The Start of a New Journey

A new journey may not be the most honest of titles for this post. I believe in one of my first post I mentioned that we had started down the adoption path last March but pulled out because of our pregnancy. This January we decided we were going to start traveling back down that path full steam, and it has been absolutely amazing. We essentially got bumped to the top of a nine-month wait list and now are only a couple steps away from being in the pool of waiting families.

Since January, we have put together document after document, completed three home visits, forked out a bunch of money, and dug through pictures to build a beautiful book about us. What should have been about year to complete, including the waiting list, has been a fast and furious three months. Our final pieces are waiting on background checks from the state of Maryland and completing a three day training class that starts in May. If all goes as currently planned we will be able to be viewed and picked by an expecting mother or family by the middle of May.

This marks a moment of triumph and lost as there is duality to saying goodbye to how we wanted to build our family originally and saying yes to this new opportunity. Through all the pain and darkness that the past seven years, and in particular the past year, has brought, I can see the light in this darkness. I can see that something beautiful is being built out of the pain and the heartache and the uncertainty. I know that the child we are meant to have will be the child that is placed in our arms whether that be in 3 months or three years.

Graduation!!!!

For anyone who has seen this blog, which I am pretty sure is no one but me at this point, you will notice I changed the title. This is a big change because I believe it truly reflects a monumental shift in where I was and where I am. My wife and I recently "graduated" from our post-pregnancy loss counseling. We had been going to her since about a month after the loss and she has been absolutely phenomenal. Jill, we can't thank you enough for all you did for us. We realized we had "graduated" when we spent about half of our last session talking about Casa Bonita, yes the crazy restaurant for South Park, we live in Denver so it is and always will be a talking point. I tell you, there is nothing like spending $60 to talk to a trained professional about a campy Mexican restaurant with cliff divers to really drive home, "your good".

Now what "your good" means is not that I have forgotten the loss or don't pain over it, it is merely that I now know it is something I can live with throughout my days. There is not a day that I don't think about our little Ellie or what our life would look like if she were born into this world a happy and healthy little girl. But I do have faith in God that this pain and the loss of her is helping to build something more beautiful than we could even fathom. In short terms, Gods got this and I trust in that.

I have a lot more I want to share but I am going to hold off for now so I can have some material for future posts.

Let get going!!!

It was a huge jump to even start this page and it kind of happened by accident as I needed the web address to something I was working on. I figured once I had it though let's do something with it. As promised a couple months ago when I first launched this page I wanted to share my story. It is long so I will paraphrase at this time and likely come back to more detailed pieces as this progresses. Also, I am a huge Star Wars nerd so if there are some references that seem out of place, please know they are probably from one of the eleven Star Wars movies that now exist.

My wife and I were married back in 2012 shortly after graduating from college. We both knew we wanted to have a family so she went off birth control immediately as we knew from some preexisting conditions it would likely take a little while to get our bodies in sync to actually make things happen. After about three years of nothing happening, we saw our first fertility specialist, then after about another year we saw another, and by the middle of 2018, we had been through three fertility specialists at two different clinics. It took us all these visits to finally decide to start doing fertility treatments and that story has been fast, hard, and painful. So since October of 2018, we have had.......

1. Three failed IUIs, all consecutive
2. One late-term miscarriage (14+ weeks)
3. A second miscarriage (6 weeks)
4. Just this week a chemical pregnancy (very early term miscarriage)

As you can see, we have been busy not making a lot of progress for the last 15 months.

For anyone going through a journey with all or any of these experiences, I am so sorry you have to feel the pain that comes with it. If you are a person of faith I pray that you find some comfort in your community, the Word, and in prayer. For those of you that are not a follower of Jesus, I hope my experience and word can help you to know you are not alone in this journey and there are always people to share with, to love, to mourn with, and to comfort or vent.

I want to keep a running list of resources that I have found helpful in my journey. Below will hopefully be an ever-growing list of books, articles, videos, other blogs, and anything that can help me and anyone else through this journey.

Books:

·       It's not supposed to be this way by Lysa TerKeurst

Articles:

·       Miscarriage Grief: Fathers Struggle Through Loss Too https://undefiningmotherhood.com/partners-and-miscarriage/

·       How Miscarriage Affects Men, One Husband's Story https://www.parents.com/pregnancy/complications/miscarriage/how-miscarriage-affects-men/

An Introduction

If you are stumbling upon this post it is generally not because you are jumping for joy, it is more likely that you have some deep pain that has overwhelmed you, at least that is what I felt when I first went searching the words, infertility-miscarriage-pregnancy loss. Unfortunately, when I search those words it kept coming up with a random article here or short story there but no unified place to find and speak about the pain I was experiencing. I do not want this to be focused on myself and my loss but to serve as a resource for others and myself to work through and discuss the other side of pregnancy loss and infertility. I want to be able to post articles and resources and have open discussions about what it means and how it feels to be the partner in these situations. I will post my story shortly and if nothing else hopefully start some healing for me and hopefully help bring others into a place of healing as well.