this story was written by Butterfly Run Committee Member, Chelsea Hardy
"Where do I begin? With the pain, the journey, the emotional sacrifice, the financial toll, or the let downs?
I’ll start with 7 years ago my fiancé and I made the decision to start trying for children. After a year of trying, we decided to seek more medical support and determine where our delay was coming from. Both his and my GP said, it’s only been a year, give it some more time. The two questions I remember running through my mind, why do we have to wait and what if something is really wrong? However we ended up making the decision to not press further and took their advice and waited.
Three months later, and still nothing. Matt and I talked more about it and decided to look further into his reproductive health; less invasive and more time efficient. The month after we received the requisition for Matt to have testing done, BAM! We found out we were expecting our daughter, she is now four and half. At Raelynn’s second birthday, we made another decision for growing our family, let’s pull the goalie and go for another. I had been seeing a naturopath at this time, to balance my body out to prepare for our journey again. BAM! Two months in and we were expecting again.
To say we were devastated in experiencing my first miscarriage is an understatement, but that’s a journey for another time. Time went on and we worked on healing my body, and recovering mentally. We again made the decision to continue with growing our family, now that I was feeling ready again.
That was April 2021. 2 years, 24 months, or 730 days, no matter how you say it, time is the reality that Matt and I face every day. It’s an ugly reminder of how health care policies are failing us, how 1 in 6 experience this, how my body and soul ache for that part of me to be successful again. 3 IUI’s, 2 procedures, 4 trigger shots, 2 Menopur injections, 4 weeks of Letrozole, 8 weeks of Progesterone, 12 months of ovulation testing and a multitude of negative pregnancy tests. These are facts and figures of my life for the last year.
To try and explain what infertility means or how it feels, will never come close to the truth. It’s hard to put into words what 1 in 6 women in Canada experience. Every journey is different, but ultimately the same; always wanting what we don’t have yet or may never have. To all of the couples experiencing fertility journeys, I see you, I feel you, and I hear you. You will never be alone along the path of wanting or wanting more. Many say “oh but you have a daughter, some don’t even get that”. Yes, that’s true, but are Matt and I not still deserving of what we want. I am grateful for what I have, but why should I be made to feel guilty when I still ache for another. One day we'll look back at this time in our families journey, and know it was all worth it. One way or another we will move forward, growing and building."
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