Infertility

Never in a million years did I imagine I would use that word to describe myself!  It has been a rough few years with lots of ups and downs.  It is so hard to not let a problem like infertility color the rest of your life while you're going through it.  I feel like this was one of the primary things I learned through the whole experience:  how to be happy despite your life not going as planned.  I even got asked to give a presentation on that very topic.  After giving it (not once, but twice) and learning a lot, I thought, "ok God, I've learned my lesson, now bless me with a baby!"  Nope, not yet.  I then got asked to speak about "hope" to a group of young single adults.  Again, I learned a lot and realized how important hope is and the difference between hope and an expectation. And again I said, "Ok, God, I've learned two really good things, is it time?" And unfortunately it still wasn't!  Looking back on the whole two years, I can truly see my growth and how essential it was for me to experience this, but going through it was a whole other story.

Infertility affected my relationship with Paul, with Hayden, with my friends and my relationship with God in many positive and negative ways.  Like one of my friends who was never able to have children wisely put it, "infertility is such a private, yet public problem."  I had so many people ask me why I was delaying a second child or just say insensitive things not meaning to offend at all!  Then on the flip side, I saw my friends and family encircle me and give unconditional love and support.  Even as I write that sentence I am filled with emotion at how lucky I am to have so many people that care about me and my family.  I am so very grateful for my friends and family far away that listened to me say the same things over and over or talk about my treatments redundantly and for my friends near who not only listened but showed their love by watching Hayden for countless hours as I drove to and from the clinic which was about an hour away.

My relationship with my Heavenly Father went from feeling punished by him and feeling not good enough to be entrusted with another child, to feeling how keenly aware he was of me and the pain I was feeling.  I did not want to see the little miracles surrounding the infertility, instead I only wanted to focus on how I was not being blessed after doing all I felt I could to be a good person. I couldn't help but look at others and wonder what they were doing that warranted a blessing.  This situation with God wasn't made easier by our house troubles, a client trying to take away my license, and my back and neck seizing in pain due to old water polo injuries (still going to physical therapy to treat this)!  I'm being a big complainer, but I'm just going to list out everything that went wrong with our house in the same space of time: foundation cracked, squirrel infestation in attic, A/C replacement, oven replacement, water heater replacement (after a minor basement flood), driveway sinking (still needs to be replaced), hail and wind damage to our roof and our insurance not paying for a replacement,  and we were also taking out about 40 trees to make a yard for ourselves!   It just seemed that for a time there everything was going wrong and we couldn't catch a break.  Looking back I can see the positives, but during it all I just felt severely punished.  I know that God does not punish like this and I've never been taught this, but every part of me felt that way.

On one occasion talking with a good friend she shared the following quote with me by Michael Wilcox:

"I believe with all my heart that the Lord has no desire to lay upon us, or to allow life to lay upon us, any greater burden than those that may be necessary for our growth and progression.  He desires our happiness.  Creating joy is at the very core of his being.  I do not believe that every adversity that comes into our lives does so because it is necessary in his grand plan.  I am confident that we face many things that the Father of us all would rather we avoid.  The cruelties of men, the ravages of nature, the weaknesses of our physical bodies may bring to us burdens not in the majestic plan of a loving God.  Life brings them, life in its imperfect scope, life in a fallen world, yet a life that still contains immeasurable joys and fulfillment.  I believe that God does not burden us with many of the adversities that we face - but that does not mean that he cannot or will not turn them to our advantage."

For some reason, this is what started to help shift my negative mind set.  Heavenly Father did not necessarily want Paul and I to go through this, in fact, it saddened him that my body was not working correctly.  Life brought this stress to us, not God, "but that does not mean that he cannot or will not turn them to our advantage."  I love that last line.

Ok, so I guess I'll share the actual story now :)  Soon after moving to Atlanta we started trying for our second child.  We weren't worried or concerned, Hayden happened right away and in no way did I think it would take time.  It would bother me so much when people would tell me just to relax and it would happen.  I was relaxed the first 6 months, I had no reason to doubt that it wouldn't work because I had Hayden.  But about the 6 to 7th month mark I began to get worried and I think it was around there while I was in our dining room mopping that I got the distinct impression that I was going to have to experience infertility for a time.  At the time I thought this meant having to try a whole year or do some minor treatments, I was not yet prepared for all that was to come.  So I called my doctors office and spoke with a nurse who said it was normal for the process to take time and that I shouldn't be concerned until the year mark.  But around 10 months I felt pretty defeated and began some initial simple tests.  All of these came back normal and the last stop for my OB was to perform a laparoscopy to determine if other problems existed.  This was a surgery and not something to do unless there was reason to believe there was a problem.  My doctor left the decision up to me, but highly doubted that they would find anything.  Nonetheless I couldn't shake the feeling that I should just have the procedure done.  So we scheduled the surgery for July of 2012.  During the surgery they found I had 2 small cysts and then a significant amount of endometreosis.  My doctor explained that when they find endometreosis they look for two things, is the amount and placement causing pain or causing infertility.  In my case he said it was causing both.  They were able to remove the endometreosis with minimal scaring and Paul and I felt a new sense of hope for the first time in a long time.  It was shorty after having this removed that I spoke on hope and it all seemed to be fitting into place.  We were sure now that this was gone it would all work.

