Early Marriage and Infertility: A Blessing in Disguise

Today, I wanted to talk about the first two years of our journey and why it was an absolute blessing in disguise that pregnancy wasn't in our cards. Brent and I had been dating for about 4.5 years when we got married in September 2012. That's a good while to get to know someone- when you're both adults not teenagers. We both had no idea how much growing up, responsibility, and adulthood would change either of us at 22 when we tied the knot. We were either going to grow together or grow apart. We struggled the first two years of marriage and had many demons to face. There was a lot of anger and resentment. Being totally naive I thought, maybe parenthood would soften Brent's heart, but boy am I glad we had those first two years without a child in the mix. Marriage is its own kind of adventure and we needed time, lots of time to work out the kinks, reestablish our priorities and rebuild our spiritual foundation. We sought counseling, both attended church support groups and learned how to communicate better. It's amazing how different things can be when you actually put in effort and don't give up the fight, which we were on the brink of. We had a lot of nights of just bawling our eyes out in our one bedroom apartment in a new town with no family and very few friends, yelling about how the other person wasn't the person they thought they married, and feeling complete hopelessness for our future until our breakthrough. Growing up and finding your own identity, exploring careers, and moving away from family all while being newly married can take its toll on a relationship. Getting married young is a beautiful, often catastrophic thing. And thankfully God knew what he was doing keeping a baby out of the picture during our first two years. Those years were critical to the people Brent and I are today, the people that so excitedly and longingly wait for baby Smith. As hard as it feels in the moment, God's plan for your life is so much bigger and better than anything you could fathom for yourself. It's the hardest thing deciding you're going to relinquish all control and give it to him. Some things you're not meant to carry alone. I only finally started to feel at peace with our situation when I realized no matter how hard I tried or planned, my timing didn't matter. By no means do I regret the things we've done along the way, failed IUI's, testing, appointments, etc. These were all necessary stepping stones that revealed things to us about our health, gave us answers and peace of mind, and taught us how to be better people.