I Became a Teacher Because I Love Children. But Then, I Couldn’t Have My Own

Relax, they say. It’ll happen when you stop stressing, they say. Worst advice ever. You never stop stressing when you are struggling with infertility. Go ahead and add working as a full-time teacher to the mix and what you’ve got is a recipe for stress. Relax? I think not.

Let me be clear: I am not, by any means, implying that infertility was more devastating for me because I worked during this time. Infertility is awful for everyone. Literally everyone. My personal journey just happens to involve being a practically eggless employee.

I’ve been a teacher since I was 23 years old. I chose this career because I love kids and love the idea of doing something different each day while making a difference. It’s also a job that has zero downtime, and certainly is not for the faint of heart. When there are over 100 students counting on you to deliver daily, you deliver. Period. At the age of 31, after quite some time of trying on our own, my husband, Jon, and I discovered that we couldn’t have children the old-fashioned way, and no amount of “relaxing” was going to magically fix my defunct ovaries.

New plan: Off to the doctor we went, every other day, actually. Every other day I would leave my house at 5 a.m., drive to another state by 6 to get blood drawn, sonograms administered, pills prescribed and sticks to pee on. Then I would get back in the car to arrive at work for my 7:30 a.m. class. Talk about stress! Every night I would come home from school, exhausted in all ways one can be exhausted, and become a human pincushion. My husband gave me injection after injection in my stomach while I prayed for a miracle.

This routine went on for a year. An entire school year, from start to finish, of starting each working day being reminded of how broken my reproductive system was, and then having to go teach a sea of children. Children. I had to, with professionalism and a smile, look out to a sea of faces and deliver, all the while feeling like no teacher would ever look out and see my child because I was told it was quite probable that I wouldn’t have any. So even though I felt like dying inside because my body had betrayed me yet again—another chemical pregnancy, an ectopic pregnancy and the removal of one fallopian tube, no mature eggs to be found in either ovary—I still needed to stand in front of my students and deliver. When administration came in to observe me after I’d been curled up on the bathroom floor the entire night, crying, bargaining, and begging some higher power to make the impossible possible, I had to deliver. Going to work every single day was like salt in my very gaping wound: Here I am fighting like hell to try and have children of my own, but must go to work where I care for so many children. It was an ironically cruel joke.

Teachers can’t escape to the restroom to cry. We can’t stop and take a moment to catch our breath when we are overcome with emotion from things going on in our personal lives. I’ve said for years that teachers are like swans: We may appear calm and graceful, but sneak a quick peek under the surface of the water and you’ll see a pair of feet kicking like crazy to keep everything afloat. I’m amazed I didn’t drown.

I finally did get pregnant, but it happened, coincidentally enough, during summer break. Was I magically relaxed? Perhaps. I will honestly never know the real answer to that question. Maybe it was the perfect combination of medical intervention and space away from the stresses that come along with teaching. I actually had enough time and peace of mind to go in for IVF without feeling too worried about missing school. Facing multiple classes full of students that September was much easier for my heart to handle as a woman about to welcome her own child. I realized my body wasn’t broken, just my spirit, which has since healed greatly, thanks to my two miracle babies, Logan and Layla. But I also realized something that surprised me; it was very likely that, as I looked out into the sea of children, many of them were quite possibly the miracles wished for by their parents. Understanding and knowing that has certainly made a difference. You never truly know the inner struggles anyone is facing, regardless of how calm the surface may appear.