Today I am going to speak to you about the history of my infertility. I have touched on it before here on my blog that I am unable to have children. It was something that I learned about when I was quite young. Now I am in my late twenties and it is crunch time. For most people, they will probably want a little context about my infertility and I am more than happy to share. Some people may think that I possibly share a little too much, however for me it helps. This is a form of therapy for me. The more I speak about things, the more I can become ok with them and I realise that there are things I can do and steps I can take. If you are triggered for infertility, please skip this post.

 

 

Finding out I was infertile.

I guess the thing that I should start with is how I found out that I was infertile. Honestly, I think that it is something that I had always kind of known. I started my periods when I was only 9 years old. From my very first period, they were irregular. I can remember having ‘the talk’ with my mum about periods and her explaining that 4 weeks from the day I started, I would get another. It was probably 5 months or so before my next one. This happened for every single period after. As a teenager, I thought it was a blessing only having them every now and again. I was very underweight at the time though, so doctors put it down to that.

When I was 19 I went back to the doctors asking more questions and that is when I found out that I do not produce eggs and ovulate like normal. Meaning that my chances of releasing an egg and it being fertilised are next to none. I was then a 19-year-old, only a year into a relationship being told if I ever want children to start trying. There was confusion, tears and a lot of thinking that needed to be done.

 

Dealing with friends and family getting pregnant.

In my early twenties, I came to grips with my fertility or lack of it. The doctor told me to come off my contraception and try to get pregnant naturally. The younger you are, the higher your chances. If I did come off it, it could possibly happen within a month or a decade. We were not ready for the chance of it happening soon, so we just carried on like normal. We didn’t even share the news with family or friends because it still felt too soon to rule out that it may not happen. The older I got, the more people my own age started getting pregnant and that was not easy. I think especially with those close to me, when I was then around these babies, people would always be like “It will be you next”. Little did they know that it couldn’t be the case.

I think that the worst happened after we got married in 2019. We were only 25 at the time and it was all people were saying. People kept asking when we were starting a family. Honestly, it was all anybody would say to me and it drove me mad. I bit my lip and kept it to myself. That was until I had an outburst at my new mother-in-law. Every time I would see her, she would ask me when I was going to give her grandchildren. I started out giving sarcastic replies. Then it got very real and we had to tell people why they needed to stop. Once they realised the history of my infertility, the questions stopped.

 

Thinking about if we want children.

Now, my husband and I are turning 27 within the next couple of months. The advice from the doctors has always been the younger we start trying, the more chance there will be of something happening. We have now not been using any form of contraception for a number of years. Nothing has happened. Even though at the moment I really do not want children in my life because I am thriving in my career and enjoying being selfish with my cash. I also do not want it to get too late and all of my options being closed. I know that there is IVF that we can try and you can do that through your entire thirties, but because doctors do not know what causes my problems, they do not know if I could carry a baby. Everything is just unknown.

 

What the next steps would be for us.

After many conversations with my husband, we have got a little plan together. We have realised that we do want children. Ideally not in the next few years, but we know that if I was to get caught pregnant in that time, it wouldn’t be anything short of a miracle. If we get to be 30 years old, so in around 3 years’ time and nothing has happened, we will take the next steps in our fertility journey. For us, the first step is doctors carrying out testing and regular scans to try and pick up any kind of routine that my body goes through. From there, we may be able to monitor ovulation even if it is only every 8 months or so. It just means that we probably only have around 1 week every 8 months to try and get pregnant. The next thing will then be IVF.

 

I hope that you found this post interesting and learning about the history of my infertility. As I mentioned, I feel like we now have a lot of thinking to do. There may be further steps that we can take in order to have children, but we know the stresses involved. Not to mention the costs that come with IVF. As I mentioned I am no longer on contraception, so there may be a tiny chance that something may happen naturally. I just hope that we make up our minds before things are too late.

Honestly, I would love for us to get a dialogue going, so please leave a comment down below. I know that not everybody can relate. But this is my story and the history of my infertility.