My Struggles with Infertility

I’ve been off birth control since early 2007, shortly after I started going to an Orthodox church.  Everything I read/heard said that Orthodoxy is against birth control, so that’s why, but my priest told me, “The Orthodox Church is not against birth control.”

It was very confusing, but I wanted another child, anyway–and my hormonal imbalance, I discovered, had finally corrected itself after years on the Pill.

No more wacky periods that were sometimes normal, sometimes a month or so late, sometimes lasting far longer than five days–a problem I’d had occasionally since 1994, causing me to suspect alternating pregnancy (when they were very late) and miscarriages (when I had a ten-day period the summer of 1994).

(This is probably why my period was 10 days late in 1993, making me think I was pregnant.)

Then it finally came to a head right before my wedding in 1997, when my period lasted for 16 days, and got diagnosed and treated with the Pill.

I had not intended to use birth control after my wedding, but now I had to, so having children was already pushed off.  Then I began having gynecological problems, kept having to get stuff removed to make sure I wouldn’t get cervical cancer.

When it was finally all gone in 2002 (for the moment–it came back later), I went off birth control again, but it wasn’t until spring 2003 that I finally got pregnant.  I was 29, having been married at 23.  So my first child was already late.

But I had to go in for a LEEP to remove more stuff after this, in 2006, after my son was born.  Nothing more has happened since, but I worry every time I get an exam, that it’ll come back “abnormal” again and further testing will find more stuff to get removed.

My periods were normal in 2007, and have been since, making me think I must now be able to have the other two children I wanted.  But nothing has happened!

Once I thought I was pregnant, which Richard will remember, because he was staying here when I got struck with a sudden attack of vertigo, nausea and vomiting.  (His joke: “How will it look, Richard comes here and Nyssa gets pregnant!”  NO, we did NOTHING, it was just a joke.  🙂  )  But my period started soon after.

I resigned myself to the distinct possibility that we are now infertile and I will never have more children.  It made me very sad, and finally, last summer, I went through all our baby things, stored and waiting for another baby, and gave them all away.

It freed up lots of space–but was sad, a defeat.  I figured if we waited much longer, all our stuff would be so out of date that nobody would want it, yet it’s barely been used.  The bottles already had to be recycled, though barely used (I mostly breastfed), because we got them before BP or whatever-it-is was removed from baby bottles.

Now we may know what the problem is….Though whether this will lead to me getting pregnant at 40, remains to be seen.  Even if the problem is fixed, I may be too old.

Another option: taking in foster kids for Social Services, since I have such a burning in my heart about child abuse.

[Update 10/23/14: My husband’s surgery did not change a thing.  12/24/15: Nor did mine in 2014.]