Dear Sister, You Are Not Alone

So it's the eleventh hour, but I just felt like I needed to get something together for National Infertility Awareness Week. It certainly won't be award winning, but infertility is just as significant in my life this year as last… it's time to represent.

This year's theme is fabulous… You Are Not Alone. Perfect. Because that's exactly what infertility makes you feel: alone. How do I know? Because I wrote this, and this before I ever found this community. I was 26 years old, dealing with the aftermath of my first miscarriage and a potential diagnosis of infertility and I felt SO ALONE. I distinctly remember feeling like no one in the entire world could possibly understand. I remember thinking I was likely the only twenty something dealing with this crap as everyone around me was getting pregnant WITHOUT TRYING. That season was filled with more pregnancy announcements than I'd like to count of people who "forgot to take the pill at Jill's wedding" or "just skipped the condom one time." And here I was, charting my basal body temperature every morning and pretending like I could fool my husband into thinking I suddenly wanted sex morning, noon, and night. The word alone doesn't even encompass what I was feeling.

But then something amazing began to happen. Because of this teeny, tiny little blog, with approximately three followers at the time, I began to learn that I wasn't alone. I began to discover, ever so slowly, the blogging community. On the recommendation of a friend, I discovered Erika's blog. I remember thinking that it must be impossible that another girl could have had these same thoughts… add in that she was also in her twenties and lived in Georgia, and well, I could hardly believe it. Her blog led me to other blogs, which led to other blogs. I was suddenly no longer alone. Soon I was emailing Caroline, discovering Aubrey, finding Kimberly. I went from all alone to surrounded by other girls. We all had different stories, different diagnoses, different treatment goals, but we were the same in more ways than we were different. We were the same in all the ways that mattered to my broken and beaten heart.

And the more I blogged, the more I met other women. Within just a few months, I'd found lifelong friends. Women would find something in a post worth reaching out and they'd email me. Sometimes it was just a quick correspondence, and sometimes a friendship blossomed. I just finished an email to my friend Kara who I "met" in October 2012. My precious friend Annie and I text regularly with one another. It's amazing what has blossomed from, "Hi, my name is _____, and I'm infertile too." In the midst of isolation and despair, friendship and hope blossomed as I learned that I was anything but alone.

My circumstances never really changed. If anything, they simply got worse. I went from thinking I might possibly need intrauterine insemination to achieve a pregnancy to realizing I'd likely need in vitro fertilization just to conceive. My circumstances have become more and more bleak, but my outlook has improved over the years. The reason is simple. I am not alone. I am surrounded by beautiful, strong, courageous women who I consider it an honor to walk with through this journey. Everything is better when you have a friend by your side. My fear that I was alone proved a thousand percent untrue. I have been blessed with beautiful friendships simply because at one time or another, we all thought we were alone.

So I guess that's my hope. If you find yourself dealing with a miscarriage you never saw coming, or you're thinking about getting blood work to see if there's an answer to why you haven't gotten pregnant, or if you've been suffering in silence for years, quietly hiding your trips to the doctor as you pursue treatment for infertility, know that you, dear sister, are absolutely not alone. Far from it.