Planning for a family isn't always so simple.

"When my husband and I decided we were ready for a baby we thought it would be easy. But just like myself and I am sure so many others have experienced months would roll by and I would see the dreaded one line on the pregnancy test each month. I got the usual “It will happen, just relax”, “You are over thinking it”, “It will happen when you stop trying” and the list of advice and so called encouraging comments list goes on. We had questions so decided to both get checked. I had an abdominal scan done and my husband had his boys checked. Both came back normal. By this time because of our normal results I started to think exactly what I was being told, was I over thinking it? Was this then causing me stress which was causing my infertility. We started dieting, trying to change our eating habits and the list goes on. You name it and we tried it. As months rolled into years I started to see friends or people around me fall pregnant. I would cry to be honest, not at their success. I was actually super happy for them. Falling pregnant now to me was amazing if it happened to someone. I cried at the thought of my husband and I possibly never getting to experience that happiness and felt like I was letting him down. Once you hit the 2 year mark, or maybe earlier for others. You start to talk about other options, IVF, adoption. We decided to go see a specialist and talk about our options with IVF and our infertility. He decided it may be a good idea to go in and look around inside of me first before going down the long and windy emotional road of IVF. I didn’t have any massive symptoms for anything but he discussed how endometriosis can be a common factor. By now we were happy to do anything and curiosity had us agreeing straight away. I had surgery and remember waking up with everything aching, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to know the results. My doctor came and saw me and told me they had discovered large amounts of endometriosis. So much that it took him two hours to remove it all and he couldn’t believe I wasn’t experiencing more symptoms. The biggest symptom I had was fatigue. I used to come home from work and need to sleep before getting up to cook dinner. I did get bad cramps during my period every now and then, but I had kinda just thought cramping each month was part of the deal and knew people who had worse cramps. The fatigue was one of my symptoms that I was so happy to say goodbye to and embrace my new found energy. We were told to continue trying and if nothing happened within 7 months to come back and discuss IVF options. 7 months rolled around and still nothing. Mentally I had prepared myself for an IVF journey. I then had a friend though talk to me about a naturopath on the Gold Coast who had helped a bunch of infertile woman conceive. So we figured, we had tried so much already so why not give it a shot. She gave us some amazing eye opening advice and got us to have blood tests and had us both leaving in high hopes. The following week I realised my period was late, but this wasn’t abnormal for it to be. So I did as I had a million times before and did the dreaded pee test. Except this time I saw two lines, I screamed, I cried. I ran through my house screaming and crying! Do I call my husband, do I wait the dreaded 4 hours for him until he gets home from work. I decided to wait and give him a book that I had purchased two years prior called ‘My boys can swim’ My husband walked in the door and I tried so hard to act cool but could not wipe the smile off my face. He said to me as he walked in, “What’s up? Did, you fart or something and I’m about to walk into it” (beautiful moment right). I handed him the book and test and he asked me if this was a joke. He literally didn’t believe me and made me take two more tests and then even said I don’t know if I can believe it until you have the blood test. At the time I was bummed about his lack of jumping and screaming but now realise he was too scared to get hurt or disappointed after years of disappointment. We were so happy we no longer had to spend a heap of money on a naturopath or on an IVF journey and yes my husbands excitement eventually rolled in. I am going to share my birth story also but was encouraged by my friend Amber-lee who runs The Power of Birth to first share my struggles. I know many woman experience this but it’s not always spoken about. It becomes an ache we hold at home between us and our husband. It made me realise the conversation I have with people about conceiving needs to be different. Even the comments need to be different, just in case that person is struggling. An even bigger thing too is when people are pregnant and choose to be strict on what they eat or do needs to be accepted by others better. The amount of snarky comments or looks I got when I didn’t eat food from yesterday or certain meats or cheeses was just way too much. We struggled, we cried, we went on a massive emotional journey and so now that we had what we prayed for so badly, no little piece of meat or cheese or whatever was going to mess this up for me now! Don’t assume to know peoples struggles, be kinder with our comments. Pregnancy is not a completion or some comparison but a crazy journey we as woman if we are even lucky enough are able to journey on together. I know my story also itself is tame to what others may of gone through or may be going through but if someone can relate and that relation brings a good feeling to them, then I am happy to of shared my story."