How do you navigate the swirling storm of infertility when everything seems uncertain and your heart is breaking? Angela, a brave and inspiring woman, shares her incredible story of hope, faith, and perseverance in the face of unexplained infertility. Join us as we listen to Angela's journey of trying to conceive naturally for years, the heartache of an unexplained diagnosis, and the miraculous gift of a generous couple who funded her IVF procedure.
Angela opens up about leaning on her unwavering faith in God during the darkest times and the importance of finding a supportive community to help carry you through. We discuss the impact of infertility on relationships, the significance of acknowledging and processing grief, and the life-changing joy of becoming a mom to her precious little boy. Don't miss this heartwarming and inspiring conversation with Angela, where we explore the power of hope and the miracles that can happen in the midst of hardship.
She is also an amazing author and has written a book about her struggles with infertility. You can read more about that book here: https://book.whileinwaiting.com/ Connect with Angela: https://instagram.com/while_in_waiting https://www.facebook.com/whileinwaiting Email- whileinwaiting@yahoo.com Website- book.whileinwaiting.com
Follow along on Instagram for podcast updates, new episodes, and more!
Instagram.com/maybebabydiariespodcast
www.TheMaybeBabyDiaries.com Link to the podcast on YoutubeL: https://youtu.be/JCX4cc3JBv4 Instagram.com/themaybebabydiaries
How do you navigate the swirling storm of infertility when everything seems uncertain and your heart is breaking? Angela, a brave and inspiring woman, shares her incredible story of hope, faith, and perseverance in the face of unexplained infertility. Join us as we listen to Angela's journey of trying to conceive naturally for years, the heartache of an unexplained diagnosis, and the miraculous gift of a generous couple who funded her IVF procedure.
Angela opens up about leaning on her unwavering faith in God during the darkest times and the importance of finding a supportive community to help carry you through. We discuss the impact of infertility on relationships, the significance of acknowledging and processing grief, and the life-changing joy of becoming a mom to her precious little boy. Don't miss this heartwarming and inspiring conversation with Angela, where we explore the power of hope and the miracles that can happen in the midst of hardship.
She is also an amazing author and has written a book about her struggles with infertility. You can read more about that book here: https://book.whileinwaiting.com/ Connect with Angela: https://instagram.com/while_in_waiting https://www.facebook.com/whileinwaiting Email- whileinwaiting@yahoo.com Website- book.whileinwaiting.com
Follow along on Instagram for podcast updates, new episodes, and more!
Instagram.com/maybebabydiariespodcast
www.TheMaybeBabyDiaries.com Link to the podcast on YoutubeL: https://youtu.be/JCX4cc3JBv4 Instagram.com/themaybebabydiaries
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Maybe Baby Diaries podcast. I'm your host, mariah Montgomery. Here we'll discuss all things in fertility, like heartbreak, joy, growth, loss and the wild, crazy journey that it is. Let's bring awareness, education and understanding to the table. You aren't alone. Together, we've got this. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Maybe Baby Diaries podcast. I am here today with Angela. Angela, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1:
I am really happy that you're here and that we get to chat about everything, all the things. So tell me, what did your family building process look like for you?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So my husband and I got married. We had been together there for about three years and we thought we'll wait about a year to start trying to have babies. We wanted to be able to get a year of marriage under our belts, just filling everything out on that first year of marriage. So after that went by we decided we were ready. Well, mostly I was the most ready, but he was like okay, i'm getting married to have a baby. So we started trying and we went on trying for quite a while.
Speaker 2:
Things weren't lining up. I wasn't getting pregnant. I thought maybe it was because of my birth control, because my mom had a baby a year after she got married and a couple years later that this just isn't something prominent in my family. So after a couple years I knew I was like I think we need to go ahead and go see a doctor, maybe get some testing, that kind of thing done. And so we went and did that and I had never been pregnant within those couple years of trying. I never had seen a positive pregnancy test. So they knew something wasn't lining up. So they wanted me to try different methods charting, taking temperatures, all the things and then come back. So I ended up coming back after none of that worked And I remember my doctor was like well, let's you know, let's keep at it a few more years, you're still young. And I was like I get all that, but I'm ready to have a family. So I ended up actually self-referring myself to fertility clinic, which I know is frowned upon. But I was like why not give it a shot? So I did And somehow they let me do that.
Speaker 2:
I had seen a post from one of my friends the night before on Facebook. She had said I don't, i feel like there's someone out there looking for a doctor because they're having a hard time having a baby. And this is the doctor I used. And we went through infertility And at that point I was realizing and connecting like I'm pretty sure I have infertility. So I went to the doctor. They ran all the tests, all the things did, the procedures, the signaling, all of that, and there was nothing super big that they found. Everything was very minimal little polyps here and there. So in the end of it we were deemed unexplained infertility, which is frustrating. I found out on this side of things after I've become a mom. What more is going on? which I'm like why could I not have known that?
