Infertility

To say my life is vastly different from anyone I know is the biggest understatement in the history of understatement. All those I graduated with have almost reached 30 years of life.

I feel the divide of our similarities widen now more than ever. It gets more and more devastating to me each few months especially as new health problems seem to come at least twice a month.

Every single doctor I have come across here in S.C. has never heard of my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. I have taught 50+ doctors and 150+ nurses about this diagnoses. And that isn’t even my biggest or worst health problem, though it will be with me forever.

Because of that I feel some relief knowing I will never be able to pass these horrible hereditary genes to any poor unsuspecting mini me. And then the hurt explodes that I will never be able to have a future mini me.

I adore each picture of a baby that all of those I grew up with post. So many little ones that look just as their parents did at their age. A smile I can’t help but have as a new addition to the population appears in the world, and memories of their likeness in my class many years ago plays through my mind.

It is so amazing and heartening to see each and every one of you grow as people as you become parents. You THRIVE.

My heart aches deep and low knowing I can never commiserate on going through pregnancy, maternity photos, new parent long nights and each new year birthday and school photos. It feels as though my heart has been ripped out knowing I will never get to introduce my parents to a grandbaby from me or make my brother and sister aunt and uncle to a child I brought into the world.
Jokes and laughter do their best to convince me it is all okay and that the divide between me and everyone else in the world is no big deal when my writing and words can create a large sturdy bridge so everyone can understand my side of things.

But those quiet moments alone with just you and your child, I won’t get those. Each day you wake up, get to shower, make breakfast, go to work, make memories out in the world, I don’t get that.

My life is 99% spent in my room in bed sleeping with excruciating pain waking me just so I can take my many medications-60 pills a day-try to choke down at least a teeny bit of food so my nausea can be lessened by a sliver, and then go right back to bed. I miss out on LIVING. I have gone way past my limit of painful existence just to try desperately every thing possible to improve my health. But doctors cost me so much more than I have ever gained in my full 28 years. Those who waste my living time by refusing to help me, refusing to do anything to decrease the pain that so haunts and tortures me millisecond by millisecond. Years go by wasted being spent with doctors I pray will help me just once but they scoff, being not one bit bothered by my discomfort and ocean of tears.

This is the healthcare the world has been building. And I, for one, have never wanted so badly to LIVE when I am being told to not exist.

I don’t get to go to work and do what passion I love most of all. I don’t get to go to a home I own in a car I love at the end of the day. I don’t get to spend time with friends or family not because I don’t want to but because my body won’t let me. The freedom of choice in my life is almost nothing. Claustrophobia in a tiny room I exist in is not an existence anyone would choose. I don’t even get to go to more school as my health is so negatively unpredictable. With home health care at last I don’t have to expend everything in me just to try to get dressed for the day and making my hair presentable.

Each of those medications is so necessary and yet each side effect possible and those doctors say aren’t, torment me even as they half help me. Beggars can’t be choosers.

I want so badly to be content as I savor scraps of joy every few months. But as time passes, so does any tiny dream I ever let slip out of my eyes and drip down my face.

All of us with bad health or no health want nothing more than to pretend everything is okay and that we have the same happiness and freedom that is suppose to be a God-given right to each child that comes into this world.

But at least to a small part of me, infertility is not the worst thing for a chronically ill chronically in pain girl with a chronically failing body.

Please, savor each moment you have to live, go to work, be with your kids and spouse, make memories or take vacations to places far away.

Because once your health starts to fade, it is near impossible to get back.

Good Afternoon, I am writing today because I am in the running for Ms. Veteran America 2023. I am a finalist and will compete on Oct 8th as Elvis Presley and all proceeds for Ms. Vereran America go directly to Final Salute Inc that helps Female Veterans and their children facing Homlessness.

