From Infertility to 3 Young Children

I know I've mentioned it many times in the past but to look at us now you would never realize it.
We, like many couples experienced infertility.

And in hopes of giving others encouragement I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner to share our story.

We were young getting married (I was 21 & Josh was 24)...however we both had our lives figured out. I had just graduated nursing school & had landed my first job. Josh had previously graduated college & was working as well. We knew we wanted to get married.

Just 2 years later we decided we were ready to start our family. I had always had this deep down feeling that we would have trouble. Almost like a sixth sense, I just knew. So, a couple months in I spoke with my OB who I happened to also work with at the hospital. I had very irregular cycles so she felt that I wasn't ovulating. I made an appointment to confirm it, I was not ovulating. So, the beginning of treatments....I started Clomid. First month nothing...no ovulation. Nothing.
Second month, nothing!
Third month, nothing. So after 3 failed attempts & no ovulation despite increasing the dosage she referred me to the reproductive endocrinologist.

So, in May 2008 I had my first appointment with the endocrinologist who diagnosed me with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). All of my labs & tests came back normal but I still didn't ovulate. I was immediately prescribed Metformin. A month later we started our first cycle with them. New drugs & a trigger shot to induce ovulation...I finally ovulated. But nothing...
2nd month...ovulated FINALLY but nothing.
3rd month...ovulated again but nothing.
We started to discuss other options and decided to go ahead with iui. Our first cycle we stuck with the same drugs we had already been on, just added in the iui. Another month of failure.

I was exhausted. I was depressed. Month after month and nothing. We were young, this wasn't supposed to happen. We decided we would give it one more try. Between the endocrinologist & my  OB we had already tried 7 months of fertility drugs.
Only this time we would add in injectables along with the drugs & trigger shot that I had already been taking. The day before Thanksgiving 2008 we found out we were expecting!!!

And now as you see we have Maddox who was born in 2009, Emma born in 2011 & Hudson born this year. I still have extremely irregular cycles (only 4 since 2008)

During those months of trying I hated seeing other people pregnant. I HATED hearing just relax and it will happen. No, I didn't try nearly as long as some. I know people try for years and years and never have kids. But, we did try without success & it was hard. Month after month with a negative pregnancy test was so hard. That last try I struggled to even test. I didn't want to see yet another negative test. I didn't want to get my hopes up once more to only be crushed.

Now I have 3 kids (the last 2 without treatments) and I feel very blessed. Those months of infertility treatments are still in my mind though. I don't feel like anyone can know what you're going through unless they have experienced it.

I hope my story has encouraged others & I'm more than happy to talk or answer any questions that I can.