(Super long post, but
what do you expect when you're trying to fit 7 years worth of your life into
one post.)
The day Jeremy and I got married, was one of the
most amazing and happiest moments of my life. I knew he was the right man for
me, though. I had prayed about it, and had one of those rare moments when you
actually feel like God is talking back to you. I asked God "Should I marry
this man?" and I immediately felt like my heart was going to explode (I
was not having a heart attack). I was being told that this was absolutely the
right man for me to marry. The crazy part is, we had only known each other for
exactly three months, and I wasn't even eighteen yet (close, but not for a few
months). It was a huge commitment to make, but I trusted God to know what was
right for me, and he was definitely telling me "Marry Jeremy!" as clearly,
as if he had hit me with a bolt of lightning. There were skeptics out there
though that thought, "She's too young! She doesn't know what she wants out
of life yet." I knew EXACTLY what I wanted my life to be. I had it ALL
planned out. We would get married and start having babies right away, I would
be a stay-at-home mommy, and everything would be perfect! God told me to marry
the right man, but he did not tell me I would have all those other things.
Whatever idiot came up with the idea that the first
year of marriage is the best, or the "newlywed" phase was so
great—should be shot. That first year of marriage is when you are learning all
the things about your spouse that they worked so hard to hide during your
courtship. They are also learning the same things about you. In my religion, we
don't believe in living together before marriage. I still hold firm to that
belief. Our first year of marriage was filled with all kinds of excitement,
frustration, fun, confusion, some sadness, and a whole mess of other stuff. The
point is, I don't believe it was the best
year of our marriage. We have had much better years than that one since then,
despite some of our difficulties.
About three months after we got married, I missed my
period…I know you're thinking 'Wow! A baby already?' You're wrong. That's when
the first of God's life lessons began for me. No period. I thought OMG! I might
be pregnant! Tests are negative, but still no period. Well, I have just gone
through getting married and had a major lifestyle change so I figured stress
could be to blame. Then came the weight gain, rapid weight gain. I know exactly
how much I weighed when I got married (Every woman does) I weighed 118 pounds.
I was petite and thin. I had never been fat in my life, but suddenly my body
was ballooning and within months I had gained probably 30 pounds, but that's
not where it stopped. By the time we had our first anniversary, I weighed close
to 180 pounds. I was very depressed about how my body had changed. We both
wanted to have a baby and there were people all around us having babies.
As soon as we hit that one year mark, though, we
began to get the inevitable, yet well intended question at family gatherings
"So, when are you two going to start having kids?" or "Give me
some grandkids!" I didn't really want to admit that I was essentially
defective, though it was pretty obvious to everyone that I had put on a ton of
weight. They just didn't realize (and neither did I) that it didn't have
anything to do with my diet (which had not changed too much). So, whenever I
would get one of those inevitable questions, I would smile and say "Oh, I
don't know. We're not ready for that just yet." or some other excuse. It
didn't matter. The point is I wanted a baby, but couldn't have one. I knew
something was wrong with me, but didn't know what. I was frustrated, depressed,
angry, envious and life wasn't going the way I had PLANNED it.
When we hit that three year mark, it became obvious
to everyone that we had fertility issues, but the topic was taboo. I didn't
want to talk about it and people didn't want to bring it up. I was seriously
angry at God because I couldn't understand why on earth he would put me through
all this crap! I watched relatives and friends having baby after baby. I
dreaded going to baby showers and I didn't even really want to go to family
gatherings anymore because it was just too hard to see all the babies and happy
families everywhere. The same thing happened at Church. I belong to a very
family oriented church where it's perfectly normal to have ten children, and every
Sunday lesson had to do with how to teach your children about God (or so it
seemed to me). I stopped going to church, because I just couldn't sit there
staring at every other mother in the building with a baby in her arms. Don't
even get me started on Mother's Day. That is the absolute worst day of the
year! Yes, I believe we should celebrate our mothers and thank them for all the
sacrifices that they made (and still make) for us, but for a woman who doesn't
have children and wants one so badly it breaks her heart every day of the year,
Mother's Day is like "D-Day". You have to gear yourself up for it and
try to survive it (And definitely NOT attend church that day!)
This blog isn't really about my struggles with
infertility, but I can't leave all of that part out of our story (I could
probably start a whole other blog, just about that if I wanted to.). It changed
the way I think, and my relationship with God, and my understanding of his plan
for me. It took me a very long time to realize that I don't really get to plan
out every detail of my life. Sure, I make choices every day, and I'm definitely
responsible for those choices, but there are a lot of things that you cannot
control in your life and God is the one who is trying to teach you about life
and the universe. Like that whole saying "You can lead a horse to water,
but you can't make it drink." I'm the horse. I'm stubborn. I'm a control
freak (or I used to be. I still have my days) and when life wasn't happening
according to MY plans, I couldn't understand what the heck was going on. It takes
a feat of impossible inner strength
to let go of YOUR plan and allow God to do his work. After almost 7 YEARS of
struggling, I finally accepted that God just might not want me to be a mother
after all, and I would have to find some other purpose in life. I finally let
it go. My dream of being a mother, having a family and even who I would be in
this life on earth was gone.
