Each week I interview someone who has experienced infertility firsthand. This week I’m interviewing Angela from RadKitten. She shares her experiences with infertility and an ectopic pregnancy.
Q. Tell us a little about yourself.
My name is Angela, I’m 32, and I live in Northeast Ohio. I go by Angie. I’m married to Bill, who is 34. We were married on 09/09/09. We met through a Craigslist personal ad he put up looking for a girl that played World of Warcraft. I knew the minute I met him I would marry him. We married a year later. By trade I am a web developer/web marketer. All that means is I am obsessed with WordPress and social media. My hobbies are pretty boring; video games, cooking, playing with my many dogs, and working on websites.
Q. How long have you been TTC and what issues are you facing?
My husband and I have been TTC since 2008. I also spent around 2 years TTC with my ex-fiance. So I’m right around the 8 year mark. All tests have come back normal for both my husband and I. The only thing we know is that I have extensive endometriosis scarring in my abdomen, and it is believed my right tube does not function properly internally.
I suffered an ectopic May 2013 following the 3 month window after my first HSG. It is my first and only pregnancy. I was rushed to the hospital at 5w5d for an exploratory laproscopy to confirm ectopic and cyst removal. They removed a baseball sized cyst from my right ovary and removed my very damaged left fallopian tube. Inspection of my right tube showed it to look normal, however, the current diagnosis I have is that it does not in fact work.
Q. What made you decide to blog about your journey?
I’ve had a personal blog now for over 12 years, so blogging about my infertility has pretty much been a natural progression of things.
Q. Which books, quotes, websites, verses, movies, songs, etc. have been an encouragement to you during your journey?
The RESOLVE website support forums have been a huge help for me. Just having somewhere I can go when I am desperate for someone who gets it is irreplaceable. Twitter is also a huge help.
Q. Do you and your husband cope with infertility in the same way or do you handle it differently?
We cope in very different ways. I’ve had a very, very hard time coping since the ectopic. We are coming at it from very different angles as well. He is okay with having children, and would like them, but I am most definitely the driver on having them. He wrote a really good blog post about his view of our infertility at his blog.
Q. How have you taken care of yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually during your struggles?
This is something I still struggle with. I’ve been through counseling, therapy, medication, you name it. I still struggle daily with coping. I haven’t really found a good way to balance it yet, but I hope to at some point.
Q. What has been your lowest point and how did you survive it?
My lowest point has been really low. Last September I ended up checking into a partial hospitalization program offered through a local hospital here. I spent 2 and a half weeks going Mon-Fri for 6 hours each day. It helped quite a bit and got me to a better understanding of some of my issues surrounding my IF. My official diagnosis was major depressive disorder caused by infertility.
Q. Have you been able to find a “silver lining” in your infertility?
It’s really proved to me that my husband and I are meant to be. We’re making it through this, we can and will make it through anything.
Q. Anything else you’d like to tell my readers?
You’re not alone. Speak out. We need to be loud to be recognized. It may be uncomfortable, but who cares. This isn’t something we should be ashamed of. We all suffer a disease and it deserves the recognition and treatment that any other disease receives.
Many thanks to Angela for sharing her story and for being so transparent. Please leave her a comment below to let her know you appreciate her and consider pinning the image to the right so other people can read her story.
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