Infertile in my Early 20’s
I never thought I would be here. I never thought I would be one of the 7% of women struggling with infertility in her early 20’s. I also didn’t think we’d be dealing with a global pandemic while I was trying to get pregnant, but here we are.
There isn’t much in the way of information about women in their early 20’s dealing with infertility, probably because most women my age wouldn’t try to get pregnant on purpose. So, I thought I would share some things about myself and my journey through infertility at the age of 24 years old.
I’ve never been like most people my age. I didn’t start drinking until I was the legal age and even then, I mostly only really drank at home. I never went home with strange men I didn’t know. I’ve always been very wary of the world around me and never put myself in unsafe situations. I’ve always loved kids and wanted my own. I’ve been babysitting since I was 10 and I was a nanny for 6 years before we moved to St. Louis. All of my friends in high school used to joke about how I would probably end up with a hoard of kids when I was older. Little did they know I was going to struggle to even have one of my own.
I got married young to an amazing man, we have two huge dogs, and we’re both extremely active people. I was on the track to a family and thought we were doing everything right. We decided as a couple to start trying for our first child pretty early. I wanted to be able bounce back quickly and I also wanted to have decent sized age gaps between kids. I cut out all alcohol, switched from coffee to herbal tea, went back on a gluten free diet (I’m gluten -intolerant), and have been taking prenatal vitamins for a year. I work out 5-6 days every week, stay active on the weekends hiking and walking, and eat whole foods. My husband and I are the perfect healthy couple on paper and yet after a year of trying, we still haven’t gotten pregnant.
I’m not going to lie, I’m angry sometimes. I’m angry that my body can’t do the one thing it was made to do. I’m angry that everything is out of my hands and I have no control. Knowing that we’ve done everything we can on our own is comforting but at the same time needing medical help to get pregnant is a whole other beast.