Jeremy and I decided to give the fertility doctor
one last chance, though. I had been told that I needed to have surgery on my ovaries in
order to give us about a 9 month window to get pregnant. It wasn't a permanent
fix, there wasn't even a guarantee that it would work at all, and we were told
that it probably wouldn't be covered by our insurance either. (Yippee). I was
getting ready to graduate from Massage Therapy School (I decided that, that was
what I would be if I couldn't be a mom). We talked to the doctor and said we
wanted to do the surgery. (Even if we had to make payments for ten years.) I had
the surgery done and we geared ourselves up for the inevitable ups and downs of
each monthly cycle. There is never a month so long, as the one in which you
have to count every day, only to find out at the end of it that you have to
start all over again. Most people won't really understand what I mean by that,
but those of you out there who have struggled with infertility…you know EXACTLY
what I mean. After my surgery Jeremy and I tried for a couple of months to do things
"All Natural", but it wasn't working, so we went back to the doctor
and decided to do a round of drugs. Here's how it went:
Cycle Day 1-7 take mystery pills.
Cycle Day 10 come in and have an ultrasound of your
ovaries to see if said mystery pills are working. if they are YAY! If not. You're
pretty much either screwed for that cycle or wait a few more days and come back
in to see if there are any changes. Fortunately in our case the pills seemed to
be doing their job. We had eggs! (Not babies, just eggs) So, onto the next
step.
Cycle Day12 or 14: Depending on what the doctor
learned from the ultrasound, they will tell you which day (and even what time)
you get to give yourself a shot in the butt or thigh. Then have sex about 12
hours after the shot, and again 24 hours after that—if you really feel like it,
you can try again 24 hours after that. It's not exactly a romantic process, but
when you're desperate to have a baby…what else can you do.
Cycle Day 14-28: WAITING…you get to use these
wonderful suppositories filled with a hormone that makes you feel pregnant,
when you aren't pregnant. You get to wake up to pee in the middle of the night,
you get to have sore boobs, and you're extremely emotional (but that problem
exists even BEFORE you start the hormone treatment, so you can see how long a
month can be for a woman going through this process.) You spend every day
trying to decipher every little thing you feel in your body, to see if it's
"telling you something". It's psychological torture for 14 days.
Day 28: Aaaah. Testing day. You're both dreading and
looking forward to this day. It's truly terrifying. Well, I had followed all of
my instructions down to the letter and on testing day I got up first thing in
the morning to take my test—NEGATIVE. I spent the next hour crying and
realizing I had to call the nurse and tell them it didn't work, so I could go
pick up my packet of drugs for the next cycle.
Day 30: Still waiting for my period so that I can
start my new round of mystery pills. I'm sitting in my car at a stop light
(crying), and I suddenly decide to have a conversation with God about what I'm
doing. I tell him that I'm done with the fertility stuff and I finally get the
point. I'm not going to be a mom, and I told him that I would be ok with that
eventually (or I would try to anyway). I told him that I understand I've been
given a defective body to live in while I'm here on earth, and I would try to
be ok with that too, but that I couldn't put myself through this anymore.
Day 35: July 4th 2005, Still no period. I'm lying in
bed wondering what else could possibly be wrong with my body. It's early,
probably 5:00am but because of those wonderful hormones, I have to pee, so I go
into the bathroom but something inside the back of my brain nags me and tells
me to take another test. I tell my brain "You're an idiot! You already
took a test! You're just going to hurt yourself taking another test! Don't be
stupid!" My brain responds with, "But what if?.." I'm beaten. I
get out a test (which by now I've bought in bulk, but this is my LAST ONE) and
I pee on it and set it on the side of the tub, but I absolutely REFUSE to watch
it! I sit on the bathroom floor staring at the toilet for the entire three-minute
waiting period (which feels like an eternity). I spend those three minutes
telling my brain that it sucks and I hate it for making me do this to myself.
Finally, after the three-minute eternity is over, I go over to the tub to look
at the test. What the.... Positive? That can't be right! I check the packaging
to make absolutely SURE that I'm not reading it wrong (even though I knew
exactly how to read it) It's right. POSITIVE!!! I sit back down on the bathroom
floor in complete shock, tears streaming down my face, and I just say aloud
"Thank you God, but if I have a miscarriage after this, we're
going to have a serious chat when I die!" Chances of having a miscarriage
with my condition (PCOS) are higher, but
right then, in the bathroom (after my conversation with God), I let go and
allowed myself to get excited. REALLY EXCITED!!! I ran out of the bathroom crying and
screaming "JEREMY! JEREMY! JEREMY!" He's just been woken from a dead
sleep and thinks the house must be on fire, but he wakes to see his hysterical
wife waving some white stick 5 inches from his face, and he doesn't get it. (I
don't blame him either. I was totally out of control). When I finally got out
the words, "I'M PREGNANT!" He hopped on board the excitement train
right away! We were both still a little skeptical though and decided to take a
few more tests that day (4 to be exact). It was a holiday so the doctor's
office was closed. and we were going to my mother's house for a family
gathering. We stopped at the drug store, and picked up more tests and hid them
in my purse, and every time I went to the bathroom, I would take another test.
They all came out positive. It was REALLY difficult to contain my emotions that
day, but I didn't want to tell anyone until I had it confirmed by the doctor.
When Monday rolled around, I took my break at work in the conference room and I
called my doctor, and when the receptionist answered, I said, "I'm
pregnant! What do I do!" She chuckled and told me to come in for a blood
test.
A miracle had happened! We were FINALLY going to
have a baby! What did I do? I began planning… (Silly, silly me. I had STILL not
learned my lesson.)
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