You Are Enough! : From Lindsay

Dear women,
We. Are. ENOUGH! You are not alone!

This letter is for any and all women that are struggling with a loss of a child, PCOS or fertility issues. I SEE you. I know your pain. I have lived it and at times, barely survived it. There is always light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes said tunnel is one long, winding bitch. But there will be light. Some times just a flicker, sometimes a whole damn Sun. You are not alone and you are enough.

For 8 years I have felt like less than a woman. I’ve felt anger and sadness at my body. I’ve felt fear that my husband would resent me or leave me to go have babies with anyone else. Sound familiar? Keep reading…

I was diagnosed with PCOS at a young age. I always knew getting pregnant could be a challenge, but to my surprise I was able to conceive pretty quickly after we got married. My pregnancy was not easy but we had faith that it would all work out.
Sometimes life doesn’t go as planned.

We lost our son due to Trisomy 18 while I was 7 months pregnant. There are no words to describe a stillbirth. You still have to go through labor and your milk still comes in, but your child never comes home. I never thought we would get through it. I constantly blamed myself and this body for failing. My husband and I never grieved at the same time. Men and women are funny that way. Our marriage struggled. We couldn’t communicate. I slid into a deep, dark hole of depression and became a recluse. Sure I went to work and came home, but outside of that I didn’t leave my house and made every excuse not to see friends or family. I wasn’t really living and I hated my body and I hated me.

Slowly……

We found comfort in meeting other couples who had experienced the same loss, the same struggles. They truly knew our pain and didn’t judge. I decided to create and run a local support group for others and slowly we began to heal.

After the grief started to lessen we decided to push forward and try to conceive again. I had so many ultrasounds, blood draws, tests, pills, shots, IUI cycles and one IVF cycle and yet I still could not conceive. We had so many excited moments of hope, only to be shattered in the end by the negative pregnancy tests. We poured all our hopes and money into becoming parents all while I secretly hated my body and everything it was going through.

Next we tried private adoption, we took out a loan to cover the astronomical cost, took the classes, filled out tons of paperwork and got recommendations from family and friends. We developed a relationship with the mother, supported her financially and emotionally, but she ended up keeping the child. I do not blame her, we knew that may happen.

But what I didn’t know was how devastated we would feel when that fell through Christmas week of 2018. It was like the death of a child all over again. I couldn’t do it anymore. I was so defeated. It was after that experience that I looked at my husband and said “I’m done, we need time to just have fun and be a couple again”. We deemed 2019 the year of fun. We decided no more fertility talk, more travel, more fun. I didn’t know if we would ever want to try again. Slowly, baby step by baby step the light flickered in. Quick flashes of happiness. We made the very best of 2019, we had so many amazing trips, so many laughs together and with family or friends. Put them all together and the whole damn Sun was shining on us.

I learned to love myself and my body again. By focusing on the good parts of life and taking that pressure off of us, I rediscovered myself and rekindled that spark in my marriage. We fell in love with each other again. I started paying attention to what my soul and heart needed and not what I thought I needed to be happy.

I no longer blamed myself for my fertility issues or my miscarriage. I no longer feared my husband needed a baby to be happy and now understand that to him a baby is just a bonus to our awesome life. I am whole, with or without a baby, our life will be amazing.

YOU are whole, no matter what happens in your journey, you will have an amazing life. If you are struggling now, know there are so many people out there that have felt your pain, we are all supporting you and you will find a new normal. There will be light again. Your life can still be beautiful even if it’s hard. I SEE you. I support you and I LOVE you! I mean this from the depths of my soul, you are enough