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I think that sometimes in the blogging world it is easy to post what is good in life. I think focusing on the bright daily events helps everyone to be a bit thankful, and I like it. But sometimes blogging about only what is good may lead others to have a false belief that things are perfect. And since life isn’t always perfect I decided to write about why I stayed away for so long.
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While Judd and I are THRILLED to be pregnant again, the process to get to this point has been a bit painful and frustrating in many ways.
If you want the LONG story, here it goes. (grab a diet coke and a snack, you’re gonna be reading for a while!)
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When Taylie was born last March, Judd and I knew we wanted to keep our kids close together. Adding #2 for us was a piece of cake we might as well start trying for #3. This was our plan from the start. We talked about it all through my second pregnancy. Mostly just a “we’ll wait and see if 2 kills us and decide from there.” Three months post partum with my sweet little Taylie being the angel that she is, we decided the end of May to go for it.
First intervention was medication to start getting my body back into normal mode. Though I was hoping for the perfect May due date (as this would make it so that I would have all summer maternity leave), we decided to start two months early just in case. I wouldn’t have minded a March birth again anyway.
Month one passed, with no results. This was typical and almost expected as I had just had a baby. I wasn’t too upset, though very anxious. We had never had to wait long to get pregnant. I even remember getting a bit frustrated that we got pregnant with Taylie on the 2nd month of trying, instead of the 1st.
Moving on, doctor added another medication, blood work, shots, etc. to see if my body would respond. Nothing. Month 3 I became a human pin cushion. I hate needles/shots more than anything, and I have to say at this point I’m more than over it. Many shots that month of various things to see if my body would somehow respond to something. Again no results.
By month 4 I was getting frustrated. Month 5 I started to get worried that something was wrong. My doctor (who I love) said he has never had a patient in his history of practice that didn’t respond to the cocktail of stuff I was given. Basically my body just wasn’t ovulating. And of course no ovulation = no chance of getting pregnant. We couldn’t do anything until my body started to respond and ovulate. He called a couple of his Doctor friends who also were stumped by my situation. I had more blood tests and other tests to measure every type of hormone/fluid ect. that I didn’t even know existed in my body. All came back normal. There was no reason why my body isn’t responding. If we could just get my body to ovulate we were golden, nothing else was wrong. At this point I was on the highest possible dose of a fertility drug that should increase the amount of eggs you ovulate. But for me, no response.
I have to explain that for some reason my body doesn’t do well with hormone changes. All these medications turned me into a different person. I hated it. My husband wasn’t a fan, and I was miserable. I had hot flashes like I was 50, headaches, migraines, nausea, and all I could smell was something that reminded me of burnt lead. It made me sick. With each passing month it just got worse. Apparently the side effects just start to compound when added together.
It was during month 6 (November) that I asked what my chances were of my body just going back to normal on its own if I just went off everything and gave it a break. He said that typically he would do this, and that I could even try it, but the hormones I have been taking are more than what my body would produce naturally, so the possibility of my body correcting itself anytime soon was low. Bla.
I had an infection around this time that made it so that I needed to stop nursing. Which in the “trying to get pregnant” world, this was a good thing. At this point I was more than frustrated, and worried. The grand idea of when I wanted my child to be born was quickly disappearing. Which for someone like me made me even more impatient. I just wanted to be pregnant already. At this point my doctor said that there was something else he needed to test for. Since all my tests were coming back normal he, and a couple doctor friends think it would be best to test for one last thing. Apparently all my results were pointing in one direction.
When he said that I just sat there. I didn’t even know it was possible since I’m still young. He said that it is rare but that it happens more than most people think. And that if this was the case, pregnancy just wasn’t going to happen.
I always wondered why people don’t talk about struggles with having kids.
And this is why: Because it sucks.
There’s really nothing anyone can do or say to make it better. I felt like I was in a time warp. I would count down the days until my first round of medication (taken for days 5-10) then second medication days 10-15), then Ovulation kits, and pregnancy tests and blood work and progesterone shots. Over and over again. Only to be hoping and praying for a positive result and getting a big fat negative.
Back to the day that sucked….
It had never even crossed my mind that not having more kids was even a possibility. Menopause? Really? I drove home to get my kids from my mom. When I got there a family friend had brought over a bunch of stuff for Kaden. My mom was wondering why I didn’t act overjoyed and thankful, but honestly I really was just trying to act normal without bursting out crying in front of everyone. There were many instances like this where I’d be in a situation and found it hard to act normal.
My husband and I are religious, but this situation put my prayers into overdrive. There were the first 6 months that I felt pissed, and bitter at the world. Really what the heck was it that I was supposed to learn from all this?
About this time I went on vacation to St. George with my family. A girl’s vacation was really what I needed to take my mind off of everything that was going on. I’d get my test results for the whole menopause fiasco when I returned.
About this time I joined a “fertility treatment” board. Basically a bunch of people on the same medication as me that would get on each day with questions, stories, etc. to help those of us that were new or somewhat new to the whole infertility experience. This experience changed my perspective. There were people there that had been trying for YEARS to get pregnant. Some that had tried In-Vitro-Fertilization etc, with no results. Thousands and thousands of dollars spent trying to have kids. Some had many miscarriages and even still born babies while trying to grow their families.
