There are so many women struggling with infertility looking for help and resources.

This is hands-down the BEST conversation I’ve ever had and heard about the topic.

Please share with anyone in your world who is trying to start a family. This is the conversation they need to hear.

Watch now:

#NIAW #IFAwareness #NationalInfertilityAwarenessWeek #WhatIWantYoutoKnow

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As loathsome as I found that conversation to be with that nurse , she did bring up a good point: if we (men and women hoping to become parents and looking for encouragement wherever we can find it) are going to be on this journey through infertility together, we should be transparent about our efforts and actions and share them with one another.  It is a disservice to the infertility community to be quick to post “I’m pregnant” announcements yet choose not to mention the path that got us there.

I did get there.  I ended up pregnant!  And here is the complete lowdown of what I did:

First and foremost I allowed myself to be led by my faith

Fear is a mothersugar.  This journey is difficult enough without having to manage all the dread, doubts, and negative thinking coming from naysayers let alone yourself.  I received a Masterclass lesson in faith when I was single into my 40’s, not knowing if that special someone would ever come my way.  I learned the hard way not to base my hope for the future on the lack of today. 

And I carried that lesson into our infertility journey. 

Every time doubts and fears started creeping up, I reminded myself of what I DID know in the midst of all the uncertainty.  I knew there was a reason one of the first gifts Angelo gave me when we were dating was a bib; I knew that there was a reason I promised my mom I would fulfill her dream to have a son;  I knew that the emotional burden of this unfulfilled desire was too much for us to handle on our own and that trusting God with my deepest desire was a supreme act of faith. I decided that if this dream doesn’t happen for me, I will have to discover what’s next but I have got to show up every day bright with hope for my dreams.

One of the first gifts Angelo gave me when we were dating

Advocated for myself

I have gotten myself in the habit of taking an active stance in my healthcare, meaning I learn as much as I can on my own, consult my doctor friends, and ask for what I want/need instead of only being dictated to.  If someone was going to tell me no, it was going to be God.  I won’t be swayed by anyone else. If you are in your 40’s, trying to get pregnant, and haven’t started advocating for yourself in this way, you are going to have to start doing this TODAY.

Acupuncture

My friend Missylane was convinced that if I start adding yoga to my regimen that I would get pregnant.  When I reached out to a prenatal yoga teacher, she told me that the best thing I could do for myself physically is to do acupuncture.  I had weekly appointments throughout the IVF process and then throughout my entire pregnancy.  If you’re in Northern California you can reach out to Acupuncture Fertility Specialists or Way of the Phoenix for more information.  As you can imagine, the whole eastern vs. western medicine applies here.  At best, I have gotten a doctor to say it can help balance your emotions.  Learn for yourself to decide if it sounds good for you.

Took every test known to mankind

Both Angelo and I were tested for everything under the sun. I was tested for endometriosis and also had a biopsy to check for abnormalities while Angelo had his sperm count tested. The doctors ultimately ruled out all common maladies and diseases that prevent people from getting pregnant and this was one of the major reasons I felt emboldened to keep trying – the doctors did not find anything malfunctioning in either one of us! So, if there is something you take away from this is that you should make sure to consult with your doctor so he/she can let you know what tests you need.

Underwent IUI and IVF

These are the two methods we used to try to get pregnant.  We tried IUI twice to no avail and then tried IVF.  My brief IVF story: the geneticists examined the eight eggs that were extracted, said six were mature enough to test, and from the six, found and created one viable embryo.  And it ended up in a pregnancy.

There you have it: the entirety of our journey.  It is my hope that if you are reading this in the midst of your own journey that you find some direction and encouragement.  And if you’re open to it, let me know about your journey.  We really are all in this together!

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“Did she really just say that?!!”  

We had waited weeks for a phone consultation to start the process of getting help with infertility.  As a result of the phone call, plus the detailed questionnaire we had to fill out, we would be given next steps for the process.  I was not prepared for our next steps to be, “Give up.  It’s not going to happen for you.” I asked the consultation nurse on three separate occasions to hold so I can add my husband to the call.  She ignored those requests, I’m assuming because it’s easier to attempt to crush one person’s dreams than the dreams of two people.  I eventually got Angelo on the phone as the nurse proceeded to try her best to convince us that I would never be able to get pregnant.

