Marriage with infertility

It can be a difficult thing. Infertility can really make or break a marriage. You either become closer than you ever thought possible, or you get pushed away and it all falls apart.
To keep things from falling apart, you have to be on the same page. I think both need to be understanding exactly what is going on every step of the way and there needs to be an agreement on how things are going to be handled. You need to keep communication open, and not block your spouse out of what is going on.

In my case, the problem is me. Only me. So, obviously what I go through is different than what he does. But, that doesn't mean it's not hard for him to go through it. He has to stand back and watch helplessly as everything happens with me. For my husband, he has a feeling of duty to try to make it better. To make things easier for me. And this is the one thing he's not able to do that with. So he does suffer too. It's just different type of suffering for each. And communication is not a problem here. Lucky for me, he listens. He understands. He's there for me no matter what. Even if he doesn't make the appts with me, he knows all the details and understands what is going on. When I am all hormonal and crazy, he's very forgiving. I know I can be a lot to deal with and he knows when it's the hormones kicking in and just basically overlooks that. And after every failed round, he's right there to comfort me. I honestly don't think I could handle any of this if he wasn't like this.

And when we got married, we were barely 19. Our lives revolved around each other since we were 15, and we had talked about being married, having a big family and what we wanted from our life for years before it happened. So when we got married, we were trying right away. Obviously it didn't happen right away, but it opened our eyes to being adults. We grew up faster than most our age. While our old friends were out partying and living the single or unmarried life, we were talking about how to handle infertility. We had a goal and we worked hard to make it happen. When we found out that the problem was with me, and our dream of having a big family may never happen, he could have took the easy way out being that young. I really wouldn't have blamed him. But we got closer, stayed strong, and kept going. And we lucked out and now we have K. We love this little boy more than we could ever dream of. We are happy with our little family, but I know that we both feel like there is something still missing. It's a feeling that is hard to explain. And I still feel like a failure that I can't do what should be normal. Can't just say I want to have another baby and it just happens. And now my son is learning that other people have lots of brothers & sisters, and why can't he have just one. It's a new level of the hurt of infertility. But this isn't about that...it's about the marriage part today.

I feel that our marriage is so much more solid with all we have gone through with this journey. I believe things happen for a reason, whether we understand it or not at the time. I'm starting to see that maybe the reason I'm cursed with infertility is so that I can have such a great and secure marriage. Without all this, I don't know that we'd have made things this good. It made us closer.

I'm very thankful that I got a wonderful husband who understands and will do anything to make things work. I have a friend who recently separated from her husband after 2 years of IF treatments and problems. They just became so different with it all that they couldn't reconnect and save their marriage. It shouldn't have to end like that.