Same Pain Different Day

I didn't realize it had been 9 months since my last blog entry. Not that I have any followers on here, but the blogging, and journaling, and writing was very therapeutic to the soul. At the same time, not much has changed so I didn't see the need in writing an entry very often but I think enough time has gone by to bring you up to speed on what’s going on. Since my last entry in July, I was true to what I said about taking a break from treatments and going to counseling. I took a break from treatments from July to December just to not have the stress of calculating days and ovulation and appointments and all that stuff that can get one pretty stressed out (and stress is something someone doesn’t need if they’re trying to get pregnant). In the back of my mind though I kept thinking to myself, I got pregnant naturally the first time without any treatment or help so maybe it will happen again. Of course it didn’t, but the freedom of not having to worry about any of that was very nice. I also did go to counseling. I met with a young and new Christian counselor who was still trying to figure things out I think and didn’t have much experience in the grieving aspect of counseling so unfortunately it wasn’t very beneficial. But God did send me 2 angels during this no treatment season. The first was my pastor’s wife. She shared with me after my miscarriage that she has had to miscarriages as well. The second miscarriage was actually an ectopic pregnancy which means she had a baby forming in her fallopian tubes. Babies cannot survive that so she had to have surgery to remove the baby. During the surgery the doctors saw that there was so much scar tissue around the fallopian tubes that they had to remove them, meaning she could no longer have children. She met with me and shared her story which was so encouraging to me. She related to the same place of hurt and confusion that I was in and how I was angry at God and didn’t feel like praying or being in His Word. She shared in the same inclination of seeing other women continue to get pregnant with no problem and wishing that was her. This coming from such a strong woman of faith and knowing she struggled with this too was definitely encouraging. She shared something with me that touched a very dark place in my heart. When I shared with her that I had no desire to be in God’s Word, she agreed that she felt that way too, but I need to do it anyway. Even if that does means going through the motions, every drop of water will eventually fill up the bucket. So right now in this moment it may not seem like anything is changing. I may not feel God with me but I may look back years from now and see how far God has brought me from where I was, so push through it and just keep at it. Such simple words, but something I needed to hear in that moment which has made me very grateful for this special friendship with her. The second angel God sent me was a lady I had attended church with and watched her children on several occasions. She shared with my mom that she has PCOS as well and had done research on natural ways to take control and manage PCOS instead of it just taking over your life. So she reached out to me and I met with her and she just went over tons of information about what the real cause of PCOS is and things that can aggravate it. The main way to control this is by the things I put in my body. Gluten, dairy, and soy play a huge role in disturbing and disrupting the hormones in my body. Also the body products I use and cleaners and plastics, even makeup can have an effect! I was so thankful to her for reaching out to me and caring in that way to share in her struggle and help me get through it as well. So literally the next day I got all new body products and cleaners and food containers and became gluten, dairy, and soy free. It was definitely an adjustment to go from eating things that I didn’t even know were necessarily hurting me and things I’ve eaten all my life, to a very precise and strict diet. I stuck to this diet hard core for 4 months, hardly cheating and thinking of the end result of getting a normal cycle, ovulating and ultimately getting pregnant. Unfortunately, it didn’t help me in that way. I got very healthy and lost weight, but my cycles were still out of whack and I was not ovulating on my own. It was very frustrating and discouraging. All the work I had put into making myself healthy and regular and it still didn’t work. All in all it’s been a battle. In December I went back on treatments for my infertility. I’m at the most aggressive treatment my doctor can give me. I’ve already done 2 cycles of giving myself a hormone shot once a day for a week, doing blood work to see where my hormone levels are, give myself another shot to trigger the eggs, then have a procedure where the doctor puts Dane’s sperm into my cervix as close to my uterus as possible (sorry tmi!!). I have 2 more cycles of this. After the 4th cycle if it is unsuccessful then that is all my doctor can do for me. My next and basically final option is paying out of pocket for IVF which is $15,000. Lots and lots of money, but a procedure that is much more successful than anything I have done so far. I’m praying that God will give me a clear answer on the right time to do IVF but we know it is something we will eventually do if this treatment now doesn’t work. I decided to share all this today because it has been a year today that Dane and I lost our baby. A lot has happened in this past year, a lot of soul searching and healing and praying. A lot of hurt and confusion and frustration and anger. There are days where I feel better and hopeful and there are days where I want to scream and give up and just be done with all of this. But when I don’t have hope, my family and Dane and friends have hope for me. I honestly am just as unsure about God’s plan in allowing me to have a baby as I was when I had my miscarriage, but I know that His ways are better than my ways and His plans are better than my plans and whether or not I like that right now, that’s how it is. So until my next entry, thank you for reading and caring about mine and Dane’s journey and thank you for praying that our desire to have a baby will become a reality. Love you all

