My Greatest Blessing

For those of you who haven't taken a pregnancy tests in your life, this is a negative pregnancy test. Of the 100's of tests I have taken, this is the only result I have ever seen because I suffer from unexplained female factor infertility. 

I don't like the term unexplained because it doesn't actually mean anything. What we know for sure is that I have PCOS. Unless I am on medication to induce a period, I don't get periods. We have tried lots of different medications but my body has decided that it only wants to ovulate when it wants to. 

We took a month off while we were being transferred from our regular OB/GYN to our reproductive endocrinologist. In that month off I did ovulate without any medication. I didn't ovulate any of the cycles with the fertility specialist. 

The tricky thing with this is that it means I technically could get pregnant at anytime. 5 years of no birth control and it hasn't happened, but if the stars align and I actually ovulate, BAM! I will say that we are not actively trying to have a baby of our own but aren't taking any measures to prevent it.

At one point, this single line was a horrific reminder of what was missing in my life. This single line was a reminder of everything I couldn't do. I won't go into the details, but infertility caused pain like I had never felt before in my life. It was like a death. It was the death of a dream I had had for as long as I could remember. 

That pain is gone now. You see, I no longer mourn my infertility. As a matter of fact, I consider it my greatest blessing.

Had I been able to have my own children, foster care would have never even been on my radar. I would never have even considered adoption as a realistic option. It sounds nice to talk about, but I would never have actually done it. I would have never known this crazy and amazing world.

Of course, I will never get to experience breast feeding, gender reveals, and feeling my baby move inside of me. Although people who don't get to experience foster care will never know the absolute JOY that fills you when you sit in a court room and a judge spells out your child's name with your last name behind it. Never know what it is like when you actually forget you didn't give birth to this child that is so completely yours in every way... minus that DNA stuff. Never be able to understand how hard you fought and advocated for your baby and know that it wasn't in vain and that you now never have to worry about someone taking them away from you. You can also never comprehend how mixed your emotions are when you are so happy for a child to go back to parents who have worked so hard and deserve their baby back but also that a piece of your heart is leaving with that child. 

I may never get a positive pregnancy test, and that is ok. I have mourned this loss and it no longer holds power over me because I got to experience more than I could have ever dreamed.