Today’s blog post is a reflection on living without children after infertility. It comes to us from Angela and George. Angela attended Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C. in May and participated in one of our mini-interviews for the project. Thank you George and Angela for sharing your story.

Angela – When I first read the email about doing a guest blog I got really excited. A chance to finally tell our story as a couple. I’d long planned to do a blog from the time we started our infertility journey. I was looking forward to sharing our good news after our long struggle to get pregnant. I’d picked out a name, written a couple of entries and even shared them with some close friends. Sharing our pregnancy progression with our friends and family was a dream of mine. Unfortunately, we never had any good news to share. After a couple of IUIs, an unsuccessful IVF and countless tears and prayers, there just wasn’t anything positive to say. I had no interest in writing a blog about our “failures.”

Fast forward two years and we now have a new normal. While we haven’t talked about this officially, I imagine that we’ll be child free. We haven’t discussed our 8 frozen embryos, our dwindling infertility insurance coverage (which ends when I turn 44 in 4 days) or any plans to adopt or foster to build our family. We no longer have the funds to put toward those options. My husband has also been concerned that yet another BFN will devastate me emotionally and put me back in that dark place that I’ve fought so hard to come out of. To be honest, we really don’t talk about this at all. That in itself is somewhat painful to me, but it may be more about self and marriage preservation than anything else.

What is there to say about living child free on Father’s Day? I guess we could write about our current life and all the child free fun we’re going to have in the future. Traveling, burning through our kids college money and just living a life of leisure. It also meant that we’d have to actually sit down to discuss this topic that is always in the back of my mind, but very difficult to bring up.

George – I had never thought about having a Father’s Day that was childless until we were offered this opportunity to be on this blog. To me it’s not easy seeing my wife go thru the struggles of being infertile. It hasn’t been an easy road for either of us. With Father’s Day approaching, my silver lining is the fact that I’m lucky to have my own father around still and I get to celebrate it with him in person this year. There’s always that thought of, “what if I had a kid of my own,” but to me the fact that there is still something to celebrate makes things a little easier. I embrace the fact that we are infertile as though it’s what God has planned for us. We can go out and tell our story to let others know they’re not alone in this battle, and we can all come together on tough days such as Father’s Day and celebrate life, with or without kids. The bottom line is that we will always have something to celebrate even if we end up celebrating child free. We will always have each other and family to lean on during the tough times, and we can also be that shoulder to lean on for others who are just starting the struggles of infertility.

Angela – I’m smiling as I read his piece. I’ve often wondered what our future will look like. For so long, we talked about our babies, our plans for them and our life as a family of three or four. This is such a difficult topic to have. Wanting something so terribly and trying to accept that you may never get there. I’m delighted to know that George sees a future for us as a family of two. This journey has definitely put a strain on our marriage. I often felt like I was alone to deal with this. Reading my husband’s words prove that I’m not alone and never will be.

As George mentioned, we will continue to share our story. We want to remind people that there is life after years of dealing with infertility. Time hasn’t necessarily healed old wounds. While I’m not sure this is something you ever “get over,” I agree with my husband when he says we will continue to be a source of support for others. The two of us can be an example of what a happy, healthy, child free family can look like.

While my husband may never hear these words from our own child, we will take today to celebrate our fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins and all the dads in our lives. Happy Father’s Day to each and every one of you.