The most intense emotional struggle I ever went through was my struggle to be a parent. I always dreamed of being a parent, I always craved providing unconditional love to a tiny human and while I didn’t know it at the time, healing my inner child.

I was raised in a very conservative household, with extreme religious values, so to accomplish my goals, I married my boyfriend of three years when I was only 21 to be able to start trying to have children with my church and family approval (although my grandmother was horrified I got married so young). Well we started trying right away, and we failed, and failed, and failed, and failed. A few years into the journey, during a full workup of both of us we found I had a uterine septum and so hopefully that was our solution. Unfortunately while waiting for the surgery to be performed we got results that my husband had azoospermia, this is a very rare condition, many men do have not ideal sperm health numbers, but my husband was completely sterile.

Financial resilience was key during this phase of our journey. We had to budget carefully for medical tests and treatments while managing the emotional toll. Understanding and preparing for the financial strain of infertility treatments helped us endure.

So on to the next part of our journey, we decided we would have to use a sperm donor, we started looking at different avenues for donors and decided to go with a known donor instead of the very pricey method of complete anonymous donors through a program. Since I was not the one experiencing fertility challenges, we opted for a more straightforward and cost-effective approach to artificial insemination. We had a family friend do his business in a sterile medicine jar and used a sterile syringe, the kind you get for antibiotics for kids, yup, I went into a pharmacy and asked for some syringes and no I didn’t tell them why!

Using a sterile syringe, I carefully introduced the donor sample near my cervix, employing techniques recommended to optimize the chances of conception and pull the semen into my uterus. It didn’t work the first time, but it did the second! Tragically I lost the baby at 6 weeks of gestation, we tried again and again it worked! But I also lost that baby, this one at 5 weeks gestation.

This experience highlighted the importance of long-term planning. The financial and emotional costs of repeated attempts made it essential for us to develop a clear plan for managing our resources and prioritizing our goals.

At this point, I was fairly broken and it had taken a very heavy toll on our marriage due to a number of factors, his fault, my fault and our fault, I had decided I had enough and couldn’t keep going. So after seven and a half years of marriage, I decided to separate, I moved home and went to live with a friend and went and got a job in my hometown. 

This move required a great deal of financial literacy. Learning how to manage finances independently and rebuild stability after separation was a vital step towards reclaiming control of my life.

Well here comes the part I am not the proudest of, several months into our separation, I started having casual sex around with a coworker. I was safe, I used condoms. Yeah. Condoms. Well, I had given up on having kids so I was not taking any hormonal form of birth control. Ever hear the saying, if you want to hear God laugh you tell him your plans? Well, I’m sure you can see where this is going, I was ovulating and the condom broke. I shockingly got pregnant, and here is the part that truly surprised me, it stuck. Four weeks, five, six, and it was sticking. I developed hyperemesis very early into my pregnancy, for those of you unfamiliar with hyperemesis, picture the absolute worst stomach bug you have ever had. By six weeks I had to take a leave of absence from my job. I was vomiting all day and night. I started vomiting until I tore the lining of my esophagus and was vomiting a lot of blood. By this time, my husband whom I had still been in contact with figured out I was pregnant, it was the summer of 2018 and he was still trying to take care of me even though we had separated.

By the time I was three months pregnant, I had already had more ultrasounds than most women get in their entire pregnancy. Every time I was in the ER they did an ultrasound, where my husband who went with me most of the time I went, we heard the most beautiful sound in the world, the strong heartbeat of our baby. I will never forget the day I was there, around 16 weeks pregnant listening to the sound of galloping horses with the speed of the tiny heart, the doctor asking me if I knew what I was having. I turned excited, and asked him, “Do you know what I am having?” Usually, you don’t find out the gender until 20 weeks. The doctor asked what I was hoping for, I responded that my husband thinks a girl and my best friend a boy so either way I get to laugh at someone. And it was at that moment I was told that I was expecting a boy. It became so real in that moment, a boy, my boy, I was far enough along to know what I was having. He had fought and stayed long enough to know I was having my boy

At my 20-week scan, I had a new terror unlocked, and the ultrasound tech got worried. Ever had a medical professional get worried? That was a time when every second dragged on and felt like hours. I was sent immediately up to the maternity ward and it was then that I found out that due to the hyperemesis, my little boy was measuring small and more importantly and terrifyingly was that the amniotic fluid was low. So I was again admitted and fought to get me hydrated enough that he was safe.

I spent the next few months in and out of the hospital, I had to be admitted over and over, I would be in for about a week and once stabilized and rehydrated and able to keep fluids down I would be released. I was put on several medications that are normally given to people undergoing chemo and unable to stop vomiting. I had to be rehydrated when my kidneys started failing and internally bleeding. I needed potassium infusions, which fun fact burn like hell when put in an IV and scared me when my arm started feeling like it was on fire and I had no idea why. But it was needed because my heart was starting to be irregular and at risk of further damage and arrhythmias.

My husband had been so involved and he begged me to be allowed to try again, to try to fix us, to try to be a family. So around 6 months pregnant we signed our lease back in our home town in our new apartment. We spent the next few months back and forth to the hospital, sometimes planning emergencies. I would spend hours playing music for my boy and talking to him, begging him to keep fighting. Scan after scan, watching the fluid levels and his growth, begging him to stay inside, just another day, another week, another hour. At 38 weeks it was decided that we had gone as far as we could and that he would have to be induced. It was planned for the following week on Thursday.

Remember what I said about plans and laughing? Well Sunday, four days before he was to be induced, I woke up at 2 am and thought I had peed myself……again. Yeah, all that vomiting made me constantly pee myself. Well, I peed more, and we decided that we would go to the hospital and check that everything was ok, and that I wasn’t in labour or anything. On the way to the hospital I was hit with my first contraction, got there and found out well, we are having a baby today! 

At 7:45 am, almost 9 years after I was married, my infertility journey ended and my beautiful, perfect, amazing little warrior was born and my life was never the same. I had the most handsome boy there. And that isn’t biased! He had to go to the NICU and on one of his trips between maternity and going back to the NICU, he passed another family in the waiting room. And the grandfather-to-be pipes up; “Oh isn’t he handsome! Beautiful, not like some of those other ugly f***ers we have seen.”

Eight and a half years, two miscarriages, three artificial inseminations, one surgery, and one round of hyperemesis so bad I lost 50 lbs while pregnant, that’s right, I lost 50 lbs from the constant vomiting. I had the one thing I had craved for years, I had my baby in my arms.

This journey underscores the value of financial literacy, resilience, and long-term planning in overcoming adversity. Despite immense challenges, each pillar contributed to building a life of stability and hope for my family