The main points that the nurse felt the need to reiterate in hopes of us accepting her doom were:

1. Your eggs are too old.  There’s no way you have any healthy eggs left.   (I can’t count how many times she repeated that.  Note to anyone reading this who has heard this reason as well: The. Only. Way. To. Know. The. Quality. Of. Your. Eggs. Is. To. Be. Tested.)
2. You have false hope because of all these celebrities you hear about who are having babies in their late 40’s.  They’ll never tell you the truth about what they really did to get a baby.
3. Trust me.  I’ve been doing this for a very long time.  I’ve never seen anyone your age (which was 46 at the time) have a successful pregnancy.  Plus I have lots of resources to send your way which verify what I’m telling you.

Angelo and I began texting each other in order to process what we were hearing come out of her mouth:

Angelo: “Why is she trying to come off like she’s a concerned mother while at the same time being so unloving in the actual words coming out of her mouth?!”

Jocelyn:  “Exactly!  She apparently has no interest in what we have to say so…..”

Angelo:  “I’m sorry you were subjected to this person”

Jocelyn:  “I’m going to go get sushi and cry”

Despite her suggestion to give up, I refused. I didn’t trust her. She got me wondering, what did other women my age do? Were all the celebrities suppressing the truth of their success like she said? I spent a lot of time doing research and  I found an article that gave me some answers. 

This article made me realize that so many of us women are in the same boat when it comes to infertility and that we should regularly share our stories about what we did to get pregnant. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do in my next article. While you wait for that article, make sure to read my previous article where I talk about keeping the faith as you advocate for yourself and your desire to have a child. 

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The Promise

When I was ten years old, I confessed to my mother that I wanted to be a twin.  I wanted a twin brother, to be exact.  My mother told me that it was always her dream to have a boy and a girl but that the doctor told her she couldn’t have any more children after she had me.  My mother had names picked out for both the boy and the girl she planned on having.  The girl’s name would be Jocelyn and the boy’s name would be Jonathan.  I told her, “That’s okay, Mom.  When I get older, I’ll have a boy and name him Jonathan.”

Three Decades Later 

Life ensued.  And before you know it, I’m 40 and very single. 

(Very Single Definition:  not only are you single but have no current prospects; hope in finding that special someone vacillates depending on the day)

I fell into an extremely hazy funk—the kind where I felt really down but wasn’t able to articulate what I was feeling or why.  It took the help of a therapist to identify the source of my pain.  She said, “I’m not saying this is going to happen to you, but you might need to grieve the possibility that you might not have children.”

Suddenly, I remembered the promise I made my mother three decades ago.  It’s not that I completely forgot it; I just never consciously thought of it.  I teach in my Grief Recovery trainings that all of our unmet hopes and dreams occupy actual real estate inside our bodies.  And this particular dream had not only silently lived in my heart but was now demanding attention.  I worked through that disappointment using my recovery tools and went on living the best life that I possibly knew how.

The Wedding. The Marriage. The Pregnancy Attempts.

Five years later, I got married.  Angelo and I, both being in our mid-40’s, decided to start trying to get pregnant on our wedding night.  The dream for a child felt underway.  Friends shared their excitement with me, that they had a feeling I was going to get pregnant very soon if not that night.  I thought the same as well.  But it didn’t go down that way.  I remember being shocked the first few months I wasn’t pregnant.  The shock turned into feeling disheartened.  Every month gave me a fresh dose of disappointment.  But what worried me the most was when in my mind, I switched from hoping to be pregnant to expecting not to be pregnant.  We were told by the doctor that we needed to try for a full year before we could call it infertility and address it as such.  And when the time came to get help, we heard……

• “We don’t even work with women your age.”
• “Based on our experience and by the time someone reaches your age, we have no data to support success for your efforts to get pregnant.”
• “Your eggs are most likely the problem.  You should really consider egg donation.”

Those are a just a few choice conversations from the 10 fertility clinics I contacted in my area.  A doctor friend connected us with UCSF and our journey through infertility felt like it finally had a starting point.  While the process wasn’t all roses, daisies & sunshine, at least we were free from the medical professionals who told us that it was too late and we should give up this little dream of ours.

