Me Telling My Story

One in 6 people worldwide are impacted by infertility.

Me telling my story offers hope to others. That is not just a clever phrase created to invite interest. It is what I believe in my heart and soul.

It’s no coincidence that this is Infertility Awareness Week and this month we celebrated our own personal “Family Day.” I shared a picture of my husband with his bearded grin, me beaming with an infant and our precious 2-month-old daughter. We have dubbed a significant day in April as Family Day because that marks the day we brought our little girl home from Catholic Charities.

Yes, I am aware of infertility. It’s not a random week in April. It’s part of my story. After significant medical testing, the cause of our infertility was never determined. Popular conjecture was that I was a nervous new bride. I should just relax and let nature take its course.

My parents had a wedding a year in consecutive years:  1971, 1972 and 1973 (my two brothers and me). By the time we were trying to conceive, my brothers had three children each!

What was wrong with me?

Not a darn thing! That’s just how God had it planned for me.

I needed to wake up to the all the blessings I did have and welcome the child destined for me who grew not under my heart, but in it.  

Today, our circumstances may not be ideal and we long to change the details of the situations we find ourselves in. The wonderful thing is that we can change our stories. We can choose to rewrite our attitudes and focus on the redirection of our life.

We wanted a family and when it didn’t happen the way we’d assumed it would, we took steps to create our family another way.

We became of aware of our infertility. With that awareness, we changed our story.

And me telling my story offers hope to others.