Good Break

After a nice break from social media, I've decided to slowly and carefully join back into the cyber world. This has actually been a really great break for me. And let's talk about why I felt the need to take a break in the first place. After my miscarriage I kept going on Instagram and Facebook quite often and I started noticing just a lot of pregnant women and new babies. At that point it was something just not healthy for me to see. If an alcoholic was trying to quit drinking, seeing pictures of people drinking probably wouldn't help in their journey to sobriety. I just thought to myself, "If I want to be at peace with this miscarriage then social media is probably not the best thing for me right now." The constant reminder of me losing my baby came up every time I saw a newborn or pregnant woman. If any of you read this and are in one of those categories, please don't feel guilty. You want to share your happiness with the world and I totally understand that! When it happens to me I will be right there too, and I hold no bitterness or anger toward you. It was just too painful at the time. And let's be completely honest, it still is painful at times. Time is healing my heart and I don't catch myself thinking about it as often, but it still comes up and it still hurts when I let myself go to that place.

So now Dane and I are trying again to have a baby. This is my second month of fertility treatments since my miscarriage and I have decided that if the treatments don't work this month then I am going to take a break from treatments for a while. After a year of going through treatments and being unsuccessful ( for the most part ) it takes a toll emotionally and at this point I just can't afford to get my hopes up again. I need time to truly heal from this and get ready for quite possibly a long journey to parenthood. I also need to get right with God. I am going to be very transparent right now. After the miscarriage I have harbored so much anger towards God. I don't want to read my Bible or pray to Him because I am just so confused and hurt that He would allow this to happen. In my mind I still don't understand why God would allow me to get pregnant in the first place if He was just going to take the baby away from me. So those are things that I have to work out with God and I am thinking and considering going to counseling just so I can get all these thoughts and feelings out and have a verbal response.

So that's about it. No crazy update, just letting you know you will see me every so often on social media but with the break I have realized how attached I was to it to begin with. So it was definitely a healthy thing for me. But if you think about it, please pray that I won't have anger toward God and that He will give me peace about the miscarriage. Love you guy and thank you for your continued love and support and prayers.

Something I never thought would happen

This is the hardest thing I have ever had to share and it's something I honestly never thought I would experience. This past week I went through a miscarriage. The Lord blessed me with being able to carry a life inside me for 6 weeks, and sadly that journey has ended. Experiencing a loss like this is something no one can ever prepare for, and for those women who were brave enough to share with me previously that you have gone through a miscarriage, I am truly sorry.

Being pregnant was the most wonderful feeling in the world (besides the nausea literally 24/7). The fact that Dane and I had been trying for 3 years and that it finally happened was just an unexplainable feeling. The more unbelievable part was that I actually got pregnant naturally, with not fertility treatments or medicines. We were thinking of names for our baby, planning on where we would put the crib in our tiny one bedroom home, and just dreamt about our future with the new little life we had created. Then April 10th I had an ultrasound that changed everything.

2 weeks prior to that I had an ultrasound that showed the baby's heartbeat. It was such an amazing thing. The doctor was worried though because the baby was measuring smaller than it should have been. Because of that, she wanted to see me again in 2 weeks. I wanted to be cautious, but I was just so happy! We had a heartbeat and I could actually see the baby forming inside me! As the days went on though, I tried not to think about it, but the thought did come up. What if something really is wrong? April 10th came and there I was, looking at the doctor's face as she studied the monitor. I knew it wasn't good. She told us the baby's heart had stopped beating and it hadn't grown since the last time I was in, 2 weeks ago. Dane was with me at that appointment which was a comfort. We cried on the way home and for the next 3 days. It broke my heart to see Dane like that because I know how much he wants to be a dad.

We were and still are very angry and just didn't understand why God would put us through this torture? We have tried and prayed for 3 years for this and then it was taken away so suddenly. We don't know why God allowed this and we probably never will. But we do have hope. The fact that I got pregnant naturally and with no help is a huge hope for us. It showed us that it is possible. We are holding on tightly to that hope. I' not sharing this to get attention or for people to feel sorry for me. I'm hoping for the opposite actually. I'm sharing this because I started this blog to tell people about my story with infertility and I know there are so many people who have been praying for me and Dane. We share this and ask for continued prayer. That God will give us comfort and closure and a new trust in Him because at this point we honestly don't have much of it.

