National Infertility Week

It seems to me that this week comes around really fast every year.  In fact, at times it appears to be every week.  To be reminded one more time of my infertility is not necessary.  It lingers in the back of my mind almost daily.  It has shaped the type of woman I have become and that's not always a good thing but many times it is.  We've been encouraged this year to just share our stories.  I don't know if anyone will read this.  If anyone does, it's probably someone who has already heard my story but for me it is a little therapeutic to write it out sometimes so that I can see where I've been, how far I've come, and where the possibilities can lead.

Our journey began in May 2009.  We had only been married for a few short months but decided that my birth control was making me crazy and that I needed to come off of it.  We were going to use other methods of birth control but after conversations with my parents and a reminder of my age (P.S. 28 is not that old) we decided to go ahead and start trying to have a baby.  We prayed about it and felt like it was the right time to try.  Nothing happened. 

In October 2009, after trying to get pregnant for six months, I was finally diagnosed with PCOS.  After years of doctors testing me for diabetes, someone actually figured it out.  I was put on metformin to hopefully put things back in order and was finally able to get pregnant.

We found out I was pregnant for the first time in February 2010.  George and I were both so excited.  Our families were happy for us, my mom even cried.  Then the bleeding started.  I had been told it was normal so I tried not to stress.  I wound up in the emergency room on Valentine's Day because of the pain I was in.  They took blood tests to see what my HCG levels were but they couldn't tell me anything from them.  I wound up back in my doctor's office a few days later with another blood test showing that my HCG levels were rising.  There was still a baby growing but no one could see where.  After multiple days of blood tests, it was determined that I was having an ectopic pregnancy.  I was given methotrexate to help clear my body out.  I was devastated.  Almost a year of trying, to just have it end this way.

I blew up at my family a couple months later when both my sister and my sister-in-law were pregnant.  Everyone expected me to just move on with my life and get over it.  I didn't feel like I could just get over it.  I feel bad now for that blow up.  I think I just didn't know how to deal with it all.

We tried to quickly pick ourselves up and brush ourselves off and convince ourselves to try again.  In May 2010, pregnancy #2 happened.  It was a couple weeks before it should have been and our doctor was not happy with us but it was what it was.  We found a new doctor who tested me right away and was with us through the whole miscarriage.  He tested my HCG levels from the beginning and called me personally when he saw that we were losing the second one.

On September 23, 2010 we found out we were pregnant yet again.  This time the doctor did everything he could think of to help us.  He prescribed progesterone but it didn't work and we lost this one too.  He suggested we visit an OBGYN for future plans for trying to have children.  We didn't go immediately.  George and I pursued some counseling so that we could try to heal our hearts.

To lose three pregnancies in a matter of six months was more than I could handle.  I was tired, my body was definitely reacting to the hormones and the depression I was experiencing.  I wanted nothing more than to just be better and to feel better.

In 2011, in an effort to get healthier, George and I registered for a half marathon.  We did it.  I was so proud of us and I thought for sure that by training for the half and getting healthier, it would help us keep a pregnancy.  By this time, we had visited the new OBGYNs office but the doctor had said that I needed to lose weight before they could do anything for me so I hadn't gone back.  We got pregnant with pregnancy #4 in August 2011.  This time at least, the nurse who helped me recognized that there was a bigger problem going on and that I needed to have some testing done.  They did a bunch of blood tests and everything came back normal.  I was referred to a reproductive endocrinologist at that point.

I think I dealt with that one a little better than I had the others (or at least I thought I had).  Turns out just a couple months after this loss there were a bunch of other big life changes and I kind of hit a wall.  I was a mess.  I could see myself drowning in this funk but didn't really know how to get out of it.  I just kept myself moving the best I could.  In the meantime, my weight continued to rise, my motivation continued to sink, and it took a lot to get myself out of bed every morning.

Why didn't anyone send me to a endocrinologist in the first place?  Probably one of the most frustrating things that I've experienced up to now is knowing that there could have been additional answers sooner if I had been sent in the right direction earlier.

We met with our endo in early 2012, did lots of tests (that all came back normal), and decided to wait to work with her until after Girl's Camp because I wasn't allowed to be pregnant and go to camp.  She reassured me several times that my weight was not causing my miscarriages.  What a relief to hear when that's all the doctors had been telling me.

When we were finally ready to try again, I was put on clomid and progesterone.  It made me a little wacky and I definitely didn't feel well but it worked.  We were able to get pregnant with #5 at the end of August 2012.  This time it looked like things were going to work out.  My HCG numbers rose and doubled like they were supposed to.  Then the bleeding started.  Within a week, it was gone.  Just gone.  There was no watching my HCG levels decrease, no hoping.  One minute it was there and looking like it would work and the next gone. 

I recognized the pit inside of me.  The loss of hope.  The loss of caring.  My weight went up again.  I sank deeper.  I missed work.  I didn't care.  I spent money and didn't care.  I think my husband didn't really care either.  It was hard on us both.  The funny part is that no one saw it.  No one but me and him.  We had to hide it.  Make everyone think we were okay.  Make everyone think that we were happy.  I can tell you what though, baby showers, they don't happen.  I try to be supportive of and happy for my friends and family when they have their babies but if I'm being honest, I go home and cry.

It has taken me eight months to finally get some help.  Back to a counselor I go.  This time I see why I need it.  This time, I miss the old me.  I miss the me that went to church regularly and loved being there.  I don't like the me that goes to church and hurts because of all of the babies around.  I miss the me that loved to read my scriptures, attend the temple, and do things for other people.  I miss the me that laughed and that had hope.  I miss the me that wanted to make a difference in the world.

Infertility and Recurrent Miscarriages have changed me.

While there are those things that I miss about my old self, there are things that I love about my new self.  I am stronger.  I am tougher.  I recognize when I need help and I ask for it.  I feel stronger when I make it through a sacrament meeting at church.  I feel stronger when I take a teenage girl that I care about who is pregnant a baby shower present.  I feel stronger and more loving when I go to my friends' and family member's homes and hug and play with their children who it turns out love me and George so much.  I feel more humble and am working on my re-conversion.  I feel like someday I will look back on this whole experience and see that I may not be the person I was when I started this journey, but I have become an even better person.  Someone who is more compassionate, understanding, and kind.

I hope that with the help I am receiving I will become that person.  I will be able to look at this trial in a whole other light and that I will be able to move forward.

My infertility journey is not over.  We still plan on working with our sweet Dr. Gurtcheff.  Right now, I'm on birth control which causes all sorts of conflicting feelings inside of me.  It's supposed to help and get me to a place where we can try again.  I don't know when the time will feel right again.  We've looked into adoption and foster care and neither has felt quite right yet.  There is still more for us to go through.  I will try to learn to hope again that something will work and if it doesn't that moving forward with our other options will eventually feel right.

The time for healing is at hand.  I can feel it.  It's going to take some work but I'm ready to be happy again and not let this struggle in my life pull me down.  The purpose of this life is to show our Father in Heaven what we can do with the trials we've been given.  I hope that someday, I will be able to stand before Him and tell Him that I struggled but that I made it through.  Maybe not always gracefully but I did the best that I could.

While it doesn't always feel true, I am thankful for the trials that I am facing and for the person I'm hopefully being shaped into being.