem, but I do believe it is a battle. You must be strong. You must be well-prepared. You must be able to accept defeat and try another day. And it does leave scars.

Two weeks into our testing we learned that DH was sterile. Not the type of azoospermia that can be treated with hormone replacement, or the one with maybe you find a "baby sperm" down there that can be used in a bazillion to one chance of one sperm/one egg/outside the body treatment. The exact words of our first doctor were "this is bad...do you have a brother?" That was the moment our entire world changed and we became new people. Who we were as individuals, a couple, and what the words love and family meant would forever be changed.

We have been doing this alone for one year, which in hindsight was pretty fucking stupid. This is not a burden you can bear on your own. Our marriage has suffered and for that I will forever be regretful. When you go through this, there are things you say and things you do that can never be taken back, and you just hope that your love is strong enough to forgive. You hate, you yell, you divide, and you become a person that even your own mother wouldn't recognize. And yet through this, our miracle is not conception, but a love that is so strong it will not let even the worst of human feelings tear us apart. Our love refuses to give up on us, even when we don't feel we are worthy anymore.

With this blog, I hope in some way to share that journey. Our silence for the past year is also in part because we could not find many resources for male sterility. We were also so focused on conceiving that we didn't even think about looking for blogs. Plus, our local chapter of Resolve was MIA for a bit and just picked up two months. We want to share and be those people who openly discuss what is happening, from the technical to the emotional, so others going through this know they are not alone. The scariest thing about sterility was that we had no idea what was coming next. We don't want it to be that way with adoption. This doesn't have to be scary. Creating your family shouldn't be this way.

And for myself, I want to master love so that it continues to move me forward. I will learn to not let fear dictate my decisions. I will not blame anybody else for this. I will open myself up and let love in. I will accept my life and be proud of what it will bring. This will define me, but it will not beat me.