Infertility Anonymous: A Journal

For the sake of my first entry, I hope some of you out there have also watched Great News and understand my reference to the amazing character Carol Wendelson. If not, that’s OK, but I highly recommend it-it’ll provide you with some much needed laughs. Anyway….

I decided (sort of on a whim) to start a blog. I am not a writer, and I never even had a diary when I was younger. I definitely tried to have a diary, but from what I can remember all my entries were about my guinea pig pooping too much, my sister being mean to me and Lance Bass not loving me back. It was tough being 8. What’s crazy, is even though I was 8, I would always say I wanted to be a mom-I clearly remember that. Specifically, I would go around saying I wanted 5 kids, all boys. Later that number went down to 4, still boys, and then as an adult I realized how friggin expensive it is to just be alive, so I reluctantly came to rest on the number 2. Now, as a 33 year old living in one of the most expensive places in the US, newly diagnosed with PCOS, dealing with infertility for 15 months (and counting) I will be over the moon to just have 1 healthy baby. I don’t pray, but in my mind I’m really, strongly, wishing for 1 healthy baby. Maybe I’ll start praying one day.

So as I was saying, it took me a minute to land on a blog. I went down so many rabbit holes on IG and Vlogs of women also going through infertility, PCOS, TTC 12+ months and while I appreciated all of them being so transparent, I came to the conclusion that I do not have the guts, the ovaries (we’re ladies here), the strength to share on IG. I saw some amazing stories of success and heartbreaking stories of disappointment. And most of the time people were incredibly supportive, but I just don’t have it in me to be that level of vulnerable. Plus, I kind of feel like what I need and what a lot of women need is to just vent without “Jessica” offering words of encouragement. Does that make me a bitch? Absolutely no shade to the women who choose to share on other platforms, I applaud you-genuinely.

I intend to keep up with this. I was telling my therapist earlier today that my whole life I’ve struggled with motivation and determination. I can only think of one time I ever felted truly motivated and determined to do something, but the rest of my life I never had a goal that sparked those feelings in me, ever. Not in sports, not in school, not in my career. But I can say without a doubt in my mind, no hesitations, that I am so incredibly motivated and determined to be a mom. I will do anything to have a happy and healthy baby-no matter what. I imagine that’s how all of us infertility warriors feel these days. It’ll be a battle, but the reward will be priceless, precious. And if along the way my thoughts and feelings can help just one person feel validated and comforted then that’s an amazing bonus.

Somehow, (roughly) 1 in 6 people are affected by infertility, but I still feel alone. I’m just proud of myself for doing this, whatever “this” ends up looking like, and you should be proud too.