We Hit the Ground Running

This past Saturday, I had an egg retrieval for IVF!

Even though we hit a lot of obstacles getting to this point, it finally happened, and I am recovering well and quickly. I had to do injections for 14 days to prepare for the retrieval which included a trigger shot that I had to have my husband do for me. The trigger shot was a much larger needle than the rest of the injections (so far) and it had to be injected on my backside since it was an intramuscular injection.

I have had a LOT of appointments up until this point though and it is more than exhausting planning for things at school and making sub plans last minute (as I have already expressed my stress levels about). This past week, when things were still up in the air, I had to deal with a pretty stressful situation in which my brother saved my butt. I had an appointment on Wednesday morning where I was told I would most likely take my trigger shot that night and then have the egg retrieval on Friday. I had already taken time off for Friday earlier that week and had sub plans ready to go.

Then I got a phone call Wednesday afternoon around noon… I needed to take the stimulation medicine for one or two more days and that my retrieval was going to be pushed back to Saturday or Sunday, also I would have to go back in Thursday morning. I could deal with that and figure out the sub plans and time off, but I had a bigger problem: I was out of stimulation injections. The doctor offered to have someone on their team find some samples that I could come back to get. Then it got more interesting: I had to pick it up in their Richmond office (there were not any samples in Norfolk) and I had to pick it up before their office closed at 3:15. Also, I had to take these injections by 6:00pm. (Remember that I live in Newport News and work in Windsor).

I panicked a little bit and called my husband to try and figure this out. I had just gotten to work a little over an hour ago and if I was going to make it to Richmond in time, I would have to leave right now and find coverage for my classes. My husband was not able to leave work. I thought about how one of my brothers lived in Richmond and wondered if I could send him to pick up the medicines for me. I called my brother and, luckily for me, his classes had been canceled for the day. That meant he was free to do me a HUGE favor. I called the doctor’s office back, and finally got to a point where I could send my brother to pick up the medicine for me.

That morning I drove from Newport News to Norfolk, from Norfolk to Windsor, left work in Windsor immediately after the students left to drive to Richmond, and then drove back home to Newport News to take my medicines before my husband and I went to small group at church that night. I was TIRED that night.

After my appointment the next morning, I got the word that my follicles were finally big enough and my hormone levels were finally high enough. I took the trigger shot at 8:00pm on Thursday night to prepare for the egg retrieval at 8:00am on Saturday (it has to be precisely timed). My husband did the trigger shot for me Thursday night and then drove me to my appointment in Richmond early Saturday morning that we left for at 5:30am.

My husband cared for, and has continued to care for, me in the best ways. He made sure I was comfy, took a nap, ate foods I could handle, he has cooked and cleaned and taken care of everything as I have recovered.

Going into the retrieval, my doctor said that I had 6-7 follicles that would be possible eggs. Once I woke up from the procedure, the doctor told me that they got 6 eggs. This morning I got the phone call to let me know of the fertilization results of the 6 eggs:

5 of the eggs were mature, 1 was not mature enough to do anything with
1 of the eggs did not fertilize
2 of the eggs definitely fertilized
2 of the eggs could go either way

As of now, we are taking this as good news. I will get a phone call on Tuesday to let me know what time my possible appointment will be for an embryo transfer in Richmond on Thursday. Thursday morning they will give me a call to let me know if one of the embryos is developed enough for me to have a transfer that day or if they need to wait an extra day. The rest of the embryos (if we have any) will be frozen for us to try and have more kids later on.

I have been telling others that we are practicing cautious optimism. Of course we wish all of the eggs had fertilized, we also wish that we had a kid or two by now. The fertilized eggs still may not get to what is called blastocyst stage, so we are still praying for healthy development of the eggs that fertilized.

A quick shot of campus at my alma mater, CNU!

Infertility Doesn’t Rest

In the midst of COVID, political unrest, injustice, racial tension, and the possibilities surround the return to school, I made it a point to not release any blog posts. I did not want stories about my life to clog up the feed of what is important and good. I still am looking to keep my blog posts brief and infrequent because the quest for justice and peace does not rest: God does not rest.

That being said, I do feel like I owe some of you an update. A lot has happened since my last post regarding our infertility journey and I wanted to make this as quick and to the point as possible.

One thing I know is that my sisters and brothers battling infertility have probably felt more alone during quarantine than ever. Having to stay inside without children we so desire to fill our homes is haunting… the silence is haunting. I am the queen of distracting myself from my own feelings and the access to distractions decreased dramatically (Netflix is not as distracting as you would think.) Even when I do find something to do or try out or read, my mind comes back around to childlessness.

