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Are we meant to become parents? Accepting our fertility destiny

My name is Patrice. I met my husband Alex during the first week of classes in university. I thought he was cute, but he didn’t even notice me! It took a while to get his attention, but when I did, I knew it was something special. We dated all through university and got married right after graduation. We both knew that we wanted to have kids, and figured we’d get pregnant pretty quickly since we were in our mid 20s. We were pretty surprised when we didn’t get pregnant in the first year. Then came the second, and we didn’t get pregnant then either. By then we were really starting to worry that it might never happen. When I spoke with my doctor she told me not to panic – and reassured me that sometimes nature takes time. She ran some basic tests and everything came out fine so we decided to get off the monthly merry-go-round and just let it happen when it happens.

We didn’t share our fertility issues with anyone in our lives as we felt it was pretty private. When family members or friends asked when were going to have kids, we always replied, “pretty soon!” We were both pretty certain that we didn’t want to do any expensive or invasive fertility treatments. We believed that if we were meant to have kids then we would, and if we weren’t, then we wouldn’t. So we went about our lives, and the years passed by, and we still didn’t get pregnant. We adopted a dog, and had lots of fun enjoying each other’s company and spending time with our nieces and nephews. We bought and renovated an old house, and resigned ourselves to the reality that having kids likely wasn’t in the cards for us. People finally stopped asking us when we were going to start a family. They likely figured that we were choosing to be child-free.

Then we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. Soon afterwards, I didn’t get my period, which had always been like clockwork. I assumed it was likely because I was training for a marathon – which I’d heard can affect a woman’s menstrual cycle. So I didn’t think much about it until the next month when I missed my period again. When I told Alex, he suggested we do a home pregnancy test. Neither of us were expecting it to be positive – but after I peed on the stick it actually turned blue! Alex and I were in complete shock – we’d all but given up hope that we were ever going to become parents. I made a doctor’s appointment and she confirmed that we were pregnant! We told our families and friends who were very excited for us. They were surprised to hear that we’d always wanted to have kids but nature just hadn’t cooperated for so many years. I think that made the pregnancy even more special – for us and for our family.

We had our healthy baby girl, Rose, just under two years ago. After ten years of being a dual career couple it took some time to get use to being on call 24/7. But we love being parents and Rose has brought so much joy to our lives. So just after she turned one, we decided we’d try to have another child. I was pretty sure we’d have trouble conceiving again, so I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But after only 3 months, lo and behold we were pregnant again! Apparently this baby is a boy. Honestly, we feel like we hit the jackpot. We had decided that our family was complete with the two of us and our dog – and that would have been OK too.  But the fates obviously had another plan for us. I guess in the end we were meant to become parents.

Share your thoughts on Patrice and Alex’s story in the comments section below, or submit your own fertility story here.

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