Mind you, our new, fabulous doctor, that we were grateful to find, was just as cautious as all the naysayers.  But what made her different was that she allowed our faith to influence hers.  

Refusing to Give Up

All I knew was that I made that promise to my mom all those years ago for a reason.  All I knew is that God put the desire in Angelo’s heart when he told me while we were dating that he wanted to have children with me.  All I knew is that I’ve been around this block before where none of the circumstances around me support my hopes and dreams and yet I choose to believe; and I decided to believe, once again, that God is good and that He loves me even if this doesn’t turn out the way we want.

We started with a procedure called IUI which didn’t yield any results.  (If you are reading this and had a successful pregnancy due to IUI, please let me know.  Right now, I don’t know anyone who has been successful in this way.)  IVF was next.  I opted to take the “risk” of using my own eggs.  And out of the eight eggs, they found six to be mature enough to create an embryo.  And out of those six embryos, they found one they considered to be viable.

We were provided one shot at this.  That one embryo resulted in my being pregnant with Jonathan Wiley Williams.  I don’t tell this story for it to sound like a and-we-lived-happily-ever-after Disney movie.  I would have been just as prepared to tell this story should it not have resulted in a pregnancy.  My hope for those of you reading this who are going through your own journey through infertility is that you will learn the power of advocating for what you want and to be courageous to follow the path of your dream.  I feel like a contributing factor to the low numbers of successful pregnancies for women in their 40’s is the fact that the medical community scares the hell out of your hopes and dreams.   But please keep dreaming and keep advocating.  As hard as it may be, keep your hopes alive and vibrant especially when it’s all you have to hold onto.

Xo,

Jocelyn

P.S.  I have plenty more to say about this but I’ll leave at this for now……..

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Have you ever tried to pee on a stick? If you’re a perfectionist, it is one of those things that will keep you second-guessing your precision and hoping that you’re not screwing up the outcome. I engaged in my usual game of pee-on-stick self-doubt recently. But this time around was uniquely important.

“When you take this test, you should test positive for pregnancy.” That’s what my doctor told me. She said the positive result would be due to all the hormones I took. Throughout this infertility journey, I’ve taken so many pregnancy tests, I’ve lost count. All the results have come back negative. With this one, I found myself entertaining the fear that somehow even this test result would fail to produce the coveted double line.

I was wrong. It was positive. And even though the positive result was not an actual pregnancy, man, I felt fulfilled to see those lines for the first time. It was a quick, little reminder that all things are possible and it was a great moment of reprieve from the disappointment. 

As a part of my teaching at Grief Recovery trainings, I share my story of our journey with infertility. At my last training, one of the participants slipped me an anonymous note that read “Expect a miracle.”

And that’s exactly what we’re doing. “We are blessed and God loves us” is Angelo’s mantra.  Apparently, it is miraculous for a woman in her mid to late 40’s to have a baby.  The doctors and geneticists have shown us graph after graph and statistic after statistic that shows by my age, there is next to no hope to conceive. I understand that they are speaking through statistics and yet there is a different belief and desire inside me that won’t be extinguished. Now does that mean that our prayers, as well as the prayers of friends and family, will result in conception? I hope so.

This tends to be where someone chooses to correct me and tell me to have more faith and proclaim victory. But I didn’t write this to show everyone I know the correct answer. I didn’t write this as a sign that I have perfected my faith. I wrote this for people who have fears and are either afraid or ashamed to admit it. I wrote this for those of us out there who from time to time have moments of worst-case “what if” scenarios that need to be negotiated back into faith.

There is a complex world to navigate mentally, spiritually and emotionally when you have unfulfilled hopes and dreams. My first major adventure into this world was when I was single for decades longer than I expected to be. At its worst, my life seemed to be one disappointment after another. “Will I ever find “the one?” “Is there really someone out there for me? And if there is, where the hell is he?!”) It was after one particular break up that I changed my reaction from “this sucks” into “I know there is a plan. I don’t know what it is. But I refuse to be bitter.”

