national-infertility-awareness-weekThis post is one of many that you will find throughout the week on No Ordinary Homestead about infertility, because this blog has been dedicated to National Infertility Awareness Week (April 24-30). This is being done to raise awareness on behalf of the millions of people, male and female, who have ever been infertile or are considered infertile today. If you or someone you know is dealing with fertility problems, you might enjoy Navigating the Land of IF — you can win a copy here this week.


People go through their lives with a picture in their heads of how things are going to be. A map that dictates the next steps they’re going to take. A road they plan to follow through to the end.

And while most people hit bumps in the road along the way, they usually still end up where it is they originally planned on being. Some of the smaller details may have changed, but the overall picture tends to look the same.

Except when it doesn’t.

For me, my road map didn’t seem that extreme. I am (by nature) a planner. But I’m also a girl who has seen a lot of change in her life. I know that nothing ever turns out quite how you expect it to.

So my road didn’t consist of too many unbending details. Finish college. Enjoy life. Find Mr. Right. Get Married. Have kids. Be happy.

I didn’t think I was asking for too much. And I didn’t even have a set timeline. I was more or less happy with my single life. I figured marriage and kids could wait until my thirties.

At least.

I always wanted children. More than I’d ever wanted anything, I always wanted to be a mom. But I never felt like there was much of a rush to accomplish that. I always thought that there was time.

Until there wasn’t.

At 25 I began to have major health problems. Pain. Debilitating pain. Constant pain. In my abdomen, lower back, and radiating down my hips and thighs.

I had always been active. Energetic. A go-getter.

But now… I was lucky most days if I made it past 7 at night before wanting to crawl into bed and curl up into a ball.

Everything hurt. And I had no idea why. No idea how I had gone from a healthy, strong, happy twenty-something, to a sickly girl with a mystery ailment seemingly overnight.

It took 7 months to get a diagnosis. 7 months before a doctor decided I needed surgery and was finally able to give me answers. I had endometriosis. A severe, but treatable case.

Or at least… that’s what we thought.

Until 6 months later when I needed a second surgery, and the prognosis was no longer quite as hopeful.

At that point I was told that my chances of conception were incredibly low. That if I ever wanted to have biological children, I needed to start considering my options.

I was crushed. Heartbroken. And scared of all the possibilities down each path in this new fork in the road.

I could wait and see (at the risk of never having children at all) or I could bite bullet and try to do it myself. A single mother by choice.

Neither option sounded overly appealing to me.

In fact, both just seemed wrong.

But the more and more I thought about it, the more and more I realized that I couldn’t give up my chance. That I couldn’t simply wait and see as my hopes and dreams flew out the window.

It just wasn’t me.

And suddenly, I knew… I wanted to be a mother. And if this is how it had to be, I was ready.

So I took the path less taken. The road to pursuing fertility treatments on my own. And every step of the way I was reminded how that lack of a partner differentiated me in this journey. From the intake forms that required pages upon pages of spousal information, to the additional social worker appointments I had to endure simply to receive clearance to purchase donor sperm.

And let’s not forget the countless nights spent in tears wishing only for someone who loved me enough to wrap me up in their arms and somehow make this all less scary. Someone to make me feel not quite so alone.

Along the way I began to appreciate the rare benefits to pursuing treatments while single though. I could make the choices that I wanted to make, with little to no consideration of anyone else. There were no fights over costs, or different options. I was the one running the show. And as such, I was the only person whose input I needed to worry about.

Then there were the nights that the hormone shots left me so overcome with emotions that I found myself thankful there was no husband around for me to bite the head off of. I began to understand how it was that marriages crumbled under the stress of infertility. I was no longer even a shadow of myself. I was moody, and self-centered, and driven to the point of not caring about anyone or anything else. I had my goal, and that was all that mattered.

I knew in the back of my head that even if I had entered into this journey with someone by my side, I would have quickly pushed them away in the midst of my single-mindedness. I was so focused on the task at hand, that nothing else could have punctured my peripheral.

And so, for me, I think it was almost a blessing to be pursuing treatments on my own. If I had the choice now to go back and bring the man of my dreams into the picture sooner than later, I don’t think I would do it. No relationship should ever have to survive under that kind of strain. And I truly believe that whenever Mr. Right is meant to come along, we will be better off because of the fact that I fought through this stage of my life without him by my side. Because of the fact that I had to face this difficult period and get through it before meeting him.

Of course, when things didn’t work out, there were moments (days, weeks, months) when I would have given anything for that man of my dreams to wrap me up and take the pain away. Over $20,000 and an entire year of commitment with nothing to show for it.

I was not pregnant.

I will likely never be pregnant.

I took the path less traveled. Most women don’t find out about their fertility issues until after they’ve started attempting to conceive. Most don’t learn about their potential challenges until that man is already by their sides. But some of us have diagnoses that foretell the future even before that man has entered the picture. Those of us with endometriosis, or PCOS, or premature ovarian failure often get to see the writing on the wall long before we otherwise would have been ready for motherhood.

And then we have to make a choice: Wait and see, or go it alone.

I often wonder now about the road not taken. The wait and see approach I eventually found myself scoffing at – not wanting to miss out on any chances.

I wonder about the money that would have been saved. The heartbreak and loss of a year. I wonder if I would have been happier now, if I had simply chosen to trust in the life that was laid out in front of me.

But then I remember that I would have always wondered… What if?

Had I never tried, I would have always wondered if I had squandered away my chances.

Even now, as the months pass and I ovulate from time to time, I often find myself wondering if I should be trying. The chances of natural conception for me are slim to none, but I still find myself feeling like those chances are being wasted with me no longer doing anything at all to achieve conception.

There’s always another road. Another path that you could have taken, but didn’t.

I have to believe that we all end up on the road we’re meant to travel though. That as difficult as facing infertility head on as a single woman was for me, there were lessons I was meant to learn. Struggles I was meant to endure. And even successes (however few and far between they may have been) I was meant to be blessed with.

And now? I just have to keep walking. Keep enduring. Keep looking towards to future and trusting in the path I’m on.

Never looking back to the road not taken and wondering “what if”.

Because it’s the road less taken that I’m on now.

I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

And someday, I may even be lucky enough to understand exactly why it is I’m supposed to be here.

About Single Infertile Female

At the age of 25, S.I.F. moved from San Diego to Alaska with the plan of finding a man, settling down, and making a house full of babies. Less than a year later she was told that she had a debilitating case of endometriosis. Getting pregnant naturally was suddenly impossible, and the dreaded “now or never” gauntlet was thrown.

Making the decision to go it alone and fight for her right to be a mommy, S.I.F. works to lend humor to the less humorous parts of life at her personal blog: Single Infertile Female. Her biggest goal in life is to one day scream her way through a painful yet awesome labor.

The miracles are in the details.