When Whitney and Spencer Blake got married and decided they wanted children, they had no idea of the 7-year struggle they'd face in their quest to become parents.
Now, the couple are mom and dad to two boys they've adopted and are sharing their journey of infertility in a light-hearted photo series.
“Whatever sting infertility still may have, our little boys are our everything," Spencer Blake of Nampa, Idaho said. "If we had tried to make these [photos] before we had kids, maybe we wouldn't have been in the mood for it."
"I think the fact we have our boys," he said. "Now it's OK for us to talk about it."
Boy Adopted by Family in Same Neighborhood as His Biological Siblings Nurse Adopts Baby Girl With Birth Defect She Helped in HospitalWhitney Blake told ABC News today that she endured several years of fertility treatments but was not able to get pregnant.
The doctors, she said, did not have a definitive explanation.
“It was definitely a difficult time," she said. "It was a very hard time. It was a lonely time. It kind of felt hard hard to watch the people we love very much being blessed with something we wanted to enjoy. We felt like we were getting left behind, but we tried to enjoy life and not let it consume us."
"We have talked about how one of the harder parts of it is hearing other people's pregnancy announcements," she continued. "We try to be happy and congratulatory, but when we are at the heart of our struggle, it's really devastating."
Spencer said: "I felt the same type of hopelessness. You think about growing your family, but you can't do it. It's those moments when the husband wants to make it right for the wife and you can't. That’s when it gets extra hard."
The couple decided to adopt, first in 2012 and then in 2014. Afterwards, Whitney and Spencer said they got the idea to take popular pregnancy announcements seen on social media and re-imagine them into infertility announcements.
"We truly feel for people that struggle with infertility and we remember what those days were like," Whitney said. "We just remember that time and kind of wanted to offer encouragement, I guess."
The couple shared the photos on Whitney's blog during National Infertility Awareness Week at the end of April.
The project made international news and Whitney said she received mail from people dealing with infertility, thanking her and Spencer for their support.
"It’s the side you don’t always see -- the person on the other side struggling with infertility," Whitney said. "We heard people that said, 'Wow, that made me think about it in a different way' [and] it's nice to hear that. I've grown in the way that I feel about it. If it wasn’t for infertility, we wouldn’t have our boys."
As of 2006 to 2010, there were 6.7 million women in the United States unable to carry a pregnancy to term. That represented about 11 percent of the reproductive-age population in the country -- according to the CDC.
Sharon N. Covington, director of Psychological Support Services at Shady Grove Fertility in Rockville, Maryland, told ABC News that she found the Blakes' photo shoot touching, and "right on target."
"Infertility is an experience that touches so many people in this country, yet is something that is still, for many, very hard to talk about," Covington said. "There's a lot of private shame and pain associated with it. Our patients talk about how social media can be a powerful source of support, but a painful one as well. They [the Blakes] did this with humor and were able to speak to the core issues."
When asked how it felt to finally become parents to their sons, both Whitney and Spencer had one answer:
"Indescribable," they said.
Spencer Blake is an anchor for ABC News affiliate KIVI-TV in Idaho.