My story directly corelate with my reason for entering Ms Veteran America 2023 and that is we are all just one event away from experiencing homelessness or worse death. When I was 15 years old while I was in high school, I found out that I had precancer cells growing on my cervix and I had a leap procedure at 15. I had a friend of mine die not to long after high school from ovarian cancer. At 17 I had my jaw fractured by and ex boyfriend and had the case taken to court. It required a lot of strength but led me to join the military while I was in high school, I joined the Army my senior year of High school. I served in both the Army and Navy, special operations and conventional military. I suffered infertility as a service member and military wife for 7 years, spent thousand of dollar in fertility treatment and testing and was a victim of a fertility clinic that was shut down to mal practise because of experimental testing. Recently I experienced a misscarriage at almost 3 months pregnant and before that lost an embryo during IVF. At 7 years I was able to have my mircle IVF baby and at 6 months of age my baby and I moved back to Kentucky to take care of my Aunt that was like my mom that raised me. She found out she had cervical cancer that thanksgiving and I took care of her and my disbabled 36 year old cousin and son until she passed April 25th of 2021. Just a few months later at 18 months my son stoped trying to eat baby food and stoped trying to talk and we took him in for therapy and they said he could be autistic. My son now goes to OT, PT, Play Thearpy and Music therapy and speech almost everyday of the week. And because of my military injuries including a spine ingery and sjogren’s syndrome a sickness that was discovered during a military surgery I spend most of my days going to apts and advocating for health and mental health. I am currently going through IVF again and when I delivered my son we both almost lost our lives and post partum counseling has been of most importance. My reason for including this is because just one of these events or expenses could have led me to homelessness and I want to help the female Vets and their children experiencing homelessness. There are many different reasons and avenues that a person can find themself homeless but very few resources for our female vets and their children and I want them to know they are not alone and help them to get the help they need. I wanted to reach out and see if I could do an interview or article discussing the causes that I am fighting for as a finalist in Ms. Veteran America 2023, such as spreading awareness of the 988 and NC 211 numbers and mental health, Final Salute and resources for female veterans and their children facing homelessness and help for spouses, service members and children facing abuse and how they can find help and how we can help them by providing that safe place and introducing them to help and events like Fayetteville’s “Remember My Name” event. Also how we can give back to our shelter and helping organizations. Ms. Veteran America 2023 will be Oct 8th , 2023.

My husband wants to help me so bad. He keeps trying to come up with ideas on how to magically fix everything. I can’t have children and I can’t afford IVF. It’s never going to happen for me unless some miracle happens… everyone’s favorite line to tell me anytime I mention infertility but I digress… he wants to fix it so bad he keeps trying to come up with ideas. He asked me the other day if he could just find someone who doesn’t want kids and get them pregnant (by IUI, not sex) and then they sign the baby over to me…. No woman is going to want to get pregnant and carry a baby for 9 months and then give it up intentionally unless they are getting paid for it in cases of surragacy. That’s not a solution. If we had the money for surrogacy we could just do the IVF. Surrogacy costs more than IVF. It’s all the same process except instead of going back inside of my body, it would go inside of theirs. If I could do that I would just want to carry the baby myself. My uterus is fine. My tubes are the problems so if we could do it I would but financially we can’t and it was a “time is of the essence” situation so we really don’t have time to do it later when we have the money. I have accepted adoption as being my only option. That’s okay with me. It’s taken me a lot of time to get to this point but we are certified foster parents now. We have been for a couple months now but haven’t gotten our first placement yet. I just don’t think he has accepted that yet. I think he yearns for children of his own and knowing he won’t ever have that with me bothers me so I know it has to bother him. I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m doing the only thing that’s going to be able to make me happy but I’m hurting him at the same time. I want him to have what he wants in life too. And I have a million irrational fears about him leaving me or cheating to get some random girl pregnant just to be able to have a child that’s biologically his. I think I’m just crazy on that part but it’s still a fear in my mind. I know he loves me more than anything and he gives me the world 🌎. He is my best friend and my partner in life. Even though he is my everything, I still have breakdowns every now and again especially around my period just because I’m overly emotional at that time and that’s a reminder every month that I’m not ever be able to get pregnant. It’s hard enough dealing with a period but it’s worse with infertility. I think it breaks him somehow every time he sees me crying my eyes out over it. He feels like he has to be the superhero who swoops in and saves the day but he can’t in this situation. Can anyone else relate? I’ve reached the point where I’m feeling kind of alone in this. I know I’m not alone but I’ve just been kind of down lately. My state has a bad need for foster parents because you see signs everywhere asking for them but yet it’s been 5 going on 6 months since we were certified and we haven’t gotten a placement yet. #Infertility #Marriage #FosterCare #Adoption #lonely #relate #MentalHealth

Kallmann syndrome / CHH is a rare hormonal condition that affects puberty. Patients do not start or fully complete puberty.

