Before Infertility

Sometimes I feel like my story started when we decided to start trying to get pregnant. I forget that I was a person before all of this.

We met at 18. We got married at 22. It was winter 2013, and it was perfect.

We are now 29, and although our family size hasn't changed in 7 years, our love has grown into the most beautiful partnership, and even if we never graduate to parents, our relationship is worth the adventure. I know not everyone is so lucky, but we honestly count each other as our greatest blessings.

I was ready for kids from day one, but the timing wasn't right. I was starting grad school, and Spencer needed more time to wrap his mind around the idea. I started birth control when we got married, and tried several different methods (depo shot, the pill, and a copper IUD), but all of them created different problems for me. I got the IUD taken out in February 2015, and was never regular after that. (A consult years later told me that I had developed birth control-induced PCOS, which is actually very common.)

Over the summer we decided to start actively trying, as opposed to just "not preventing". I worked with an OBGYN to regulate my cycle, and it worked for a little bit, but then went back to irregular. We bought a house (fully anticipating to fill it with children) and I visited a new OBGYN after I was still experiencing irregularity for a few months. I am so grateful for her forward-thinking diagnostic mindset, because she was able to diagnose me with PCOS during my first visit. On average, it takes 2 years and 3 doctors to be diagnosed, but that wasn't the case for me. It may be because I have extremely classic signs and symptoms.

That doctor's visit, which was about a week before my 25th birthday, signaled the start of our infertility experience.