a momma who never gave up

When we put up the Mother’s Day contest to feature a mom with her inspiring story who would also receive a Three Sister’s Jewelry Design necklace, we didn’t know what to expect with entries.

But reading Maxi’s entry brought us to tears. We love her message of never losing hope, of staying positive and strong. These are of course, qualities all us mommas aspire to have and look up to with our own mothers. Whether it’s in dealing with loss, infertility, miscarriage and all the ups and downs of motherhood, we know how important it is for us mommas to stick together. We hope that this story that moved us, will in turn, inspire you.

So as you unwind from your sweet Mother’s Day yesterday, be sure to read on with how this momma just never gave up. Congrats Maxi Patel on being our feature momma and thank you for sharing your heart and words!

I actually thought it was going to be easy to write my story, but as soon as I started to think about all the things I could say I start to cry. The tears are both happy and sad tears – sad because it’s a reminder of my challenges dealing with secondary infertility, happy tears of joy knowing that I didn’t give up and now have a 4 month old baby who completes my family. I was skeptical at first in submitting my story, but with the encouragement of a very good friend, I thought I should in case there is someone out there who could be inspired by my story to complete their own family and have a happy ending.

My husband and I married young, because we wanted to have 3-4 children and we didn’t want to be older parents. But little did we know that things don’t always go according to plan.   It took me a year to get pregnant with my first son and soon after he was born we tried to get pregnant again. We tried for 5 years. For some this may seem like a long time, but we just wanted it that badly. I finally did get pregnant, but suffered a miscarriage. We got the courage to start to try again, but 2 more years passed by and then we eventually decided to see an infertility doctor. The utter truth is, it took a lot for us to see a doctor, because we had felt that since we already had a child that we felt grateful for, we weren’t sure if we should invest time, energy and finances into the treatment. Finally though, we knew for sure that we didn’t quite feel complete as a family. It even got worse as my son got older because he started asking us “why am I the only child and don’t have any brothers or sisters like everyone else”.

My husband and I had no medical reasons as to why we couldn’t get pregnant this made things even harder on us because we couldn’t just “fix it”. So after 2 rounds of IUI (artificial insemination) I become pregnant and today I have a 4 month old baby who completes my family and my 8 year old son couldn’t be happier.

My advice to anyone who is struggling to get pregnant is never give up as miracles can and do happen. Try whatever you feel comfortable with, whether it is acupuncture, Ayurveda, IVF, IUI, whatever it is. Just be well informed as there are so many options out there. Think positively, keep faith, stay strong and most importantly do everything you can to keep your stress levels to minimal. For the most part I kept my struggles private, but I did trust a selected few family and friends who I would talk to as this journey was both mentally and physically exhausting. You need a very good support system otherwise it is very easy to get depressed and it can hurt your relationships with everyone around you. And all in all, stand by your partner, you are in this together. It’s a heck of a journey, but as I look down at my 4 month old baby, every tear, every second, every emotion is just all totally worth it.