There are a number of other physical symptoms that are associated with the condition, most notably perhaps, a lack of sense of smell (anosmia) which is the defining symptom of Kallmann syndrome but not found in CHH.

Aside from the physical problems that may arise from having hypogonadism it is the psychological problems that patients face which are often overlooked.

Not having a normal puberty and adolesence, especially in those patients who are diagnosed late can lead to problems in forming emotional and physical relationships. It can be an embarrassing condition to talk about which does not help in social confidence.

Most patients are able to overcome the shyness or lack of confidence but it can take time. Being infertile is also a major problem for some. Even though fertility treatments are available they are not always easy to obtain.

#puberty #KallmannSyndrome #Infertility #Anosmia #latebloomer #psychology

This verse was picked out and shared at church yesterday and I shared in our small group that tossing this verse at someone is NOT trauma-informed. If in the midst of my abusive childhood I pray for a safe family is that a selfish desire? If a family experiencing infertility prays for baby is that selfish?

You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures.
James 4:3 NASB2020

bible.com/bible/2692/jas.4.3.NASB2020

TW: domestic violence

I don’t usually talk about this

I went into the education field when I was 15

It was a “great career to have while raising a family.” 🙄

I was pretty sure I wanted kids although I went back and forth some years.

I got my Ed.S. and began working. I had been in a stable, long term relationship. We were engaged for a couple of years after dating for a few. I was getting married and getting set up for my family.

Then I experienced domestic violence in the first year of our marriage. I temporarily got out the night it turned physical. I got my emergency protection order within a month of it happening. I didn’t wait. I did it all the way society wants us to do it. I fought for him to acknowledge we weren’t reconciling. I thought I was moving on with my life.

I became disabled. I dated someone else who was abusive. I never really got “safe.” I didn’t realize leaving meant I would be stuck here seemingly forever.

I tried telling people how scared I was about all of the critical years of my life were slipping away.

All of my friends were staring families. They didn’t have time to even respond to me. They truly abandoned me. For so many reasons

They almost all work in the education field. Their social medias no longer include much else than their kids. One (the one who treats me like garbage) even joked with her husband that she only married him to have kids. I believe that joke, now seeing how she treats everyone as stepping stones to get what she wants. (If you’ve read my previous posts this probably doesn’t surprise you).

They promised me I could be an auntie to their kids. It was such a lie because they wouldn’t even treat me like a friend, much less a family member. They just didn’t want to deal with their own concerns regarding possible infertility since they were all in their 30s and concerned. It hit too close until it didn’t hit at all and i became othered.

30 years of concurrent friendship, best friends with three women, all of it gone in months because they wouldn’t treat me like a friend, or even a human.

Their families mattered over the decades of friendship.

They no longer have the space in my life.

This hurts so so so much.

I won’t have kids. I’m 36 and I just don’t see it as something that would be a responsible choice as a disabled women with very little support. I don’t want to hear how I’m making the right choice. I didn’t really make it. Society made it for me. When I became disabled. By experiencing trauma. By other people. I can’t even get enough money to eat. Yet I have been told repeatedly I would get more assistance if I had kids. Welcome to the dystopian universe.

And all of the people I loved most just disappeared. Their entire identities just disappeared when they had kids. Their social medias have no history from their life before kids. My own history has been robbed as well as my future

It’s been so cruel.

#DomesticAbuseSurvivors #Anxiety #PTSD #CPTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Trauma #ChronicIllness #ChronicMigraines #ChronicVestibularMigraine #ADHD #Disability #DisabilityBenefits #Agoraphobia #PanicAttacks