This year we will celebrate 8 years of marriage. It's hard to believe that that also means that we've struggled with infertility for nearly the same amount of time. But things have changed in those years.
I don't really think of us as struggling with infertility right now. Like most couples we talk about when we might be ready for another child, but it feels like we are somewhat in control of that decision and with infertility, everything felt outside of our control.
The reality is though, we are still infertile. We do nothing to prevent pregnancy because we know it won't happen. We've done nothing to prevent pregnancy in over 7 years and in case you were unaware, infertility is considered actively trying to get pregnant for one year. I think we've met that requirement. Don't get me wrong, I am a believer in miracles, but it doesn't actually cross my mind very often anymore, not the way it used to.
On the plus side, we don't have to think about family planning if we aren't ready to add to our family. On the down side, we only have 1-2 more chances with our remaining embryos to have a biological child. Embryo transfers are expensive, adoption is expensive. It's a lot more than just deciding to start trying again and see what happens.
This has become our normal. Someone asked in a natural fertility group that I'm part of how long everyone has been trying to conceive. This is what sparked my thinking. I thought about it and my answer was that we tried for 5.5 years, then our boys joined our family and from that point forward, we haven't been trying because we haven't been pursing fertility treatments, but we are still definitely infertile. It feels like a dividing point where I took on the identity of being infertile, and then I no longer carried that as something that defined me or our family.
It's been freeing.
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