Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to be a mom. Baby dolls went everywhere with me. I didn’t want a new bike for Christmas; I wanted a new stroller and crib for the baby doll that made real crying noises. When I was 7 years old, I finally got a baby sister. And another when I was 8. I was in love with both of them from the moment I knew they existed. After they were born, it was snuggles and kisses and all the sisterly love I could share. I spent the next 12 years playing a considerable role in raising them because my parents worked full-time.

I loved being a mama hen to my little sisters (and any baby or child I met,) and was excited to have babies of my own one day. Throughout my childhood, I had various dreams for grown-up me, like becoming a lawyer or getting my phd. But my biggest dream was to be a mama and wife.

I got married at 19 years old, having romanticized the idea of marrying my high-school love and starting a family young. Baby fever kicked into high gear. In my mind, I had done everything right. I was responsible. I didn’t drink or party like other young adults. I was married. My husband had a great job. I was working and was a full-time college student on the way to graduating. We had the best health insurance you could ask for. I had spent my whole life preparing for this future. I spent my entire life caring for other people’s kids, practicing. Dreaming about having a baby of my own one day.

The month we married, we stopped trying to prevent pregnancy. Months passed by, and I still wasn’t pregnant. I felt like something was wrong. Sometimes, we just know when something isn’t right. That awful feeling in the pit of our stomachs warns us. I started to worry. It definitely should have happened already, right? Everybody I knew got pregnant quickly after trying, in a matter of days or weeks. In fact, a lot of people get pregnant by accident without trying at all! It happens every day. I wanted a baby. I was prepared for a baby. So why weren’t we celebrating our own pregnancy?

Six months went by. Then I got a phone call. My then-sister-in-law was pregnant by accident. A baby wasn’t in the immediate future she had planned or thought about. And yet a baby was coming without even trying, wanting, or praying for it. This magnified all the worries I was already struggling with about how I wasn’t getting pregnant. 

Something was wrong with me. I should have conceived by now, considering the circumstances. I fell into a miserable state of desperate hopelessness. I cried for a long time. Weeks turned into months, and I still didn’t get pregnant. I cried to my then-husband. I cried with my sister. I cried with my best friend. I cried alone. I felt alone. I felt the same bitter solitude whenever I discovered another person I knew was pregnant. Nobody listened. Everybody wanted to comfort me. To give me reasons and examples, to provide me with faith or hope. I didn’t want it. I wanted answers.

When you’re young, doctors won’t even look into your fertility issues unless you’ve been trying for over a year without success. (A distressing timeline when you feel desperate for someone to listen, understand, and explain why it isn’t happening.) After a year and a half, I still hadn’t gotten pregnant. I needed an answer. Doctors were finally ready to listen and investigate.

The following 3 months of my life were beyond emotional. I was finally going to learn what was wrong, and that gave me hope because once you know the problem, you can figure out a solution. I would have a baby eventually. The doctors would figure it out and fix it, I assumed. But life doesn’t always work out that way.

I had 9 vials of blood taken on 2 different days of the first month, monitoring my hormone levels. There were different rules before each test day, (don’t eat for 24 hours, come on the 3rd day of your cycle, don’t drink for 12 hours, etc). I was put back on the prenatal vitamins that made me feel nauseated. I had stopped taking them after a year of trying to conceive because what was the point? We obviously weren’t getting pregnant. However, that may be a testament to how ready I was. I did not drink. I did not smoke. I ate well. I slept well. I was on prenatal vitamins. For several years I lived like this. I was ready to be pregnant. I was prepared. 

Blood tests came back within normal levels. It was strange. Hormone levels were the doctor’s number one suspect. But no, my hormones were okay. 

After the first month of medical testing, I got devastating news. My baby sister was diagnosed with having a bicornuate uterus. At 14 years old, she learned that she may never bear a baby to full term. She may never be a mother. She may miscarry every future baby she has. Before she could even dream of being a mother, her dreams were interrupted by a thousand statistics and a condition we had never heard of before. (Don’t worry, this was later shown to be incorrect, as evidenced by the extraordinary, 5-year-old niece I now have!) 

My sister told me the day she found out about her diagnosis.

She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want reassurance that she would one day have a healthy pregnancy and a baby. She was too young to have to consider all of these things. But she wanted me to know. She knew I had been struggling with infertility, and her condition was a genetic abnormality. Immediately, I felt a sense of relief; I might finally have an answer as to why I wasn’t getting pregnant. My heart broke for my baby sister. But she wasn’t going through this alone. We were going to go through it together. I called my doctor that week and told her the news. We scheduled two ultrasounds to confirm that I had the condition as well.

Walking back into the ultrasound room, my nerves were getting the best of me. I was led into the room by a lovely woman my age. After the first ultrasound (non-invasive, on my tummy), she asked why I was there. I told her what was going on. She prepped me for the vaginal ultrasound. “Oh, that’s cold! Wow, I was not prepared for that.” I laughed nervously. She asked me more questions. “So, you keep miscarrying, or you’ve never gotten pregnant?” “I can’t seem to get pregnant.” “Hmm, that’s the strangest thing. You are sure you’ve never been pregnant?” “Never in my life. Can you just tell me? I already know. I’ve been preparing myself for this for years. I’ve known something isn’t right for a long time. I won’t freak out if you tell me. I am ready to hear it.” “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m not allowed to make any conclusions from the x-rays. I’m just the technician. I forward them to the doctor, and she will look at them and try to figure out what’s going on.” (In retrospect, it was unhelpful for her to share commentary indicating surprise when she couldn’t tell me anything afterward.) “Okay, I understand. Thanks…for, ya know, sticking that up my vagina and stuff.” Thankfully, she laughed at my nervous sense of humor.

I called my doctor twice in the following four days. I needed to know. I couldn’t sleep. I was on edge. I wanted to comfort my sister and say, “It’s okay; we’ll get through this together.” I wanted to know what was wrong. (33-year-old me can look back at that and see how unhealthily type-A I was and how much that contributed to my anxiety and depression in that season of life.) 

I immediately learned as much as possible about the developmental disorder (which occurs while you’re a fetus yourself.) Bicornuate Uterus is when you have a heart-shaped uterus, or essentially two small uteri connected instead of one large one. In 2010, the statistics around this condition were very worrisome. The diagnosis guaranteed either miscarriage or inability to carry to term. Because you have two uteri, the uterus the baby implants in can’t grow to the size the baby needs. And when the uterus can’t get any larger to accommodate the growing fetus, you go into early labor. This often happened around or under the 25-week mark, giving the baby little chance to survive even with the help of an excellent NICU. Another problem with the disorder is that you can conceive at two different times because you have two uteri. For example, you can be 16 weeks pregnant in one uterus and find out that you conceived and are 5 weeks pregnant in the other. Forcing you to choose which pregnancy to abort because neither your body nor either fetus can handle the confinement. 

Finally, at the end of the week, my doctor called me and said she had good news. I did not have the disorder. I was floored. Completely shocked and unprepared. And I felt like a failure like I was leaving my sister entirely alone on her journey. I may have trouble getting pregnant, but I can’t comfort her in the sense of knowing we are going through the same thing. And I still didn’t know what was wrong with me. I needed to know so I could fix it and have a family in the future. I was devastated all over again. I cried a lot that night. I didn’t want to leave my sister in this alone. 

The doctor had more to say…. The x-ray tech was shocked that I had never been pregnant because everything looked great in there. I should be popping out babies like the old lady who lived in a shoe.