Speaker 1:
many years ago.
Speaker 2:
But just because my body had never been pregnant and had been so many years of trying, they told us we had about a 1% chance of getting pregnant naturally, Just because nothing had ever connected. Normally when people are trying, they get pregnant and they miss carry. But that just wasn't our experience. So my doctor said, okay, we can either be super proactive or take things slow. And so I'm like let's go get it, Let's go after it. So we ended up going through everything and then ended up going the route of IVF And that was an experience.
Speaker 2:
I was very naive. I knew nothing about IVF going into it. Learned a lot along the way. Of course, when I'm terrified of shots and now I'm like, Oh, give me a shot over medicine, I got this. I'm a pro. Exactly, I got this. Now hundreds of things in my body, But I think for me it was figuring out like what route is right for our family, What way is God leading us? And we really felt peace of IVF and we are actually blessed financially by an amazing couple that's still part of our lives today, that funded our whole procedure for us, So that was a huge miracle. It still makes me emotional every time I talk about it just because I knew I was like God. I need a sign that this is okay, that I'm not taking it out of your hands and putting it in my own or putting it in a doctor's hands.
Speaker 2:
And the day of our IVF introductory class is the day that my husband was handed the check, So it just all lined so beautifully. We went through IVF. The whole process started right away on my next cycle and everything went really well. My nurse told me you are like a textbook IVF patient. Your body's ready for this, So great. So we went through the procedure and we found so I found out after the egrotrable and the transfer that we had no remaining embryos left. So I knew during my two week wait either this is it or we're starting over. So thankfully, we found out not long later that my son snuggled in tight. So I actually had two embryos that were transferred, one very early on. I ended up miscarrying and then my son ended up staying in there tight. And so I'm a mom to a little boy who turns six next week, which is wild, and just still love to be a part of this community and spreading hope. And I feel like I could go on and on about my story, but that's the majority of the bulk of it.
Speaker 1:
I love it And I love that you got your little, your sweet, sweet baby. After all of that and all the heartbreak and all the trying and unexplained, infertility is rough. Yes, We are in the unexplained category. We've had a couple of things that have kind of pointed to, like some sperm issues, but it's mostly just unexplained And it's really hard because there's nothing that you can really go and fix. You know like it's just, it is what it is. It's hard, Right? Yes, it is. So. During that whole process how you talk so much about like faith and finding God and I think that is so beautiful How did you maintain that faith And how did you keep that faith? There's such a heartbreaking experience. Infertility is devastating.
Speaker 2:
Yes, it is devastating, and I say it is a trauma. Like you go through a very traumatic time in your life. Ours, from start to finish, was almost five years of that Wait until I got pregnant and the process of all of it. And for me everything with infertility is so unknown. I needed one thing that was known and I knew that was God. So that was the one thing I really leaned into. Doesn't mean I didn't talk to him about how, why, or you know, i was mad with him thinking he caused it, but he doesn't do that. He doesn't cause our infertility.
Speaker 2:
And so to me, my faith was something I had to lean into to help myself feel one constant in my life. Of course my husband was a constant as well, but outside of that, just journaling, writing down things to God, like expressing to him my anger, my frustration, all of that I just felt like for me, getting the words out is what helped me process through that time And we were kind of we were pretty private about it. Not a lot of people knew. So for me that was harder because I'm a pretty open person And so having this thing that I'm going through, where no one knows what I'm going through, but they're knowing you're acting different or weird. Or you disappear at 8 pm every time we're out together, like because there's something going on. I'm like stomach problems.
Speaker 2:
I just made stuff up because I didn't want to tell him like I'm going to give myself a shot Or you know. so for me it was just really leaning into God and knowing like he had a plan. I knew I was supposed to be a mom. That's like one of the things I had said since I was a baby or not a baby, a kid when you're asked what you want to be when you grow up, i'm like a mom. I wanted to be a mom. I knew it was part of my story And I wanted to continue to fight until that dream came true. And so that's why I just kept pressing in to the Lord and my faith in wanting that to just be the one constant thing.
Speaker 1:
That's beautiful. I love that. That's awesome, It's. There's been times in my own journey where it's been really hard to find that faith, but I love that. That was like that was your constant And that's. It is so hard to keep the faith and to keep being positive and everything when you're going through this And I give you like all of the applause because it's hard. So do you feel like when you miscarriage your sweet little one? do you feel like God was able to help you through that as well?