Well months went by with no luck once again and I began to worry again. While talking to a good friend about everything she finally suggested I see a specialist.  I had wanted to but for some reason thought I was making too big a deal out of the problem.  I don't like to be overly dramatic and just kept telling myself it would take time.  But this friend really helped me see that this was the next step and I needed to take it.  I am so glad I listened to her sound advice.  It was hard trying to figure out where to go.  There were no clinics close by and it was difficult to chose who to trust.  It was also difficult emotionally going to this step.  I know it sounds silly, but I felt defeated knowing I had to resort to an infertility clinic.

I finally chose Reproductive Biology Associates and called and was able to get an appointment within a few days!  They had a cancellation with Dr. Mitchell-Leaf and I decided to take it.  The first appointment both Paul and I were again filled with hope.  First, they were so happy to see me in my early 30s.  Here I was feeling so old, and they were so happy to see someone so young.  They also talked through several treatment options that seemed to move us in a positive direction.  The only thing that made me really worried is that they said the optimal time to get pregnant after removing endometreosis is the first 3 months which I had already passed and that by 7-8 months it could be back fully.  Dr Mitchell was not warm and fuzzy at all, she was right to the point and the solution.  And at this point that's exactly what I wanted and needed.  So after some more tests with the new office I was able to start IUI the following month in December.  Paul's test results were very positive which made my doctors feel confident that treatment would be successful.  With IUI the medication list wasn't too long, and I had to go in the office about 4-6 times during the cycle which wasn't too bad.

Our first attempt was unsuccessful which was very disappointing.  Again, I know this sounds crazy because I have no control, but I felt like such a failure and again that God was punishing me.  Right after finding out it was unsuccessful I also had to appear before my licensing board to discuss the case.  It was NOT a good week!  (But about a month later I received an email saying the complaint was closed because they found no evidence of unethical behavior!) They recommend trying IUI at least 2-3 times, so we did a second round.  The success rates are a bit better the 2nd time around because all your hormone levels are still elevated from the first round.  So we were so very hopeful that this would be it.  I have never been so nervous taking a home pregnancy test!  You test on a specific day because if you test early it could be a false positive from some of the hormones.  I thought for sure I was and so did many friends and family.  We were so positive, faithful, and hopeful, and again the result was negative.  This was one of the toughest days of infertility for us because I knew it was the last try before IVF.  I did not want to waste any more time or money on IUI after no luck 2 times in a row so I scheduled another consultation with my doctor to discuss options.  I was so disappointed because I couldn't get in for a bit and I felt like we wasted a month.  A wasted month to an woman trying to have a baby is a horrible thing!  I don't know how else to describe it.  Dr. Mitchell agreed we couldn't do IUI again, my body was already producing too many eggs on the 2nd try and a third round of IUI would have produced even more.  If you have to many follicles they don't consider it safe to try IUI.  Anyway, so she agreed to IVF was the next step.

If you know me, you know I am always a money worrier.  All this treatment was stressing me out, but I have to admit that this is an area where we were hugely blessed. Around the 7-8 month mark of our infertility Paul felt like he should switch jobs.  I don't think I was very supportive during this time.  I thought, "we moved to Atlanta for this job, just suck it up and deal with it!"  The job was not good in a lot of ways, but the worst part was our health insurance.  Our family deductible was $5,000 and there was no infertility coverage.  When Paul was debating whether to switch jobs and was offered a job with Philips Healthcare he asked his friend for a blessing to help guide him to make the right decision.  In the blessing he said that this new job would allow us to increase our family.  This was a double edged sword for me when I heard that.  I was happy to hear it at first but then thought, why will this job help us have a baby?  Soon after he started I looked into their infertility coverage and found out they covered $15,000 per life time.  At that moment I knew I was going to utilize at least of chunk of that money and it made me sick to my stomach that we couldn't do it on our own. I'm truly grateful that Paul was inspired enough to listen and ignore me!  So while we still had to pay a percentage of the treatment and they refused to pay for a part of the IVF procedure, we could have been a lot worse off!

