I've always dreamed of being a mom. My whole life I have idealized the white picket fence life for myself later on, but this all changed when I went to my first doctor's visit when I moved into college my freshman year.

I remember I went in to get on birth control for the first time. Most girls when they go off to college get on some type of birth control for safety reasons, but I wanted to be on it because my period cramps have always been unbearably painful and have made living with them harder than it should be. I set out to get on the pill so the pain would stop, but what I was told ended up changing my life forever.

My doctor came in and actually found that my egg count was extremely low and that being on the pill will actually help regulate my count until I am ready to have kids when I'm older. She informed me that if I hadn't gone in that day, who knows if I would have been able to have kids one day, and she was dead serious. I remember going back to my dorm and crying on my own for almost a week after that news because I was so scared that my dream of having a family might not become a reality.

I guess it never occurred to me before that day of how much I really wanted a family one day. I never truly thought about how little things like the ability to have kids is such a blessing. My mom struggled with infertility, it took 15 years before I came along and I'm an only child. She had miscarriages, failed adoptions, the whole nine yards until she had me, her one and only child. I never thought about how going through something like that would change someone's perspective on that white picked fenced lifestyle we all strive to achieve.

After taking time to soak in the information a year later, I now have gotten to the point where I feel more serious about my future. That news really whipped me into shape at the start of my college career and made me realize how I shouldn't take the little things we all expect to happen to us for granted bc they may not come to us after all.

I also really started thanking God for putting me in the right place at the right time. If I hadn't had gone in to get the pills for my cramps, I would be stuck later on in life with no chance of having kids. Now I am at the point where my pills are working smoothly and I have a chance at a future with my own little ones in the picture. I don't want to have kids for a long time, but the thought of me being able to most likely have a family of my own is a blessing to me now, not a given.