What has seemed like an eternity of waiting has truly been about five months of not really having a plan other than hurry up and wait. But my friends, it seems there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon:

My endocrinologist released me from his care after managing my insulin resistance and bring my A1-C to a normal level. I will stay on metformin indefinitely.
The management of my A1-C in addition to a new journey of a gluten-free diet has helped me lost a little bit of weight and for my periods to become somewhat regular, helping regulate my PCOS.
My husband’s urologist is pleased with his increase in sperm count and motility and recommended IUI to our fertility specialist. He will remain on Clomid for the time being.
Our fertility specialist left the practice and we did not find out until scheduling another appointment.
Our new infertility doctor is very sweet and is moving us forward with IUI (inter-utero insemination).
I started my period on day 36 of my cycle (I said SOMEWHAT regular) this past week, launching our journey into IUI.

The next couple weeks will be a rollercoaster. I started taking Letrozole (a hormone to spark ovulation induction) yesterday and will take it until Tuesday night. Wednesday morning I go in for an ultrasound to check on my ovaries and uterine lining. If the eggs/follicles are large enough and there is an appropriate number of them ready, I will start FSH injections at home to induce ovulation, releasing the eggs from my ovaries. Then, Lord willing, I will undergo the IUI procedure, which involves insemination using a catheter bypassing my cervix and increasing chances of fertilization.

The IUI procedure and journey seems like a lot less invasive of a procedure than IVF and much cheaper, making it a very feasible option for us. I am still not clear on all of the details, as this is brand new for us. We are so very excited for these prospects and pray for a baby in the next year. We know that like all infertility patients, this may not go as planned and it seems almost foolish to have any sort of hope or optimism, but our hope is in Jesus Christ first. We know that God’s plan for us may look nothing like what we think it will look like, but we continue to pray for God to align our hearts and desires with His plan, not our own. So far, he has not taken away our desire for children, and I have hope he might be on to something.

Sunrise on the water, Nags Head, North Carolina

more waiting…

The longer we have to wait, the harder it gets. It’s also getting more difficult to process what I am feeling, hence the lack of frequent posts. I’m angry a lot, sad even more often. It’s been over two years since we’ve starting trying to get pregnant and thirteen months since we started seeking treatment.

I had my follow-up appointment with the endocrinologist and I am back to having a normal A1C, meaning I am not pre-diabetic anymore. Because my body reacted so well to the Metformin, I am being kept on it to hopefully keep some of the PCOS symptoms at bay. The better my body processes insulin, the more likely my body will make the other hormones at normal levels. The better my body does at making the correct amount of the correct hormones, the more likely it is that I will ovulate semi-regularly. I go back for a follow-up appointment and blood work in three months.

My husband finally has his urologist appointment last week. There is no obvious physical or hormonal reason for his low sperm count and motility. He is being put on Clomid (which is the hormone that turned me into a cranky, raging…lady) to hopefully increase his numbers. The good news is, men do not have the same side effects as women on Clomid. He will most likely have no negative side effects, unlike me, who got hot flashes, gained weight, and had intense mood swings. He will return for another analysis in three months and a follow-up appointment after that.

So, based on both of our appointments, the major prescription is patience. The side effects are irritability, roller-coaster emotions, doubt, depression, over-thinking, and the decrease in optimism (at least for me). To be transparent, I have not been doing well recently. I find myself on the brink of tears often, whether at school or home watching TV, more and more things remind me of our childlessness.

A friend recently asked me what stage of the grieving process I thought I was in. I told her that I only realized last week that I had to grieve and I’m still determining what that looks like and what exactly I am grieving. I’ve been going to counseling again recently and my counselor said about the same thing, that I need to allow myself to grieve and to be okay with doing it. I kept trying to power through the sadness and just be sad, waiting for it to be over, but it’s not going away. Something must be done.

I am still formulating my answer to what stage I am in, and I am still unsure what this process will look like, but knowing that there will be a process is giving me a little more hope and a reason to process. I know I can label it grief, and that has been helping.

I Thought It Would Get Easier

When we started to realize that getting pregnant was going to be a lot more difficult than we initially thought, I thought that as time passed, it would get easier. But here we are, approaching two years since we started trying to get pregnant and I feel my heart being crushed more and more with each passing day; it’s getting harder.

At the beginning of November, we had our first appointment at the Jones Institute to discuss what our next steps would be. After a ridiculously expensive set of more blood tests for both of us, we were called and sent off to more specialists. My husband was told to make an appointment with a urologist and for me to make an appointment with an endocrinologist. After many phone calls and nagging for information, we finally both have appointments set, me at the beginning of January and him at the end. More waiting around. Every time we go to an appointment, it feels like we take one step forward and two steps back. My heart gets crushed, starts to heal again, being filled with hope, only to be crushed even harder.

