Childless not by choice
Tell me about you.
I know some of you have known each other for sometime now and are aware of each others past. However, I wanted to know if I could ask you to share with me your stories. Without a doubt it would take more than a siggy or a few paragraphs but I would love to hear your story. Not even just your IF stories, how you met DH, how you got to where you are now and so forth.
Please, if I am over stepping, forgive me for my curiosity. I do not know anyone else IRL that is going through what we are. It feels good to know I am not alone (even though i hate that any of us must share this common ground).
Have a happy day!
Kylie
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Re: Tell me about you.
Well, DH and I will be celebrating 3 years of marriage in July and have been together for 5 years. I have MRKH, and was born without a cervix or uterus. Ovaries began to form, but stopped while I was still in my mother's womb and dropped in location. The doctor said they had to be removed or it would be a cancer issue later.
So I have no cervix, uterus or ovaries. I also had virtually no vaginal length when I was 17, so I had to dilate. I also had extensive blood work done, one of which was to determine if I was genetically male or female...I'm still not over the embarrassment from that.
DH and I met through a mutual friend, and I eventually moved to Michigan to be closer to him. It's worked out pretty well
However, due to the cost of adoption, I don't think we'll be able to pursue that. And obviously ART is out of the question 
I've been in extensive therapy and on medication due to the severe depression that my IF has caused me. DH and I are definitely going to be child free, but my bestie is having a baby and I will be the auntie and a large part of her life, so that makes me feel a little better
I'm different from many in that DH and I didn't always want to have kids. I never really thought I'd be a mother and we met late(ish) in life (married at 29 - I know, not OLD, but there was a lot we wanted to do as a couple first and didn't want to rush through that time - hence the no kids thing).
Things change - fastforward 3 years and we want to have kids.
One year of ttc before first BFP. For much of our first tri we thought they were identical twins, joined at the head. The week after we found out they were seperate, healthy twins - no hb at the u/s.
The next two pregnancies came fairly quickly and each time (the first on Christmas, the second our wedding anniversary) AFTER we'd seen a hb, the baby died.
Genetics testing showed all had chrom. abnormalities so we tried IVF with PGD testing (testing each embryo to ensure no abnormalities). First round IVF, ALL 5 abnormal. Second IVF round, none even fertilized.
We actually feel at peace walking away from ttc. I'm fortunate to have extremely good insurance that covered accupuncture, fertility massage, yoga, alternative treatments, IVF expenses, etc. so we really threw everything we had at having a baby. 10 years from now I will be able to say, "we did everything humanly possible and then some."
After exploring donor eggs and adoption, we decided to again embrace the child free life we enjoyed 5 years ago.
Oh - and DH met at either a bar or a church, we can't remember which happened first - true story.
DH and I have been married 7 years. We met through my job. I am the financial secretary at our local high school. DH is a truck driver, but home every night. We have a big, old farm house that is 112 years old. We are slowly working on remodeling the house. We also have 5 acres of land, most of which is hay (well it was, it decided not to come up this year). We have a very large garden and sell the produce at a road-side stand. We have Pepper, who you can see in my siggy, she was rescued by a friends of our's. We also have a cat, two bunnies, and several chickens. We also have 3 roosters, which is about 3 too many, so if you know of any good homes.....
We started ttc about a year after we got married. We didn't get pg, but I figured that's okay, we were both in super stressful situations and exhausted, so no big deal. Then I had a few cycle issues and went to the dr was diagnosed with PCOS. We continued to ttc, but didn't stress a lot about it. We got a bfp and it was a total surprise because we had been trying for over 3 years at that point. We were over the moon and everything seemed to be going very well. At a regular appointment they couldn't find the heart beat. We lost our little boy at 17 weeks, I went though L&D then a D&C due to some issues.
We waited for a little while after our loss, started ttc again, but had a cysts, so we were benched for a few more months. Finally ttc again, but nothing happened. I tried clomid and it did nothing except give me hot flashes. I ended up at the RE a year ago. We tried a few ART cycles and they did not go well. I was diagnosed with early ovarian failure on top of the PCOS and they are leaning towards Fragile X as well, but I declined the testing. On what was going to be our last ART cycle I got a BFP, which ended up being a CP.
Sheesh, that's a lot, but if there is something else, let me know, I'm a pretty open book.