Speaker 2:
I do, i do. I think I went through a place of denial and a sense of okay. So I transferred two embryos. One of them ended up shedding and so it's a miscarriage, because it was into my pregnancy some. But for me I was like you know, i should just be grateful for the one, so I don't need to grieve the other one that I've lost. And now my son, being the age he is, he does know he was supposed to be a twin and that his sister's in heaven and all that.
Speaker 2:
But for me I never let myself go there because I was like so many people in this community would be so happy with just one baby.
Speaker 2:
But then I got to a point where I realized I was hurting and I needed to see Keeling and I needed to grieve the loss of her And what I thought this life would look like with a son and a daughter.
Speaker 2:
And now I'm going through life with just a son and it's beautiful and it's everything I could have ever imagined, but I know there's still a little girl that should be here too.
Speaker 2:
So I know that something definitely that God has helped me process through, and some sweet friends that I've met in this community as well being like you need to grieve, you need to express what you're feeling. It's okay to think it was supposed to look one way and it to look a different way, and it's almost like I explained it this way you're simultaneously carrying grief and joy at the same time, like two of the most opposite feelings. So I'm so joyful to be a mother to this beautiful little boy, but also grieving what it would look like to have little girls Well. So I definitely know God helped me through that And, once again, just processing my feelings, getting my words out on paper. I love to write, i blog, i write, i've wrote a book, all that. So writing is an outlet for me that helps. So that's one thing I tell people is like what is your outlet to help you get those feelings out, because I think that's so important, rather than just holding it all in.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, oh my gosh, 100%. I feel like things get so much more difficult when you're not willing to like get them out. And it is hard and it is uncomfortable, but actually getting it out there is needed. We all need to do it. So what was going on with you and your husband around this time? Like how was it navigating infertility together? and navigating, you know, your pregnancy loss and everything.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it was. It was good. He was very strong. You would have never known that he was hurting as well, because he wanted to be the rock for me through all of it. I feel like our marriage, thankfully, got stronger. That's the one thing I told him. I said at the end of the day, we didn't marry each other because I didn't marry you and look at you and say I'm marrying you for you, to give me kids. You didn't marry me. Look at me saying I'm marrying you to give me kids.
Speaker 2:
We married each other because we felt like God called us together. We felt we were in love, we wanted to build a life together and we didn't know what that looked like yet. So at the end of the day, we still wanted our relationship and our marriage and our love to stay intact. So infertility can tear couples apart. It's well known when, especially if people play the blame game. That's one thing we decided to never do was never you can't give me babies or I can't give you babies. It was never that kind of thing. It was like we're in this together, we're a team, we're a couple, and so we really just still went on dates, still talked, still communicated. He helped walk me through some of my lowest days. I would have never made it through without him because of how strong he is, but later we've been able to process through and I wanted to know like what were your feelings going through this?
Speaker 2:
and so he's ended up writing, he wrote a blog and he wrote the epilogue in my book, just saying, like IVF, from the passenger seat, like his perspective of what it was like and hearing that was beautiful, because to me it was so different than what he saw. He saw strength and I saw weakness. So it's like how much that came together and that balance each other out is just. it was beautiful and I'm so thankful for how strong he remained, how much he helped me, how encouraging. he would pray over me. We would listen to worship music. He would make my shots fun. We would sing a shot song, like we just found stuff to make it fun as much as you could, you know, because we love to have fun, we love to laugh. So that's one thing we still tried to do. I'm like find a fun song, do a crazy dance when you're giving yourself shots. So very thankful that my marriage remained strong for all of it.
Speaker 1:
That's such a blessing. It really is. But it sounds like you guys went into it having that expectation like we're going to work through this, we're going to be a team, and that's a big deal too. That can be hard to do. So you mentioned that you still love being in the community, and you mentioned that you have a book. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely Yeah. So I wrote a book, actually released it in 2020, which one of the odds, I know I'm like, look it's 2020. I'm still launching this book, will just skip the in person signing parties and do it all later. But I really felt like the Lord wanted me to share my story. Okay so for writing, i started as a blog and then it moved into the book. I launched it in 2020. And it was just something the Lord had really wanted me to. I felt him pressing on me to share my story, which up until that point, i kept it private. I hadn't shared my journey, i hadn't shared what I've been through, and so I was like, okay, we'll start small, we'll start a blog, we'll do it that way. And then eventually it turned into the book, which it was beautiful how it worked out, because most of my blogs are what form my chapters in my book, and so I just got to explain on all that and put that out there, and it's been a cool journey to go through that Writing process and being able to share now and do different events is super fun.
Speaker 2:
As far as being a part of the community, i get to be a part of a beautiful community called Moms in the Making. So we host in-person and also virtual support groups for people going through infertility. And then there's also people that are in secondary infertility, just whatever your waiting season looks like. I host a virtual group By some month online. I love it. I have girls from all over. We come together, we study the Bible, we pray together.
