First comes love, then marriage, then scheduled sex and back-to-back rounds of fertility treatments with a middle-aged doctor constantly looking between your legs. Welcome to the world of making a baby. Well, for some of us.
Although I ended up on the “desired” end of infertility and am more grateful than I can ever articulate for currently being pregnant, I will never forget what it was like to experience “infertility” for a year. (And, yes, my husband and I fully realize that in the grand scheme of things, one year is not that long of an “infertility” journey.)
Still, for those 12 months, I was overwhelmed by feelings of loneliness, loss and self-loathing. But once I started blogging and opening up, the “trying to conceive” (TTC) community helped me de-stigmatize this touchy, oh-so-personal subject and made it OK to talk about, which, for me, was healing. So while every person experiencing infertility will cope with it differently, here’s eight things I wish I knew before I went through the journey.