What I Learned from 10 Years Trying to Become a Mother: Listen to Your Body

I am 36 years old, and I have spent a large part of my life trying to understand my own body and trying to become a mother.

For years, I felt like my body was something I was constantly fighting against. It wasn’t doing what I needed it to do. It wasn’t cooperating. It wasn’t following the timeline I had imagined for my life.

What I didn’t understand at the time was that I needed to stop thinking of my body as something that was failing me and start learning how to listen to it.

My female health story

My health story started long before infertility.

When I was four years old, I was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, a childhood cancer. I survived it, had my left kidney removed, full abdominal radiation and 18 months chemotherapy without a port, and grew up carrying the knowledge that cancer had already changed my life once.

Years later, cancer came back into my life in a completely different way.

I developed neuroendocrine tumors, called gastrinomas, but my diagnosis was missed for far too long. And because of this we lost three embryos out of our four “chances” at having a child. Eventually, after being diagnosed, I underwent surgery. I am now NED (no sign of disease), but getting to that diagnosis changed the way I think about my health forever.

There is something that happens when you know something isn’t right but you aren’t getting answers. You start questioning yourself. You wonder if you’re overreacting. You wonder if maybe the doctors are right and you’re just not seeing it clearly.

I’ve learned that sometimes you have to keep asking….and yes even demanding. That lesson became incredibly important in my reproductive health journey, too.

Facing infertility

I experienced early menopause at a young age. At the same time, I was facing infertility and trying to understand what that meant for my chances of becoming a mother.

For almost 10 years, infertility was a huge part of my and my partner’s lives. There were appointments, procedures, medications, injections, blood draws, ultrasounds, waiting, hoping and then sometimes getting the phone call you were desperately hoping would never come.

We tried IVF with my own eggs. We kept trying because giving up on the possibility of becoming parents felt impossible. Eventually, we had to accept that using my own eggs wasn’t going to work. We moved on to donor eggs.

That decision came with its own grief. Even when you know it is the path that gives you the best chance of becoming a parent, that doesn’t mean it is emotionally easy. There can be a lot of complicated feelings around genetics, motherhood, loss, and the child you imagined having. But we kept going.

Saying goodbye to my sons

After nearly a decade of infertility, a 16 week loss of our son, Ethan, due to an incompetent cervix, and a miscarriage at nine weeks, I finally became pregnant with my son, Theodore.

I wish I could say that was the moment everything finally became easy. It wasn’t.

My pregnancy was incredibly difficult. I had cervical complications, procedures, hospitalizations, and an ongoing fear that I wouldn’t be able to keep my baby safe.

Theo was eventually born at just 26 weeks. He was tiny, but he was here.

My son.

We had four precious days with him before we lost him, very suddenly and unexpectedly due to a blood infection.

I’ve lost two sons, and there are no words that can adequately explain what that does to a person.

For nearly 10 years, I had fought to become a mother. I had fought through infertility, IVF, loss, and disappointment. I had asked my body to do things it didn’t know how to do on its own. I had changed plans, changed expectations and kept finding reasons to try one more time.

And then I became a mother.

I just didn’t get the lifetime with my sons that I had spent so many years dreaming about.

A new outlook

Losing Ethan and Theo changed the way I look at almost everything. It changed the way I think about motherhood. It changed the way I think about my body. It changed the way I think about time.

And it made me realize that taking care of myself cannot simply mean taking care of the part of me that might help me become pregnant.

For years, so much of my focus was on fertility. Was my uterus healthy? Could I carry a pregnancy? Could we create embryos? What did the next test show? What did the next ultrasound show?

But somewhere along the way, I had to start asking a different question:

What does my body need from me?

That question has changed everything.

I’ve learned to ask more questions at appointments. I’ve learned to research. I’ve learned to get second opinions. I’ve learned that I don’t have to blindly accept an answer just because someone with a medical degree gave it to me.

That doesn’t mean I think I know more than my doctors…even though, at times, in the past I have.

It means I know that I live in my body every single day.

I know when something feels different. I know when something doesn’t make sense.

And after having a diagnosis missed for far too long, I don’t think I’ll ever again be comfortable ignoring that feeling.

I’ve also learned that reproductive health doesn’t exist in a little box separate from the rest of our health.

Cancer affected my fertility.

Early menopause affected my fertility.

Infertility affected my mental and emotional health.

IVF affected my body.

Pregnancy changed my body.

Loss changed my body and my mind.

And now, after all of it, I am still learning how to care for the person who remains.

I wish someone had told me earlier that taking care of yourself isn’t selfish, silly or stupid. For so long, I was focused on getting through the next appointment, the next treatment, the next transfer, the next ultrasound.

I became very good at surviving the next thing.

But surviving isn’t the same as living.

And it certainly isn’t the same as healing.

Fighting for myself

I’m still grieving my sons. I’m still processing everything my body has been through. I’m still figuring out what my future looks like now that our fertility journey is done. But I know more now.

I know that my health deserves my attention even when there isn’t an immediate crisis.

I know that hormones matter. Fertility matters. Mental health matters. Rest matters. Nutrition matters. Movement matters. Asking questions matters.

And I know that caring for myself doesn’t mean I am giving up on the things I still hope for. It means I am finally including myself in the equation.

For almost 10 years, I fought to become a mother. Now I’m learning to fight for something else too.

Myself.

Not because my body owes me anything.

Not because I can control what happens next.

But because, after everything I’ve been through, I finally understand that my body was never my enemy.

It was the body carrying me through all of it.

And maybe learning to listen to it is one of the most important things I’ve ever done.

Kirsten Thacker is a 36-year-old cancer survivor, infertility and pregnancy-loss advocate, and storyteller from Southwest Washington. She survived Wilms tumor as a child and later faced neuroendocrine tumors after a delayed diagnosis. Her health journey has also included early menopause, nearly a decade of infertility and IVF, pregnancy loss, and the birth and loss of her sons Ethan and Theodore, who were born at 16 and 26 weeks. Theo lived for four days. Kirsten shares her experiences to help others feel less alone, and to encourage people to advocate for themselves and listen to their bodies.

Instagram: @be.strong.livestrong