Two years into her marriage, Shelley Skuster started having fertility treatment.
Sadly, a baby wasn’t to be.
She and her husband were one of the 1 in 8 couples who experienced infertility, and it broke their hearts.
“I felt like we had done everything right,” she wrote in a touching letter on her blog. “We had good jobs. A beautiful home. We were paying off our student loans, and we were financially secure. We started asking ourselves, What did we do to deserve this?”
This is a question that, sadly, the couple keep asking themselves as things didn’t change.
“My sadness turned into frustration as we drove to the pharmacy to pick up my injections. Hundreds of dollars’ worth of injections. We asked ourselves again, What did we do to deserve this?”
Despite the costs, both financial and emotional, the couple continued to try and try again. In the end however, they decided enough was enough – but it broke their hearts.
“Out of all the vitamins and supplements and acupuncture sessions to increase our chances of getting pregnant…none of it ever worked…It took us an entire year to grieve the loss of having biological children.”
“We cried. We were angry. We were envious of the perfect lives everyone else seemed to live.”
But their despair didn’t last forever. In fact, they gradually realised that their infertility didn’t have to mean they’d never be parents.
“Little by little, seed by seed, we became hopeful,” she wrote. “You see, there are many ways to build a family. Some choose to pursue embryo donation or IVF; others use donor sperm or donor eggs.”
But Shelley and her husband “felt a tug” at their hearts to adopt. So that’s what they did.
And while it wasn’t an easy road to take either, it eventually lead them to three beautiful baby girls.
“Three years later, I look back on our family’s journey through infertility, adoption and childbirth and I’m grateful.”
“I’m grateful for it all. Yes, even the disappointments and heartaches, for they’ve provided me with a level of empathy and understanding only those who have walked can understand.”
Saying that infertility made her appreciate motherhood so much more, she said that she’s most grateful for “where it eventually led us: three little girls – all brought to our family differently – who we get to call our own.”
Now, they find themselves asking themselves a familiar question but in a very different way:
“We ask ourselves…What did we do to deserve this? To deserve the honour and privilege of raising these three beautiful girls?”
What beautiful words, and how wonderful to see pain leading to such complete happiness.
You can read Shelley's touching letter in full here.
