Growing up in Catholic school, sex education consisted mostly of nuns warning me about how easy it is to get pregnant. At age thirty-one, I found it impossible to believe my own circumstances: with a healthy, active lifestyle and no history of medical issues, my husband and I had been trying to conceive for two years without success. We started the journey with all of the typical hubris — trying to plan the perfect time to conceive based on our busy calendars. Two years in, we would do anything, go anywhere, and try anything to fulfill our dream of having a child.
My husband preferred to keep our family-building plans private, and we ventured into the multi-year medical odyssey to address “unexplained infertility” without much support and a thin baseline of conception knowledge (again, the nuns).
Unaware of my struggles with infertility, my younger sister and my best friend joyfully announced their pregnancies to me, and I fell into a deeper, darker hole of despondency, feeling more alone than ever. I knew I couldn’t white knuckle it any longer, and needed to open up about our journey and get emotional support.
When I did timidly open up to a small circle, I heard:
- “How often are you having sex?”
- “My friend tried this one thing…”
- “I’m sure as soon as you stop trying, it’ll happen for you.”
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