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle!
April 2011 CP @ 5 weeks
DH and I started dating in 2003 while we were both still in college. We got engaged and married in 2006, New Years Eve. We thought we might want kids later down the road but didn't have baby fever by any means. We bought a home with lots of room to grow.
In 2008 I went off the pill and we started TTC. It was frustrating for me as it seemed all my friends and family got pregnant so easily. After a year we suspected there was something wrong so made an appointment with our RE. First up was his SA which revealed low count, morph and motility. Pretty dismal numbers actually and I was pretty devestated. Testing showed everything was normal on my end so we went ahead with 6 IUIs, all BFNs. We are 100% OOP and tossed around IVF and DS a lot and just decided neither were for us. It would be difficult financially and by that point I was emotionally DONE with ART. Our marriage was suffering, I was getting depressed and I was ready to get on with my life. I felt like we had to have a stopping point or it could go on forever. My DH was never interested in adoption and I accepted that decision before we even started TTC.
We made the decision to live CF last Fall and it's been a process. The good days outweigh the bad now and I am so happy to have our IF journey behind us. It feels like we're getting back to "good" again.
Thanks everyone for sharing your stories.
DH and I recently celebrated 5 years of marriage. We're in North Carolina. I'm a piano teacher and love my students to pieces! He's a nurse aide. Hopefully some time soon he will get his RN. Our way of life is pretty simple. We both love to cook healthy meals and stay fit. We're Orthodox Christians. I'm Greek and he's Romanian. Yes, our big fat Greek wedding was just like the movie and most of my male cousins are named Nick.
We always wanted a large family, but after fibroid/endo/polyps/low ovarian reserve/crappy egg quality/MFI issues and 5 failed IVFs we decided we wanted to get on with our lives.
So happy to find this board! Working on a signature...
DH and I met 13 years ago at work. We married in 2002. Prior to getting married I was diagnosed with PCOS. We talked before marriage about what we would be willing to do to try and have a baby. We decided that we would take oral meds but nothing more. In April 2005 as I was nearing the end of my master's program we decided to start trying (prior to this we had not prevented except for the first 15 months of my 18 month grad program). We tried for three cycles with clomid via my OB. No pregnancy. We were then referred to an Infertility specialist. We made the appointment but canceled, made another appointment but canceled. We then had a serious discussion of how to move forward. We talked adoption, we talked foster to adopt...etc. but we never pursued anything further and never prevented. The women in my family have historically had bad outcomes with pregnancies beyond age 35 so when I turned 35 I had the Mirena placed as a safety measure as we had embraced the childfree life.
Thank you guys so much for sharing.
I am getting ready to begin my first year of medical school. A dream I can honestly say I thought I would never see come true. In early 2007, I was diagnosed with stage I ovarian cancer. Being so young my doctors were confident in being able to treat the cancer without having to do surgery. I started chemotherapy and did 3 rounds. And have been cancer free since 08. In October 08 I met DH and we married in October of 2010. I never wanted children after my brush with cancer. Not just because I was told it would be difficult or because I wanted to focus my life on my career. It was out of fear, of the cancer coming back someday and being taken from my kids. So we decided to come back to the topic later in our marriage.
This past January during a routine u/s to check for tumors and cysts we were shocked to learn of our pregnancy. Right there plan as day was this tiny little sac in my uterus. I was totally shocked. Not even a bit excited...terrified actually. After some blood work and seeing my OB we were told everything was great and we were on track for a healthy pregnancy.
After the shock wore off I began seeing this pregnancy for the true miracle it was and began to let myself love that baby. Sadly, at our next u/s @ 9w 2d, we discovered that our baby had past around 7w but my body was still working as if it were pregnant. I decided to have a D&C so that the tissue could be tested.
The results were my worst fear. It was a failure on my end , due to the chemo the genetic material within my eggs has been severely altered. We have little to no chance of ever carrying a successful pregnancy and if we were able to, we are at an extremely high risk for carrying a child with syndrome.
Adoption is out. I'm already in so much medical debt from the cancer not to mention student loans. Add in the fact that apparently people aren't so quick to give people with cancer a baby. So here we are.... back to were we were. Child free. Only now I am trying to get back to accepting it as a blessing and a good thing for us.