Why am I blogging about this?

Infertility is a strange thing. It's defined as trying to get pregnant for one year and not being successful. It's often described as a life crisis, which is totally true although sometimes I don't know why. No one is sick. No one is dying. No one is struggling for anything specific other than: you want a kid. But for some reason, it's not happening. And it can take over your life.

I am usually against sharing of personal life details in public forums for a lot of reasons. However, I wanted to share my journey this time around. The more I mention my own struggles to people, the more I hear of how many people also struggle to get pregnant. But, it's often a very private matter (understandably) and you can end up feeling somewhat isolated. It takes it toll mentally and physically and starts affecting relationships. I hope that my blogging helps someone else feel like they are not alone. My grand dream is that infertility is more talked about and more understood. Since I am not overweight or underweight, I am under the fertility-dreaded age 35, I don't smoke, and I take good care of myself, I never thought this could be an issue for me. I started the trying to conceive process without factoring time for possibly having trouble getting pregnant, and I would have approached this differently if I knew this could happen to anyone. 

I also want to share with people what exactly is involved in this process with family and friends that are interested to know. Infertility and IVF are incredibly hard to endure, especially when it feels like so many people just get pregnant (and often by mistake). So there's an element of feeling like it's unfair, and element of "What's wrong with me?!" and then there are other stresses. The financial stress of fertility treatments can certainly play a role. Then there is the actual physical stress: going to a lot of appointments, getting blood work drawn every other day, giving yourself shots several times a day, and then the actual procedures of getting your eggs retrieved and having the embryo put back in. With every appointment you hope your hormones and your body is cooperating, but it can be a constant source of anxiety.

I am not really a writer, but I am going to try on this blog to share some of the process and the emotion. Hopefully it will be therapeutic for me and informative to you. (I have decided to make this a public site, so I will skip using our real names.)

Here's a really great video overview of IVF from RMA of New York.  If you have 10 minutes and are interested, I highly recommend it.  Enjoy!