1 in 8

1 in 8 couples struggles with infertility.
I am the 1 in 8.

You may be seeing that number, along with various personal experiences around blog world, social media, etc because it's National Infertility Awareness Week.

Infertility and fertility challenges can feel isolating. I struggled with sharing our journey when we were going through it because it was personal, and I didn't know if I wanted our struggle out there for ridicule or judgement, but what I realized about opening up, was that I was helping myself to work through the emotions I was experiencing. And as I opened up, I helped others. If someone was out there judging me, I didn't know about it, and it didn't matter, because I felt better, and the people I was connecting with made me aware that I was helping others by sharing.

{Via a post on Instagram}

So here I am, shining a light on the struggle, once again.

If you've been a reader here for a while, you've read it and been alongside me. And if you're new here, maybe this will help you.

My husband and I started trying to get pregnant pretty quickly after getting married since we'd been together for a while, and were both in our early 30's.  I knew several friends who had dealt with infertility and somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it would be our journey too (although I was terrified of that being the case).

After over a year of trying, tracking ovulation, etc. we were still not pregnant and I decided to reach out to a fertility clinic nearby with a great reputation for a consultation.

We did testing and came up with no real reason for our fertility issues (unexplained infertility) which was a relief but also frustrating. Why wasn't this happening for us?

We started with several rounds of IUIs which didn't work. I think we did about 8 or 9 rounds of it before finally going the IVF route--looking back, I wish we had done IVF sooner, but at the time I was scared and just hoping we could get pregnant without IVF.

Luckily it worked for us on our first try, and we have our perfect daughter, Ella, and two other beautiful little embryos waiting in case we need them.

I wrote about our entire IVF journey here, so feel free to read through the details, because mine wasn't all needles and pain. It was a journey and a process, but one that I would do over again in a heartbeat to have my daughter.

If you're reading this and haven't struggled with infertility, you likely know someone who has. A lot of what people tell you is the things NOT to say (like any in the above photo), but without ways to support.
Check out this post for things NOT to say and things TO say/do.

If you're going through fertility struggles, you're not alone. If you need support, reach out to me and to the other girls in blog world who have shared their journeys. We're here to support one another, including you.