I’ve had this phrase stuck in my head: I was knit together in my mother’s womb. The more I meditate on that and how glorious it is, I have found that I desire that. I want so badly for God to work within my physical body, to put a life together in my womb. I was created to bring life and I love that about me, I identify with my biological ability to procreate. When I was younger, I was told by so many in my life that one day I would make a great mother. Friends of my parents seeing how I was with my baby siblings would say how I was a mini-mom. People in a high-school bible study affirmed my abilities to care and my desire to be a mom. My friends in high school and college joked and called me mom all the time because of how I cared for others in their sickness and distress. If I was going to make such a great mom, why won’t my body work the way it is supposed to in order to make that happen?

Recently, my head and my heart have been arguing. I have a very logical side and a very emotional side that are never in balance, constantly at war with each other for ownership of my thoughts and actions. I know that I am promised nothing, deserving of nothing. Yet by God’s grace I am given much. I have a loving and godly husband, a house, a job, clothes, shoes, a big and loving family, and even a sweet dog who I can care for and baby. God does not promise children to us, but many are blessed with the precious gift of children. The emotional side of me keeps thinking that I probably will just have to wait longer, that’s my journey. God must be teaching me patience by making me wait and go to all of these different doctors. But what if that is not my journey? What if God will not give us children? What if that is completely God’s plan for my husband and I? That can’t be… it hurts too much.

The truth is, I may never have children. I pray for discernment, that my husband and I would know whether all of this waiting and doctor appointments are to build our trust in the Lord or if they are big stop signs from God saying, “Stop! This is not what I have for you.” It is not clear and it may never be.

I find myself looking out over my students in the classroom, me sitting behind the piano and directing, them staring back at me with their big, beautiful eyes. I look at them and I hold back tears. Some of them are parts of loving families that had no problem having children, others with terrible home lives and parents that don’t care. I want to care for a child, to take care of another life. I desire to have my life and sleep interrupted by tiny footsteps and demands for food. It’s getting harder to just wait.

The Text: An Update

We had our appointment.

I think it went really well, and I’m having difficulty processing everything that happened, but I feel good.

For my sanity and to let my brain rest, I am going to tell everyone who reads this by copying and pasting the text I sent my family and a few friends. I promise I care about these posts, but I also know some of you want to know so here it is!

We met with our new doctor and she is very kind and thorough! She is not wanting to jump to IVF yet, she said she wants to make sure she has tried everything else before going down that road. She was glad we had done so much already! She took a lot of blood from both Josh and I and is going to do hormone testing. The PCOS diagnosis stands, but she is calling it Irregular Menses for now while she gets more hormone testing done. Knowing that I was able to ovulate once with hormone therapy, she wants to try upping the dosage of Clomid and do injections. We are not going to do that yet until Josh’s hormone testing comes back. He is also being referred to a urologist to get an answer about whether his lack of good concentration and motility of sperm is due to a hormonal problem or a physical obstruction. At this point, we are kind of waiting until his appointment and the outcome of that. If the urologist says we are good to go with a little bit of hormone therapy for Josh, we will just focus on giving us both hormones. If there is something physical they can do for Josh (like if there’s a cyst or vein problem) they will handle that and see if it can help us and then just do hormones for me. If they can only do a little bit for Josh, we will try IUI (which is In-Utero Insemination, or as I casually and grossly call it, the turkey baster) after giving me hormones to start ovulation. If they can’t get me to ovulate, we will look at IVF. She answered almost all of my questions and worries about creating embryos and how I don’t want to discard any successful embryos and she said the process will probably allow for me to have 2-3 successful embryos after extracting 8-12 eggs. My AMH level is low for my age still which shows that I do not have a lot of eggs left, so she is very glad that we are addressing this now as opposed to a few years from now when I would have far less eggs. Overall, it was a good appointment, but now we will be waiting some more as we wait for an appointment to be scheduled for Josh at the urologist. Pray for a cancellation so they can get him in sooner! I am a little overwhelmed with all of the information, but I feel good about it!
My text to family

Again, I am excited about the possibilities! I also am happy to talk to anyone about this in person or over text. I love answering questions!

Thank you all for your concern and love. I will keep blogging as more things happen!

Waiting…waiting…waiting…

It has been 60 days since my last doctors visit regarding fertility and 45 days since my last period. 45 days since I found out I wasn’t pregnant after my first positive ovulation test since I starting taking OPTs (ovulation predictor tests). Over two months ago I scheduled my first appointment with the Jones Institute in Newport News, and it is finally almost here. Our first appointment is this Friday, and time is moving slower than it ever has before.

When I was in middle school, my seventh grade English teacher always said, “It’s all relative. Everything is relative, especially time.” I knew what it meant, but only in the past two months have I really felt the weight of those words. The past two months have felt like a year. I ask my husband almost every day if we can start the adoption process because I am sick of waiting around and doing nothing. It feels like every day is a day I’m wasting not trying to get pregnant.