We thank you in advance for your prayers. You don't know how much it will help us get through this, and we thank you for investing your time in this journey Dane and I are on. Knowing we have the love and support is something we can never say thank you for enough. I will continue to keep you updated on our journey as things pick up again. We still have hope that God will bless Dane and me with the family we desire and have prayed for, but as always, it is in His timing. Much love to you all. "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21

Changes

Well since my November update, a few things have changed. Dane and I got our insurance back into affect on Dec 1 and I was able to go and see the dr that week. When I went to make the payment for my visit and ultrasound of my ovaries my co-pay was $10!!! Can you believe it? Through Dane's old insurance I was spending $140 every 2 weeks excluding any prescriptions. I had to ask again and again if that was correct and she said yes it is only $10. Well of course I started crying! Finances with fertility can be a huge added strain and stress on top of the medical issue I already have so this was such a blessing!! But during the same appt I found out that one of my cysts had grown from 2cm to 10cm. Because of that I wasn't able to do any treatment for the month of December. I was super disappointed. I went from great news to sucky news. So I decided that for that month I would go back to my Metformin that I had from previous months and just cut down on the daily dose since it was making me feel so horrible before. I had my last appt on January 3rd and praise God my cyst went back down to 2 cm. The dr and I were very pleased to see that. She said she typically likes seeing cysts smaller than that but because of the huge difference, she felt comfortable with me continuing with the treatment. So I am back to giving myself a shot today (thursday) and then a week from today. That following monday I will have another ultrasound (which will only be $10!!!) and if there is an egg that has been released then I can continue with the artificial insemenation. We will get into that another time :|

Another change that has happened is I am on a new eating lifestyle this month called whole30. This is where for 30 days you eat nothing but meat, veggies, and fruit. No added sugars, no grains, wheats, beans, dairy, or hormonally added or processed foods. It has been difficult because I love my cocoa crispies in the morning and my chocolate chips cookies and candy at night. It is so crazy though to see how many foods have added sugars in them. So it is a very strict diet, but I am doing it because many women who have suffered with PCOS did whole30 and after time their cysts went away and they were able to conceive. This way of eating takes all the bad stuff that is in your body and takes it away and kind of resets your system. I am only on day 5 right now and so far so good. Of course I have the small cravings for bread and sugar and sweet tea, but I have a different reason for doing this besides losing weight. It is to help with having a baby so I'm all in on this! We will see what happens at the end of the 30 days though. I may be a crazy person deprived of such heavenly foods, or a I may decide to continue with it. One day at a time.

Well that is all for now! Thanks for taking the time to read this and continue to pray for us and this journey we are on. It's getting more difficult as the months go on but Dane and I pray daily that we will continue to trust God and not be bitter toward Him or others that are pregnant. Love you all and until next time, God Bless!

Update on things to come

Wow! Let me just say I am blown away by the response I got from the last post. So much encouragement and prayer and women who are going through or have experienced what I am going through now. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support from friends and family and all I can say is thank you.

It has been a couple months since my last blog simply because not much has happened, but lots of people have been asking me how things are going so I thought I would give a quick update. Since September I have already tried a couple of things. First, I decided to go off the birth control. One of the reasons I went off of it 3 years ago was of course to start trying to conceive, but also I hated the way it made me feel. I just wasn't myself. So I decided to go off that which is when I was informed about a medication called Metformin. This medicine is mainly used for people with diabetes, but strangely enough it also is supposed to help with women who have PCOS. When a woman has PCOS she starts getting more insulin then needed which is where the Metformin comes in. It helps with people who have diabetes to regulate their insulin, as it does with women who have PCOS. Studies have found that it also helps women ovulate, get pregnant, and not have a miscarriage so I tried it. Unfortunately it made me lose my appetite and have diarrhea for 2 weeks straight. After consulting with my dr about it, she thought it was best if I went off that for the time being and went forward with hormone shots and progesterone suppositories (sorry tmi). I had to give myself 2 hormone shots in October to help my hormone level become more normal, and then take progesterone to give me a more normal cycle. It was very strange giving myself a shot. I felt anxious and concerned that I wasn't going to do it right. But once I did it, I felt relieved and proud of myself that I actually could do it. This is going to be a 4 month cycle. So for the next 3 months I will be giving myself 2 shots a month, progesterone suppositories, and my dr will perform artificial insemenation. That means she will put Dane's sperm into one of my eggs that has hopefully formed and will allow me to conceive. We are praying it works because with each step the success rate becomes higher of getting pregnant, but the price raises as well.

Something I meant to share earlier was during the first month of the shots, I hadn't gotten my period. The dr had said if I didn't get my period by the 32nd day of my cycle to take a pregnancy test. Well my period hadn't come and so of course Dane and I were thinking I was pregnant. I'm never late with my period, usually early so all the signs pointed to "PREGNANT"!! So that Saturday I took a test early in the morning because I was just so excited, and it came back negative. I was crushed. That weekend was just really hard for me. I cried like a baby to the girls in my bible study group and they just came around me and prayed for me which was so comforting. I'm doing better now, but unfortunately I am becoming more skeptical with every month that I am not pregnant. It is very hard to share this, but I know that those who are reading this will pray for me or maybe have experienced this as well. Knowing there are women like me who are going through this also brings more peace to the whole journey. Just to know I am not alone in it.

