I have dreamed of being a mother ever since I was old enough to understand what pregnancy and birth were.
But after multiple long-term relationships and zero pregnancies, I began feeling like something must be off. I was quite young when I got married to my first husband (at 21 years old), and my naivety encouraged me to believe that pregnancy would simply happen when it was meant to.
But after an entire year of trying to get pregnant, I still had nothing to show for it. I decided to talk to my GP about what might be occurring within my body, and went through the traditional gamut of testing to rule out possible causes for my supposed infertility.
Everything came back reflecting that I was in perfect health – absolutely nothing to see here! All my bloodwork came back normal, my ultrasounds showed everything to be normal, and I felt… normal. Without being able to pinpoint the problem, feelings of hopelessness and defeat started to creep in. If I was young and healthy, why wasn’t I getting pregnant?
All my plans and desire to start a family were put on hold when I realized my marriage was falling apart. I hated to admit to both my family and myself that I got married far too young – I didn’t really know my husband as well as I should have, and it turned out that we were terrible together. I struggled with depression and feelings of inadequacy and failure before finally accepting the fact that it was time to leave.
I filed for divorce, moved to a small cabin in the woods and began starting my life over from scratch. I gained clarity and mental/emotional maturity while reflecting on my previous life choices; in taking time to focus on myself, I recognized what I wanted to do differently moving forward and who I wanted to be.
Motherhood was always at the forefront of my life goals, but I was realizing that I wanted to share that goal with someone truly deserving of both myself and our new family. It was while in this headspace that I met Sean, and moved back to my hometown of Victoria, BC.
Mine & Sean’s journey towards being parents started in 2019, when just three months after meeting for the first time, we found ourselves not only irrevocably in love, but also (much to our surprise!), pregnant.
I was 25 at the time, and felt like things were finally working out the way they were supposed to. I was in love, I was happy, I was home, and I was pregnant. We were excited to welcome a new addition to the family (Sean already had a daughter from a previous relationship, and she was very much looking forward to being a big sister), but at 5 weeks pregnant, I realized I was miscarrying.
It was a truly heartbreaking period of time for all of us – the grief and frustration and sadness welled up like a pool that threatened to drown us, but as we leaned on each other and extended family for support, our hearts slowly healed, and eventually, we were ready to try again.
Now that I knew I was able to get pregnant, I had a renewed sense of hope for the future. However, we were weary of trying again due to a fear of loss, and asked each other a lot of honest questions – What if it ends in miscarriage again? Are we able to handle another loss? What would our lives look like if we don’t get pregnant? Will we be happy without having another child?
We settled on easing into our next pregnancy attempt with supportive therapies from local naturopaths and acupuncturists. We read a lot of books, found support in local community groups, and aimed to lead the healthiest lifestyles in the hopes of having a successful pregnancy.
Much to our surprise and delight, we found ourselves pregnant 8 months after healing from our first miscarriage (we thought it was interesting that I got pregnant again around my original due date)! With a renewed sense of optimism, we counted the weeks as they passed by.
Making it past the 5 week pregnancy mark was a huge relief. I felt positive about this baby sticking, and we began to make plans for welcoming our newest addition to the family. We shared the goods news with friends and family, and everyone was elated for us!
Unfortunately, on my 8th week of pregnancy, I woke up feeling strange, and started bleeding. This didn’t feel the same as my other miscarriage, but I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly it felt different; As a result, I wasn’t entirely sure how to react.
My gut instinct told me to go to the emergency room (something I definitely did not do during my first miscarriage), and so we rushed off to the hospital with empty bellies and Sean’s incredibly patient 4 year old daughter in tow.
12 hours and many ultrasounds and blood tests later, I was confirmed to be having an ectopic pregnancy in my left fallopian tube, and was rushed off for emergency surgery without any time to process what was happening. It was sudden and scary and stressful, and it took us a long time to recover from the shock of it all.
After another long period of recovery, we were beginning to really feel the strain of our fertility challenges on our relationship. It took a lot of joy and spontaneity away from our romantic lives, and felt very isolating because we didn’t know anyone who was going through the same things we were.
It took a lot of self-work, open communication within our relationship, and re-building trust and faith in ourselves and each other to get to a place where we felt ready to explore other avenues of becoming parents.
We discussed many possibilities, including adoption, surrogacy, and fostering, but none of them felt in line with what we truly wanted – to carry a baby of our own in my body and be able to experience a healthy pregnancy and birth.
We decided to ‘let go’ of charting, tracking my cycles, testing for ovulation, and being so fertility-focused in order to switch focus on simply being happy and healthy. This period of time in which we were truly ‘going with the flow’ was the best either of us had felt in our relationship in a very long time.
To take off the pressure, enjoy being with each other, and being able to laugh with friends and family again was so refreshing, I only wish we had been able to get to that point sooner.
I began scheduling regular appointments with a local acupuncturist, started a daily yoga practice, and adopted a hormone-balancing diet in order to take the best care of myself that I possibly could – for the first time in our relationship, I was doing all of this because I wanted to be healthy, not because I wanted to be pregnant.
With a renewed focus on myself and the health of our relationship, we began looking into options that previously didn’t ‘align’ with my visions for parenthood, but offered us the best chance of success… IVF.
Throughout the past 6 years of our fertility journey together, I’ve had the opportunity to grow closer to my body and closer to Sean. Unlike many other couples who have had to navigate undiagnosed fertility issues, I was able to gain a full understanding of what was happening within my reproductive organs and pinpoint the issue – my fallopian tubes were in very poor shape due to undiagnosed chlamydia in my teenage years.
It turns out that the problematic scar tissue and damaged cilia which was preventing my eggs (whether they be fertilized or not) from being carried down into my uterus for implantation is what caused my ectopic pregnancy, and with only one remaining (damaged) tube left, my chances for natural pregnancy are slim.
This is not a problem that can be fixed, which took me a long time to come to terms with. However, it makes me an excellent candidate for IVF, and for that I am extremely grateful.
It’s been a very long road to get to where we are today in our fertility journey, but I am a firm believer in everything happening for a reason, and I have learned SO much during this period that I wouldn’t have changed anything if I could do it all over again!
We are forever grateful to have received a grant from the Fertility Friends Foundation to allow us the chance to approach conception from a different angle, and hopefully have our lucky number 3 pregnancy result in the rainbow baby we’ve been hoping and wishing for.
Words cannot express how incredible it is to have a support network that can aid financially, emotionally, and educationally during the challenging process of infertility. Thank you, FFF, for all that you do!
For more information about our registered charity and fertility grants.