Speaker 2:
A lot of people are like is that like a complaining fest? And I'm like no, it's not Like we're coming together with a commonality, but out of that commonality we're just really diving into Jesus. And what does he say about infertility? What does he say about healing? All of that? So it's been a beautiful process to be a part of. I've been a part of that for almost five years now. So I really love that ministry and just what they do for the community. So and I say engaged on Instagram with different people in the community and I just love that. I love how supportive it is. I love how much this community helps people walk through what they're going through.
Speaker 1:
I love that, so I would love to talk about the biggest lesson that you learned in your own personal infertility journey and what that looked like for you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I think the biggest lesson that I learned personally would be just not to be afraid to share your story and to seek out community. That's the one thing I would change in my journey. Knowing how things are now is knowing that people wouldn't view me differently, because I just felt very embarrassed, very ashamed. I didn't know anyone who'd gone through what I'd gone through before until once I was vocal about it. People are like oh, i went through that too.
Speaker 1:
I've just never told anyone.
Speaker 2:
So for me, that was my biggest lesson was just learning not to feel ashamed There's nothing to be ashamed about, nothing to be embarrassed about but really to find community, find people that you can trust and talk to And I did have a couple of people that I trusted and that knew what I was going through in our family as well. But I feel like if I were a part of the community I'm a part of now, i would have been able to navigate things and work through my feelings a lot differently.
Speaker 1:
I think having a community through the whole process is huge And I think it makes a really big difference. I know when I started our infertility journey, i didn't really know anybody that was going through it, but then, when I actually posted about it on social media, the support that I got was amazing And I wish I would have posted about it sooner. I wish I would have been more open about it sooner. Right, yeah, so I love that you've written a book and that you're in this huge community, and I love so much that it means virtually, so you can reach so many more people than just the people in your neighborhood. That's awesome. I think it's wonderful. Do you have three pieces? I know three is kind of a lot, but three pieces of advice that you would like to share in regards to infertility struggles?
Speaker 2:
Yes, i do. So these are my three, that I say a lot. The first one is don't lose hope. If you feel like there is something that is a desire of your heart and you feel like it is something the Lord is giving you, i want to give to you, push in So if you feel like he's promised you something. Sometimes the hard part is is when we're in a waiting season, we feel like that weight is a no, and so we're like, if we're waiting and he's not answering, then it must mean we can't have it. So just keep believing, don't lose hope. And then my second thing would be to lean in, to lean into God, to lean into what he's saying, to lean into what he has over your journey, and that's one thing. I pray to this like Lord, what do you want for me? Do you want me to try, naturally? Do you want me to do procedures, or IVF, or IUI, or adoption or foster? I just wanted to do what he had because I knew, at the end of the day, even though I thought my plans were better, they weren't. His plans were much better than mine. And then the third one is gonna be kind of a repeat Get into a community, find community.
Speaker 2:
If you are not comfortable being a part of a support group, then find a friend. Find someone who you can trust and open up to, because if you're leaving it inward, it just gets deeper down and it really does become a deep trauma Versus. If you're bringing it to the surface, you're talking through it, you're communicating through it, you're finding that community. You're finding people who can literally look at you in the eyes and say I've been where you're at. That is so powerful in itself. I will never forget the first time I was in a room full of other people that had walked through or were walking through infertility. I just something shifted in me. I just felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders because people knew what I was going through and had been where I was. And that's so powerful.
Speaker 1:
I love it. I think that was perfect. Do you have anything else that you'd like to add? anything else that you feel impressed like you need to share?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, I think just what I said, just really taking the time and asking the Lord, like what do you have for me? What is your plan? What is the purpose of this? What does my journey look like? Because I feel like it's so easy just to plan out our own way. If my life looked like the way I thought it should by now it would probably be a huge mess. So, knowing and trusting that his ways are much better than mine And his plan is much better than the plan that I plan, So just really leaning in and seeking him and knowing that he has good plans for you.
Speaker 1:
Perfect. I think that was great. Angela, thank you so much for joining us today. I think everybody listening is gonna have beautiful truths to be able to take from this. And thank you for sharing your story and just everything that you've been through. It's such a beautiful story And I love so much that you've been able to find God and continually feel like he's been in your journey. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Yeah thank you for being here, Angela.
Speaker 1:
where can people find you?
Speaker 2:
You can find me on Instagram. I'm at wow, underscore in underscore, waiting. And then same thing on Facebook, just wwwfacebookcom. Slash while I'm waiting.
Speaker 1:
Those are the best ways to find me Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you.