By Hannah Schenker
Most of you reading this will either already be new mothers or somewhere on your pregnancy journey. But some will know the particular heartbreak of the infertility journey. Perhaps your infertility struggles eventuated in a successful pregnancy. Perhaps you were not so lucky. Either way, you will know just how hard that struggle is. You know firsthand the kind of strength and bravery required to carry on. In a letter shared on her Facebook page Love What Matters, Desiree Fortin addressed her infertility struggles head-on in this moving letter to celebrate Mothers Day.
“Dear Infertility.
I hated you.
You steal dreams. You break hearts. You bring grief. You consume lives. You are the reason I couldn’t get pregnant on my own. You drowned my heart in deep misery from the inability to become a Mother how most women do. You told me that my body wasn’t good enough. You may have been a huge part of my story, but you never defined me. And on this day, two years ago, I kicked your ass. I defeated you.”
You may remember Desiree from these photos and this piece she wrote for us about how she celebrates the scars she gained through her pregnancy journey. Desiree went through years of trying to conceive, a process complicated by having polycystic ovary syndrome. Then Desiree and her husband Ryan embarked on fertility treatments in California, going through two failed intrauterine insemination procedures and finally conceiving through IVF – a year-long emotional and physical process. In August 2015, Desiree gave birth to triplets – two boys and a girl: Sawyer Reed, Jax Ryan and Charlize Hope.
“There is so much involved emotionally and physically (not to mention money), but we wanted a family,” she told HuffPost. “I’m convinced that women with infertility are superheroes and super strong. It takes a lot of strength and bravery to walk this journey.”