The most difficult question I used to ask myself was, “How would you feel about God if your prayer for a husband and a family never happens? Would you feel cheated? Would life for you seem unfair?” My answer was a complicated, “I would still love God but…..” Now that I am married, I find myself asking the same question in relation to starting a family. But this time around, I have been able to take the “but” out. I would still love God AND know that He loves me AND I wouldn’t fully understand why it didn’t work out they way we dreamed it would. The goal of my faith is to arrive at the conclusion in that “showing no concern for the uncertainties that lie ahead is the secret of walking with Jesus.”**

For a brief moment, my hope was in that evasive double line. But I would like my faith to keep deeper roots. Due to the rounds of genetic testing, we still have weeks, if not months, before we find out the results. I will continue to expect a miracle. And as grand of a miracle that conception would be, seeing that double line taught me that the biggest miracle I can hope to achieve in this life is not losing hope in my God.

**My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

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My dream for a child of my own started when I was 11 years old.  I wasn’t even aware at the time that it was a dream. I thought I was just helping my mother see a dream of hers fulfilled.  My mom told me that she and my dad couldn’t have any other kids. The doctor told her that because of her back problems, she should not carry any more children.  My mom then shared her dream with me that she wished that she also had a son named Jonathan. I said, “Okay, Mom. When I get older, I’m going to have a son and name him Jonathan.”   The beginning of the dream.

Throughout my teenage years, in my mind, Jonathan got a sister named Maia.  Jonathan and Maia would have to wait to become reality as I navigated the jungle of single life (aka my twenties and thirties).  It wasn’t until I was 40 and single that I realized that my mom’s dream was a living hope and expectation inside me. When my husband entered the picture, he helped breathe new life into that dream.  When were dating, he told me that his desire was to have children with me. The dream seemed set on the path of becoming real.

We started trying to get pregnant on our wedding night.  The first time I realized I was not pregnant was a shocker.  I just assumed it would happen. But it didn’t. And then I wasn’t pregnant again.  And then again. And again. The medical community doesn’t diagnose you with infertility until you’ve been trying for about a year.  Yet when we reached the year threshold, I still wasn’t ready to give this experience that name. Who wants that label plus all that comes with it?

Emotionally speaking, there’s way more to this ish than meets the eye.  Infertility is more than just not getting pregnant. It is an accumulation of every positive and negative thought, hope, expectation, and belief you’ve ever had.  For instance,

1. Any and every nagging fear I have about myself and life rears its ugly head:  good things happen to other people, not you; you are damaged goods; you’ve ruined your husband’s hopes and dreams,……….
2. Although Jonathan and Maia don’t exist in the physical, the fact that they have been created in my heart and mind makes them real.  It’s the disparity between what’s real in my heart but not in my life that makes each month I find out I’m not pregnant particularly painful.
3. Company advertisements love to promote the image of families.  The problem I see is that they are also promoting the concept that family is normal and if you don’t have what they are portraying, you are lacking.  I fight against that idea often.

Throughout this journey, I find myself asking the same questions I was asking when I was single: what happens if it doesn’t work out for me? Will I really be okay?  Or will I just pretend to be okay so I don’t have to deal with the compounding disappointment? Will I feel I have been cheated in life if I merely observe the dream in others and never live it myself?    When I was single, it took a ton of trial & error to get to the point where I was at (predominant) peace with either outcome. And now that I’m facing the same questions with infertility, I strangely have come to the same conclusion.  I say ‘strangely’ because I feel a peace in the midst of the monthly disappointments and all other stressors involved.

How am I at peace, you ask, and what does that peace look/feel like?  I’m at peace because of my faith (spiritual) and the extensive work in grief recovery (emotional) that I have done.  Every one of my life situations must be filtered through one abiding truth: God is good, and not just to/for others; He is good to me.  He wants the best for me. If for some reason, my dream remains unfulfilled, His plan is nonetheless for me to experience immense love, joy, peace, and happiness.  Peace looks like feeling the twinges of pain when they come, remembering that those moments will pass and indulging in as much joy as possible in the process.

Dear People Who Are Experiencing Infertility:  

My intent with this blog is to encourage us all to grieve AND live.  There are no easy answers in navigating this journey. If someone tells you, “all you gotta do is….”, please discern that they don’t know any better.  The peace I have can still be quite a challenge on a given day. It is my never-ending hope that while we are walking on the road towards our unfulfilled dreams, we don’t get lost down the path of bitter disappointment whose ultimate destination is depression.   Our mental and emotional health and well-being is too precious for anything less.

Please share comments and your own stories.

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