So in March we began Invitro Fertilization.  My mother-in-law was kind enough to fly out and stay for a week to watch Hayden.  The process was pretty intense.  I drove 2 hours round trip every day (including weekends) for about 3 weeks while going through all of this and it was so helpful to have my mother-in-law here with us.  The first two weeks I went in daily for an ultra-sound and blood work.  They would measure a bunch of numbers and check my follicles to see how many were growing. Based on these numbers a nurse would call me and tell me how much medicine to put in my twice daily shots.  These shots stimulated the follicle growth and then the third shot kept my body from ovulating.  I learned to give myself these shots and got really comfortable and good at them!  I was proud of myself and never thought I could do it!  By the end I had 19 follicles around the right size so I had another minor surgery to extract the eggs from the follicles. Right before the extraction I got bad news that there was fluid in my tubes and possibly uterus and that they probably could not transfer the embryo until after surgery fixed the problem.  I was devastated and called Paul sobbing.  Again another set back.  But mysteriously after the next few ultrasounds the problem went away...another blessing?   They retrieved all 19 eggs from the follicles and then put 12 through a process called ICSI (which insurance wouldn't cover) and 7 through the normal procedure.  Of the 7 regular procedure ones 5 continued to grow and of the 12 ICSI another 5 made it.  These were really good numbers apparently.  So we had 10 embryos growing.  They let them sit for 2-4 days I believe.  On day 2 mine were all growing at the same rate, so they let them go 2 more days and 4 were doing the best.  So day 4 we went in again to transfer the embryo and they froze the remaining 3.  Then they let the rest grow another day and 3 more did ok.  So we were able to freeze 6 embryos which is great.  Many women don't get enough embryos from one round of IVF and have to do another round.  I can't imagine going through all that again.

It was difficult to determine how many embryos to transfer, but ultimately our doctor and embryologist strongly suggested just one.  Specialists have really changed how they do IVF.  They used to transfer lots of eggs and my doctor admitted, "we had no idea what we were doing."  Anyway, my one embryo looked really good and they suggested one healthy pregnancy after all your problems is far better than risking 2 babies and more complications.

Then it was the waiting game.  This was nice because I finally got a break from driving so much, but the anticipation was crazy.  I started progesterone shots during this period of time as well and more oral medicine. These shots I couldn't give myself because they had to be intramuscular and let me tell you, they were not fun!  I was so bruised and it hurt pretty good!  I did these for 10 weeks every night with Paul's help!  They also make you gain weight :)  Anyway, the day finally came when we could go in for a blood test.  While we looked forward to this day, I also dreaded it.  It was nice being in limbo a bit.  We did everything we could I didn't have to worry for awhile.  So on March 29th Paul, Hayden and I drove to the clinic.  I did the blood test but I wouldn't find out the results for a few hours.  So to distract our minds we went shopping a bit and out to brunch.  We were in the restaurant when I got the call and I ran out of the restaurant to await the news.  Paul was dying because he could only see me through the window while I was on the phone.  Anyway after some small talk with my nurse Nancy she told me she had good news.  My test showed I was pregnant.  Any number over 15 I believe was good and I was in the 100s!  I ran in the restaurant and gave Paul a big thumbs up and a big smile!  We were on cloud nine all day!!!

I went in the following Monday and Friday I believe for 2 more blood tests to make sure my numbers were doubling each day.  It was a little nerve wracking each time they called with my results, but each time they were good.  Around 5 or 6 weeks I had my first ultrasound and heard the heart beat.  I remember driving home and feeling so overwhelmed with gratitude.  My nausea hit right at 6 weeks just like Hayden and I was sick up until about 22-23 weeks!  I hate feeling this way, but I guess I was more positive about it this time knowing the alternative would to still be struggling with infertility.  I continued twice monthly ultrasounds until I was 11 weeks and then they transferred me back to my OBGYN.

What a crazy ride this was for us.  I am so grateful also to have a loving, supportive husband like Paul.  While we had our struggles and I had to teach him how to respond each month as I gave him disappointing news, he was my best friend through it all.  Something that was also hard is how inadequate I felt about myself and how I felt bad that he was stuck with me.  Again, I keep saying this, I know it's irrational, but I just felt like he was better off without me!  I was the problem, not him, and I was holding him back.  His constant reassurances were definitely needed and his ability to help me relax and forget our troubles were a major blessing.  We also came to spiritual realizations together that really made us grow stronger together.

I don't completely understand why exactly we went through this, but I do know that I am a changed person having been through it.  I'm sure I'll continue to process what I've learned and learn why this was necessary for my growth.  But I hope I am able to comfort and serve others as I was comforted and served by so many!