First shared story - Thank you!

"My greatest desire, became my greatest challenge, which
ultimately is my greatest blessing".

This is my life motto, that I discovered through my experience
with infertility. My husband and I were married in May of
2001 and we always knew that we wanted to have children
and a family. The first three years of our marriage we were
on birth control (big joke now), so that we could spend time
getting to know each other and develop a solid relationship
before we brought children into the mix.

2004 we decided it was time to start a family and so therefore,
got off of the pill and tried. Each month passed, and nothing.
I remember one of my friends telling me to relax, and another
one telling me that it took forever for her to get pregnant...four
months. Man if that is forever, then life should be a breeze.
My forever....really is forever.

So, after one year of trying and no children, I (being very
impatient) went to my doctor and told him something was
wrong.

A bit of history...I have interstitial cystitis and vulvar
vestibulitis. The first "IC" is where my bladder is always
inflamed, and so I always feel like I have a bladder infection.
Luckily a 35 day dose of antibiotics (twice) has helped that
(for now). The second is where (forgive me for being a bit
graffic, I am a nurse) the tissue in my private area is thin
and frail, so is easily irritated and constantly sore with
hundreds of tiny little cuts. Imagine a paper cut, times
one hundred being irritated over and over.

So, after one year and no pregnancy I was certain (based
on my history) that there was something wrong and I knew
we needed to move forward with a more assertive approach.
We tried clomid...nothing. I had a few in office procedures
only to find out that the opening to my uterus was tight if not
closed off. Of course this forced me to go in for surgery,
because the doctor really couldn't get inside that way to see
anything. So I had a laproscopic and endoscopic surgery, mostly
exploratory. Only to find two cysts on my ovaries, that the
doctor removed but said they shouldn't have been causing any
problems. Oh, expect for the other part of my history....several
ER visits, doubled over in pain wanting to jab a knife through my
stomach, just to make the pain go away. Must have been the
cysts.

Then at this point the doctor said..."there is no reason why you
shouldn't be able to get pregnant and carry a baby full term".
Ok, so what next...I knew there was something wrong, I could
feel it. Well, before heading down to Salt Lake UoU to do further
research, we decided to test my husband. Long story short, after
a few more procedures, we found out that we will never be able to
have our own children...biologically. You need an egg and a sperm
to make a baby, we are missing some parts of that equation. We
looked into other options, which really there was only one...
medically. Donor....not an option. We didn't feel good about it.

Our last and only option...ADOPTION. Best decision we ever made.

We now have a two year old daughter that looks just like her
daddy. I have learned so much through our experience and
love telling my daughter's story, maybe for another time.

One thing that was difficult to overcome was the fact that I will
never (unless a miracle happened...we always welcome miracles)
be able to carry a child in my womb. I used to pray and ask for
one time to carry a child and feel it grow inside me and then I
would adopt all the children in the world if I was asked to. But
now I look back and I wouldn't trade our experience with our
daughter for anything. I am at peace with not being pregnant,
and actually...I am at peace with not having to deal with doctors
and ongoing research that may not get us anywhere but broke
and childless.

This is my story and I'm sticking to it. Hee Hee

"My greatest desire, became my greatest challenge,
which ultimately is my greatest blessing"
Ginger Ashlee