Lessons from Infertility that can be applied to any struggle

Chase your rainbow through the storm.... 

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  when you fight, when you struggle, when you bleed over something, when you sweat over something, 

down the road when you achieve  whatever you are deeming to be success for you, it feels so much better than if something was just to be handed to you.

   📍 Welcome to Herz Like a Mother, a space to share the joys and pains of motherhood and life to spread the message that you are not alone in this journey. I am Megan Hansen, registered nurse, integrative nutrition health coach, and mom to triplets. It is my mission to empower you to create momentum in building the most helpful vivacious life of your dreams.

Won't you join me? 

 Welcome back to another episode. This is a special episode and that it goes with a theme of the week. This week is infertility week. I feel like there is always some kind of. Special day, special week, special month of awareness for whatever topic you can think of. It's National Donut Day, it's national.

Bring your dog to work day, like whatever it is. It happens to be Infertility week, which I feel . Connected to having gone through infertility in the past. And I'm gonna be completely honest with you, it's a little tough right now. I'm in a little bit of a tough head space to talk about this, only because my husband is out of town on a business trip.

I am solo parenting  with my triplets, and they kind of drive me crazy when I'm solo parenting. So I'm gonna try to talk positively about my children in honor of infertility week to not only honor my own journey to try to get to parenthood, but to try to honor those that are still struggling as well.

And I wanna talk to you about  three lessons that I personally learned. Through my own struggles that you can extrapolate to life in general.

Now, just a little backstory, I've mentioned some of this backstory before, but

in comparison to a lot of people, I wouldn't say my journey to parenthood took that long, but it felt like it was ages. It felt like I was trying to have a baby for a decade when in fact, , we tried to do quote the right thing and wait to have kids until we were financially ready, whatever that, whatever financially ready means.

But for us, it was paying off my student loans. I had about.  My husband can quote the exact dollar amount, but I'm just gonna say I had about a hundred and a hundred or $120,000 in student loan debt that we wanted to get rid of before we welcomed children into the world. So we did that.

We took three years, really cranked out, paying off my loans. So when it was time to have a baby, I was like, oh well. The boxes are checked. Next comes baby. And then it was, it was tricky. It was hard. And being the very driven person I am, , when I was let out of that gate.

I went 110% forward. So there was no, you know, maybe we're trying or we're not trying, it was we will conceive a child with full intensity and , looking back I was a little intense about the process, but that's how I am about my goals in general. I am very intense about my goals and I'm very intentional.

With my goals because they mean a lot to me. So when I was having difficulty getting pregnant, staying pregnant, I took it very, very hard and took it very, very personally, and

I was gonna have a baby over my dead body, essentially, to put it frankly.

I know a lot of people who, they've tried to have a baby for 5, 6, 7 years, 10 years plus. And fortunately I didn't have to wait that long. We were, it took us about a year and a half to conceive our triplets. So it, if you wanna play the comparison game, it really wasn't that long of a time.

But for me personally, it felt like it was an eternity. And that's why I wanted to talk about some of the lessons that I learned through my personal experience because , it is just that it is very personal and everybody's experience is gonna be d. And you know, sometimes there's a diagnosed reason on the female side.

Sometimes the male side, sometimes it's completely unexplained and not that it makes it easier to have one or the other

categorizations going on. Just to paint the picture that the experience of infertility is very unique to the individual's journey. So these are personally what I felt I learned about the process, and these could be completely different than somebody else's, but lesson number one, you won't always know the reason for the struggle, and sometimes this reason is beyond.

Looking back, I was not at all spiritual. I was not at all spiritually grounded to anything. Yeah. I did yoga and I was a runner. So you, you can say I was connected to my, to my body in a certain way that only a runner understands. But was I spiritual? No. And that was something I had no experience in, and I didn't have the forethought to explore.

But man, I gotta tell you how beneficial that could have been if I would've explored my connection to something bigger than myself through this process of trying to. Because I was so fixated on

just the pain  of not having a baby, that there was no, there was nothing else going on around me except my own pain, and that made it incredibly harder than it needed to be compared to,  say if I had a connection to a faith that I feel like I am cultivating currently in my life, if I had that, it would've made the process so much easier because I could have had some kind of spiritual support to go along with the process.

But you know what? Hindsight, as they say, is a bitch.

So I didn't know the reason why I couldn't have a baby, but I was so fixated on the pain of the process that it just made the whole experience harder. And honestly, I think there was , a bigger plan for my struggle. Because I would not be this person talking to you right now. I wouldn't even be here if I didn't struggle.

