Infertility: "Just One"

Life with an only child

Several years ago, I found myself regularly answering the question of how many children I have with this response, “just one”.  After saying it one day, it just felt so awful and I decided that I needed to find a new response. It sounded so sad and dismissive. Instead, I started saying, “I have Nolan, he’s our only child” or “I was just blessed with one”. The term “only child” even bothers me a little, because in my mind only just has a negative association, but there just really isn’t any other way to put it. Let me know if you have suggestions!

The infertility journey

Recently I was sitting at my son's baseball game. Another Mom and I started talking and I asked if she had other children, then she said it. “Just one.” I could see there was something more she wanted to say, so I volunteered that I also have one child and that it really wasn’t by choice. The door opened and we went on to have a lovely little conversation about the challenges of infertility and the different roads we have taken.

The thing about infertility is every journey is unique. Every woman has a different life experience and goes about it differently. The thing that I also learned is every husband has their own journey too. Sometimes you see things differently and that’s all part of it. It can be hard on a marriage, devastating even. But my hope is that by sharing some of my experiences, others will find the peace they seek.

Baby or cancer?

I happened to have a Mom who had two children and then struggled for years to get pregnant with another. Going through the stress of fertility treatments, praying as a family for another child, and seeing the stress it was on my parents impacted how I choose to deal with it in my own family. Instead of a third child, my Mom got breast cancer. That just never seemed fair to me. Her friends were having babies and she got cancer. Ugh.

My journey

My journey has looked different. After 5 years of trying for a baby, by some miracle I was blessed with one. Then I went on to try for more than a decade to have another with no success. Not even so much as a miscarriage. It’s hard sometimes to trust in God, it’s hard to see from His view. But over many years, I have gotten there and it is part of my journey to share it. Because I knew what it was like to grow up with parents who desperately wanted another child, I went about it completely different. I suffered in silence for many years, I never wanted my son to feel like he wasn’t enough for us. I was so grateful to have him, that I went the complete opposite and never let him see that struggle.

Suffer in silence

When he was 7 years-old, he started to really want a sibling. I remember being on a ‘Polar Express’ train ride experience with some friends where Santa came to visit each car. When he got to Nolan and asked what he wanted, he said he wanted a brother or sister. Santa looked at me and said, "You’ll have to take that up with Mom". It was absolutely gutting. I held it together and didn’t show any emotion, but it nearly shattered me. I was in the thick of trying very hard and it wasn’t happening. We tried to talk to him at that time about how much we wanted him to have that and that we would continue to try. It was hard to carry that burden silently, then to find out it was hurting him, it stung even more.

The way I have coped with challenges in life is often in silence. I imagine there are many out there who do the same. If you are reading this and need a person, I’m here.