Introductions and Admissions

Hello World! My name is Amanda Griffin. I am happily married to my best friend, John! We met when he was still in the Marine Corps back in 2006 and got married May 17, 2008. He is now a Sheriff's Deputy and I am so fortunate to be a work at home wife. I am an Independent Director with Thirty-One Gifts--a wonderful company that has changed my life and the life of our little family. (I will delve into this in a later post.) We live in a small town in North Carolina--I'm so happy to be a sweet Southern girl! We have 2 of the most loveable fur-babies you will ever meet--a 3-year-old yellow lab named Semper and a 2-year-old Australian Blue Heeler named Maggie Rae. We also are so fortunate to be the godparents of our best friends' beautiful 1-year-old daughter, Julianna Hope. She is a bundle of love and sweetness and we love her to pieces!

Ok--those are the introductions. I'm sure I will divulge more personal likes, dislikes, fun facts about John and me throughout this blog in the future. However, that's not why I started this blog. I started this blog to have an outlet. An outlet for my frustration, anger, tears, joys, good news, bad news, hopelessness, faith, rants and raves about the one thing that has enveloped our lifes for the past two and a half years. That one thing...Unexplained Infertility!!

There--I said it!! It's out there now for the whole world to see. And that's just the way I want it. We have hidden behind the "shame" of not being able to get pregnant for the bulk of our marriage--only letting a few family members and very close trusted friends know. Everyone else has been told the "lie" of "we are just enjoying our marriage and we'll have children whenever God decides to bless us with them." It's not totally a lie--we know that God is in control of our lives and when He is ready for us to have children--we will. But the lie is the fake happy smile we put on our faces and the cheery voices we use when we say it. We make it sound to the general population like having a child is just the farthest thing from our minds and we are just totally carefree and enjoying every second of being childless.

The truth--we are miserable. Now before everyone starts placing bets on when we will split up--put your wallets away. John and I are not miserable with each other. We love each other very much and the truth is this awful experience has truly brought us even closer and deepened our love and trust for each other even more! We are miserable with having this deep, gut-wrenching desire to have a child and being unable to give that to each other.

I have learned through many life experiences that when I hold my emotions in--it just comes out even worse later! This has been extremely apparent with our infertility struggles. I would think it was "the month" and then when I found out it wasn't, I would just want to cry and cry and not get out of bed. I realized quickly how debilitating that was to me and my husband. So then, in my own true fashion, I started to hold it all in. I wouldn't cry (at least not in front of anyone), I wouldn't talk about it--I basically just shut down. I put up my brick wall and hid behind it. Eventually, my emotions would overflow and I would just be so upset it would make me sick.

Please don't think I'm just over-reacting and tell me to "just quit trying so hard--it'll happen when you aren't thinking about it!" (This and many other awful phrases are degrading to couples going through infertility--you think it's helping--IT'S NOT!) My sweet husband and I are entering our 31st month of trying to get pregnant!! Yes you read that correctly--30 failed attempts at trying to make a beautiful Griffin baby. That's 2 years and 6 months of this labor of love that just will not pay off!! In the time that we have been trying to start our family, we have had friends, family, co-workers, etc. get pregnant, have their baby, get pregnant again, and now have their 2nd baby!! As happy as we are for these people, it just reminds us that we have yet to experience that joy.

So, in trying to find a balance between tearful depression and a brick wall, I turned to this: my new blog. I have 2 different friends that started writing a blog as soon as they got pregnant and I have really loved getting to follow them as they shared all the joys of pregnancy and then the milestones of their now 1-year-old babies. I longed for the day that I would be pregnant and able to start writing a blog and sharing with the world my day to day experiences as an expectant mom. Well after 30 months of not being able to write that blog, I decided, Why Wait? I needed an outlet--so I've made one! I now have a place to talk about Clomid, injectables, procedures, moodiness from fertility drugs (oh the tears!), and hopefully one day SUCCESS!!

That's why we keep pressing on is for that one day! The one day when I get to look my hubby in the eyes and tell him he's going to be a daddy! That one day will make all of this worth it! Until then--we will keep pressing on! And now have a place to chronicle all of the crazy mishaps of our journey.

I will put in a different post all the medical details of our struggles for those that want to know the gritty details--after 30 months of this I'm not shy to discuss this stuff anymore! I will go ahead and admit that for right now, I will not be sharing my blog site with anyone I know! I will publish all my posts so that is out on the live web, but I do plan on putting info on any medicines, procedures, and hopefully our success in my blog. Hubby and I have both agreed that WHEN (being positive!) we do get pregnant, we don't want to announce it to anyone other than very close family members until we get safely through our 1st trimester. However, I have always been the kind of girl that wants to share great information! So I know that when I (finally) am pregnant, I'm going to want to blab it! This blog gives me a chance to blab without telling anyone!! I plan on making my blog public to friends and family after we reach that milestone.

But for now, to those that happen to find their way to my little corner of the internet world, I hope you can understand and appreciate my reasons for creating this blog and wish us loads of baby dust to help our journey towards parenthood. And to those that are also going through infertility struggles, please know you are not alone and we will be praying for you as we hope you will for us!