If I didn't struggle to have a pregnancy, I would not have had triplets. I would've not had the pregnancy that I had, the bedrest, the preeclampsia, the preterm C-section. Would I have had body image issues probably, but I don't know if I would've gone down the rabbit hole of the mommy makeover and really delving into strength training as a way to save my body and my sanity. I wouldn't have gotten into health coaching like it would, I would not be the same person without that struggle. And it's so crazy to think back and trace back the path that got me here.  I wouldn't be here.

And so it sounds crazy to say like I thank God for that struggle, but I do

as hard as it was. I'm glad I didn't know the reason, because

that's a really hard concept to wrap your mind around when you were in that much pain,

and I think that can be broadened to any struggle that you're not necessarily always gonna know the reason for that struggle, but sometimes knowing that the reason. Is beyond you can be helpful. And knowing that down the road, down the path of this journey, there's good that will come from it. There's so much good, and just knowing that 

we don't know the boundaries of that good yet, but it's there. That's what keeps me going every day when I'm having hard. Knowing that it's not gonna be hard every day is what keeps me going. Lesson number two of what I learned by experiencing infertility. You gotta fight like hell for what you want.

If you really want something. I believe you need to not only earn it to some degree, but because you fought like hell for it. The payoff is so much sweeter, and this isn't just related to trying to have a baby. This is anything when you fight, when you struggle, when you bleed over something, when you sweat over something, when your body gets broken down.

Down the road when you achieve whatever level of success or whatever you are deeming to be success for you, it feels so much better than if something was just to be handed to you.

I think of, Getting my college degree, getting my nurses' license, creating my business, like all of these things took grit and fortitude and long nights, lots of tears. But when I have the successes, when I get.

New clients. When I get letters from clients saying that I help them change their life, like that's what makes it all worth it. So if you want something, fight like hell, because it'll make the payoff so much sweeter.

And I gotta tell you, I fought, I usually joke that I would've, I would've sold a kidney to have a baby. Or I would've, I would've shanks. I would've shank a bitch. Could I say that? It's my podcast. I can say whatever I want, but I wanted it. I was so hungry to be a mother. And I, I still remember vividly the house I used to live in, like the bathroom where I would administer my injections.

I was willing to do anything it took. If it meant I could be a mom, sometimes it's hard to go back to that place because that's not exactly the. The same head space that I feel all the time today, because motherhood is hard as we know. But I was hungry for it and I fought like hell, and that's what initially made motherhood so sweet for me was because of the struggle.

Ooh. That brings me to lesson number three. Be careful what you wish for,

and I, I wanna be careful because infertility is such, , it's a touchy topic because it's so personal and it's so pain provoking for a lot of people.

But I wish if I were to go back, I wish I would've taken the time to truly appreciate the life that I had because I didn't, I didn't appreciate , the great job I had, the great marriage, my partner. All I was focused on was what I didn't have.

All I could see were the blank spaces that I thought were in my life when really be, even though I didn't have children, I had a wonderful life. I had a beautiful home in a beautiful neighborhood, in a beautiful community. I had great friends,  we could go on vacations. I could sit on my couch and watch Netflix whenever I wanted.

Like I had the life and, and now it's, I have the life, but it's different. It has more boundaries and borders because of parenthood, , dare I say, has restrictions. And yes, I still go on vacation. I still have a beautiful home. I have a wonderful marriage, a wonderful partner. But I wish I would've taken the time to truly appreciate what I had  during the struggle to fill my life with what I didn't have, which was a child.

So on days that are tough, like today,

When putting the kids to bed by myself is extra tough, especially cuz my daughter, all she wants is her daddy.

And it's hard to explain to a seven year old that their mom just needs a break,

that their mom just needs some quiet time.

It's hard just to look back and say, Hey, girl, the girl from

eight years ago and I was trying to have a baby. Tell that girl, be careful what you wish for, honey. You might be over over your head in a few years.

But I think that just ties in with if you are struggling, look around. What are you grateful for? Even if you aren't achieving whatever it is that you're setting out for, what do you have right in front of you that maybe are missing? Who are the people around you that maybe you need to reach out to and clinging to?

That you've been maybe forgetting about not making time for,

cuz I bet if you stop to think about it, you can make a long ass list of a wonderfully amazing things that are going well in your life and maybe something isn't going well. That's okay.

But I bet if you take a moment to find gratitude in what you do have, it's gonna make the struggle a whole lot easier.

Ah. So if you are struggling right now, trying to expand your family or struggling in general, I see you. I hear you. I'm wrapping my arms around you right now.

Giving you a hug,

baby. I'm crying. A little tear for you.

And just know it won't always be this hard.

So with that, have a great week and I love you so very much. Go kick butt.