Well that's about all there is to share at this point. I'll be going in to see my dr in December to start the treatments again, and hopefully I will be up to making another update. Until then, thank you for reading and for caring and for praying. If I can help you in any way with prayer and encouragement, please don't hesitate to talk to me :) God bless you, and happy Thanksgiving!!

Let's Start At The Very Beginning, A Very Good Place To Start

some of you may or may not know that dane and i have had difficulties getting pregnant. for quite some time i was just keeping it between us and our family and close friends or people i knew that had or were sharing in the same journey as us. but i'm slowly meeting more people that are struggling in this so i thought it was time for me to share my story and hopefully encourage and comfort other couples going through the same thing. in october of 2011 my husband and i stopped using any type of birth prevention. we weren't trying to have a baby, but we weren't preventing it either. in march of 2012 we decided to consciously try to have a baby. after 6 months had gone by i started getting concerned. lots of people were telling me it took 6 months to a year for birth control to leave the system, which i was on for 2 years. i still figured it had been 6 months and i wanted to make sure there were no issues, so i made an appointment with a doctor. after meeting with him he said he couldn't give me any answers until it had been a year. so, i had to wait 6 more months before i got any answers. at the year mark of course i went back to the dr. i had a new dr at this point. she took some blood tests and did an ultrasound on my ovaries. at that point she did notice some small cysts but she said it was normal. all of my blood work came back okay because i never heard anything otherwise. so dane and i just kept trying to get pregnant. flash forward to a year later. we are still not pregnant. i had gotten what this joke of an insurance company called help (which included two visits to an obgyn with one month of clomid and the same blood work i perviously had done)for as long as they could until the dr finally told me there was nothing they could do for me anymore. i would have to find a fertility dr through my insurance and it was pretty much see ya later, you are becoming a nuisance. that's how i felt. well, i did what they suggested. but the whole appointment fell through and we were back at square one. at this point i was done with our insurance so i asked dane if we could switch to kaiser. we had to wait til the 1st of the year but were able to switch. in march of this year, 2014, we were able to meet with a fertility dr through kaiser and just in that one meeting we got the main question answered. what is keeping us from getting pregnant? turns out i have polycystic ovarian disease or PCOD. my ovaries produce a lot of cysts which prevent eggs from forming and keeps me from ovulating. from the initial ultrasound with my previous dr they had found cysts but PCOD was never brought up. the dr put me on a medicine called clmiid. this medicine helps me to ovulate and the success rate of getting pregnant off this is very high. i would be on the medication for 6 months and if i still wasn't pregnant by then, we would start the next step. well, after 5 months of clomid i was ovulating which was an answered prayer, but not getting pregnant. somehow an hsg test came up in conversation with someone who had been through the same thing as me and i told her i didn't know what that was or what it did. she explained it was a dye test which went through the fallopian tubes to make sure there is no blockage in them. another friend confirmed she had done the same test in the beginning of the whole process so i became concerned. i made an appointment right away and thankfully there were no issues with my tubes. my fertility dr was the one who performed the test and she suggested that i move on from climid alone and go to hormone shots combined with clomid. in order to do that, i needed to do another ultrasound of my ovaries to make sure there were no cysts. sure enough after 2 ultrasounds they both showed a significant cyst growing on one of my ovaries. in order to shrink this, i needed to get back on birth control and that medicine would either shrink or get rid of it completely. now i don't know about you, but have you ever had a cyst burst on your ovary? i have, twice, and it is EXTREMELY painful. but that is where this journey has led me. i am now on birth control waiting for this cyst to "go away" so that i can start the hormone shots and clomid again. it has been a stressful, confusing journey thus far. the way it's going now i don't see it getting any easier which is frustrating. this has been a huge trial for me to trust God more and constantly be in prayer over my body and just my dependence on Him. He has us going through this all for a reason. honestly i can say there have been times that i have yelled at God, told Him i am angry with Him, and just sobbed not understanding why He is allowing us to be put through all this. i know one day dane and i will have answers to all of it and we will look back and see God's hand in it and understand why He did what He did. but right now in the present we don't see it and we don't understand it. it is taking all of me to continue to trust in God but i am doing it by His grace. this is long, it's really long and if you had the patience to read to the end, i thank you sincerely for taking an interest in this journey. i ask you now to come beside me and my husband in prayer that above all else, God would be glorified through it and and that we wouldn't question this plan but find comfort in Him and continue to trust Him. i also ask though that you pray i get pregnant. God knows the desires of His children's hearts and i believe He has the power to do this because He is God and He knows this has been my desire for pretty much my whole life. if you are going through this, please share how i can pray for you and where you are in your journey. i would love to hear from you. thank you again and God bless you.