Birthday Presents

August 12th 2014, the day I found out I was pregnant, was also my 29th birthday.

Prior to meeting my wonderful husband, I was kind of ambivalent towards the idea of kids. I was definitely open to the possibility, but becoming a mom wasn’t my first priority. I was more concerned with carving out a niche for myself, pursuing a job I really liked and building a career. 

Then I met him, the man I would marry. People say that the everything changes when you meet the one, and that’s exactly what happened to me. Finding the perfect partner made all the difference. I knew almost immediately that I wanted a family and a future with kids with him.

The making babies conversation began before we got married—we were that certain we wanted that dream family. I remember that it was my 28th birthday. We decided to stop using birth control, putting it in the hands of fate. To my surprise, I became pregnant naturally after about a year. 

July of 2014 was one of the roughest months of my life. My stepdad had begun seeing someone new, the classic cliche younger woman scenario. He left my mother high and dry, after 19 years of marriage. Aside from being absolutely devastated, my mother was also destitute. He hadn’t even left her a dollar to her name. To complicate matters further, he insisted on keeping their daughter, my baby sister, with him. My mom had to recalibrate her entire life as she’d been reliant on my stepdad for so long. She had neither the energy, nor the funds to fight him for custody of her other daughter. 

Now, to truly understand the magnitude of what this did to my mom, you have to know that this was not her first marriage that went south. When I was 5, my father was in a car accident. He was hit by a semi and lost a part of his brain, affecting his memory. My parents were divorced shortly after. I was young, but I remember a lot of what this did to my mom.

The breakup of my mom and stepdad absolutely crushed her, body and spirit. I had to be there, be strong and support her, even when it was difficult to do so. I was there, convenient, and even though she knew I was there to support her, she often retaliated against the pain by taking it out on me. 

Which hurt. It took a toll on our relationship, took a toll on me. So the next month, when I took a home test that told me I was pregnant, I was really shocked. People say that stress significantly lowers your chance of getting pregnant, so this news was completely out of left field. To say I was excited is such an understatement. I was consumed with joy—butterflies in the stomach and everything. Everything was going to be okay. This new life was going to make all the difference in the world. Our own little miracle. It was the best birthday present ever.

Those excitement butterflies lasted all of a day. My husband and I were flying to our favorite place, Puerto Vallarta, to celebrate my birthday and our incredible news. As we were waiting at the airport, I felt a really sharp pain. I went to the bathroom and discovered I was bleeding. I had read up on pregnancy symptoms and knew that there was something called ‘implantation bleeding’. Surely that was what I was experiencing.

After we returned home, I immediately went to my doctor, just in case. That was when my worst fears were realized. They confirmed I had indeed been pregnant, and I was no longer. I had lost the baby. 

I was heartsick over it. My doctor assured me that I would be able to get pregnant again on my own, but unfortunately that was not the case. So this marked the beginning of my journey. My journey from not seeing myself seriously as a mom to wanting a child desperately. From getting pregnant naturally to turning to fertility options that took me on an emotional roller coaster, over and over, for years. I wanted to write this blog because while there are some fabulous, generous people out there that talk about infertility, there are never enough. I want to be someone who helps others in my situation know their options and that they’re not alone. I want to share my experiences—the challenges, as well as those glimmers of hope that kept me going. 

That journey started five years ago, and it ended on February 2019, the day we welcomed the beautiful, magical Penélope Rose into our lives. Absolutely nothing about this story was easy. And I would absolutely do all of it over again. 

My birthday is in a few short weeks, and I already know it will be the best one yet.