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I think that was what I needed. I decided that heading into the end of November I was going to enjoy the holidays with my family. I would do whatever I needed in order to keep our chances of pregnancy up, but I wasn’t going to stay so focused on it that I was missing out on life. December was great. I really did enjoy it. Around that time I just knew that we would have more kids. I didn’t know when, but the feeling brought me peace enough to relax about the whole situation.
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January was the final month being monitored by my doctor before he would ship me off to “Infertility Land”. My doctor went over the procedures they do at the Fertility Clinic, and all the different tests/drugs they try. This didn’t make me happy. I felt like Petri dishes and tubes and needles just wasn’t the ideal way to pregnancy. I can’t believe I know people that have had IVF and I never realized exactly what they went through in order to get to that point. Judd and I talked about the options.
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The expenses alone overwhelmed us. The cost out of pocket would be many thousands of dollars if the other drugs didn’t work. Insurance isn’t a fan of infertility clinics and therefore most don’t cover very much.
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I knew going into January that this was it. One final round. I finally reached the point that I felt that I had done everything that I could. We didn’t have $25k out of pocket for IVF, and so I prayed. I would wait as long as I needed if I didn’t have to go to the Infertility Center, but in my heart I knew that it was most likely going to be needed.
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I think this was the first time I broke down. I can usually pull myself together and rarely do I like looking helpless, but one night in early January I was just done. I was so done with all of this. Judd was so supportive. I didn’t know why we were having such a hard time. Really of all the things to want and not get, …a baby? Really? There were plenty of pot head people running around getting pregnant and here we were, responsible parents who just wanted another child.
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Judd was great. I felt better after having my little melt down, and decided that we’d do whatever we needed to do.
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On January 6th I went to the doctor to start our last round. They check with a pregnancy test before each round and of course negative. So, on we went for 2 weeks of meds in preparation of the final dose. I had no hope. I didn’t think that this would work. No reason to think otherwise. I had come to accept that we would be going to the Infertility Clinic, and that it may take much longer to get pregnant than I wanted.
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The round of progesterone had the same result as every month before (which was none). Typically (for those of you interested in the medical aspects of this stuff) if your body gets a steady round of progesterone and then you stop taking it, it triggers ovulation and a period. Since I wasn’t ovulating this outcome never happened. (too much information? Probably… but I’ve been so stuck in the medical world that all this seems like nothing anymore). I had my second appointment to start the booster shot before the meds (hoping to trigger ovulation by hyper stimulation, if anything this is supposed to increase your chances of twins + because a normal person would ovulate more than one egg on this shot).
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The day before my doctor’s appointment (January 20th) I had the feeling during lunch at work to take a pregnancy test. I pushed the thought away as I didn’t want to even have hope for a positive anymore, it would just make me depressed for the day. Judd was out of town and my kids were spending the night at my moms. I was a home getting their clothes ready when I had another feeling to take a pregnancy test. I thought this was stupid. There was no way I’d be pregnant because I was scheduled to start my fertility medication in 3 days. And I had already gotten a negative 2 weeks earlier. I didn’t feel pregnant. But what the heck? I’d already taken 32 pregnancy tests so far, might as well make it 33. I took the test, went to pack my son’s bag and came back. I thought for a minute that I was reading the test upside down, because the stupid 1 line that I was so used to was on the wrong side. And then the second appeared.
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It was positive.
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I sat there for a minute. I thought I had read the lines wrong. I checked again. Two lines. This was IMPOSSIBLE. (From a medical standpoint at least). I started to get excited, but I was a little apprehensive. I had waited so long, what if this was just a mistake?
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Doctors appointment the next day confirms. Pregnant, and not by medical intervention. He said the possibility was quite low, but that miracles happen. I somehow ovulated on my own in the middle of the progesterone round. And that the timing was perfect because having progesterone at the beginning of a pregnancy also strengthens it.
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This experience has taught me a lot. More than you have time to read on my blog. But I have learned that there are many people with bigger issues and struggles than myself. I have learned that patience is not my best quality, but that waiting has taught me more than getting pregnant right when I want. I have made many friends online that I would not have otherwise. I have gained an appreciation for the 2 healthy kids I already have. I am thankful for a supportive husband that was there for me when I was a moody mess. I have a newfound respect and admiration for those that have struggled with having kids. Some do not have as good an outcome as I did. I am able to see parenthood for what it is, a gift and a blessing.
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So to make a VERY long story short. We struggled. We are excited. Life isn’t perfect, but we are thankful. In the end this imperfect road was exactly what we needed, in many ways.
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7 rounds of medicine, months of waiting, and 33 pregnancy tests later we are pregnant :)
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…..and I think I’m ready to start blogging again :)
3 comments:
Thanks for sharing Heidi :) You do well at making sure no one knows what is going on! I'm so very excited for you and sorry for how diffucult it was.
Wow. You guys are so brave having/wanting kids so close. After having Zac, we thought "what were we thinking" for about the first 6 months. And sometimes we still think that! Ha.
But in all seriousness. What a story. It really is amazing what people go thought that you have NO IDEA! I'm glad everything worked out! Thanks for sharing!
thanks for sharing, heidi! it seems that more and more people these days who have righteous desires to become parents struggle to. but sometimes its just patience we have to learn. its hard. thanks again for sharing and so happy for you. beautiful pictures.
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