Every story, book, and blog post I have read about other women struggling with infertility have all said that the worst part about all of it is the waiting and the weeks in between. Are they sanctifying weeks? Sure, but they still suck.

As Friday approaches, I jump quickly back and forth between different feelings. There is a lot of excitement between my husband and I about taking the next steps. Every person I have talked to about the Jones Institute has said amazing things or said that they heard from someone else how they got pregnant going there. I am excited to get my questions asked and hopefully answered. At the same time, I’m so worried about what answers I am going to get, that I would almost rather not ask at all. Do not even get me started on the fears I have about the financial part of this journey. Is it wise to go into debt? Are my options going to fit into our morals?

Those of you who I see often know how busy I am in and outside of work. I have added responsibilities at work, I have a student teacher right now, my only free night during the week is Tuesday (and even then I always have a meeting after school), and the rest of the nights I have something to do. They are all wonderful things, and I love all of it. I am just trying to paint a picture of how busy I am.

Usually, when we are busy, time goes a little faster, jumping from one thing to the next. But even in this incredibly busy time, when I always have something to do, some task to achieve or an ever-lengthening to-do list, I can not help but feel that time is dragging on. I want Friday to be now. I want pregnancy to be tomorrow. I want to be a mother yesterday.

If you’ve read my posts before, you know that I know the “correct” answers and I know what is true. You know that I’m just venting and processing my feelings. So please, pray for me and my husband, and if anyone has the power to speed my relative time, please do so.

Overwhelmed, but OK

So far, this school year has been very busy. I bit off more than I can chew, so I spit some out and am focusing on what I have left and what is important. October has been the first month that I have not been on hormones and I think my body freaked out going through a type of withdrawal, which led to an emotional rollercoaster and feeling physically awful.

In September, I went for my last cycle of hormones at the doctor I was seeing previously and for the first time ever, it looked like I was going to ovulate. In my last post, I explained a little more in detail what this looked like and, as I explained in my last post, I was incredibly hopeful and excited.

One of the worst things that I’ve been told over and over the past month or so is “at least you know you CAN ovulate.” That’s great, and it’s true, but all I feel is that I’ve lost something that could have been… someONE that could have been. Is that irrational? Probably. But boy does my heart hurt. I feel like my heart is slowly getting fainter and fainter. BUT, If you have said this to me recently, know that I am not mad at you or upset, and I probably forgot that you specifically said it to me. I appreciate and honor your joy and optimism! Please know that I love and appreciate you.

I read this in a book recently, and it sums up how I feel about being sad. The author can say it much better than I can:

“Grief is not the opposite of faith. Mourning is not the opposite of hope. I believe that well-meaning Christians can try to hurry us out of our mourning because we make them uncomfortable. The Bible does not say to cheer up the bereaved, but rather to ‘mourn with those who mourn.’ Christ does not say we grieve because we are deficient in faith, but rather, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted [not rushed]’ (Matthew 5:4).”
Jennifer Saake, Hannah’s Hope

I know in my head what is rational and I knew that our chances were low, but I still let my heart get excited and not one person can say anything to heal the hurt I have inside. I’m overwhelmingly blessed by my husband that has continued to check on me and just let me be there with him. He is always there for me, and he always points me back to the Lord for comfort.

Even though I’ve been at an emotional low recently, I have been in a spiritual high. I’ve felt nothing but joy and excitement for others having babies and getting pregnant. There has not been one ounce of bitterness. A close friend of mine had her baby a couple weeks ago and the moment I saw that sweet baby, all I could think of was how much of a miracle babies are. So many things have to go right to get pregnant in the first place and then so many things have to go right for nine months straight for there to be a baby at the end. I saw that baby and just got so excited for her parents and that she was here in the world with us. I love that baby so so much.

I’ve had many friends announce their pregnancies this month and several of them are people who have been experiencing trouble getting pregnant themselves, so I’ve been rejoicing with them. Their joy does not add to my sadness. I’ve said it before, and I meant it then, but this time I truly feel joy for them and in my own heart as well. Pregnancy is so cool; I really, REALLY want it for myself.

I have an appointment scheduled in November to go to the Jones Institute. They will probably do another work up including blood tests and exams, exams on my husband, and talk to us about the next steps. I have been told by my previous doctor that they will probably recommend IVF or IUI. There are a lot of things I have to learn and many questions I have to be answered, but I’m hoping this new chapter of this journey will bring more answers and maybe some more hope.

Quick Question(s)

I have had a lot of thoughts on my mind recently. As the name of this blog suggests, I am going to verbally process (through typing). I know a lot of what I am about to say is dumb and many of you will have thoughts and things to say, but know that I am not seeking advice or pity. I just need to get this out:

I have struggled a lot with what is in line with God’s plan and our having children. I end up asking myself many questions, many of which conflict with each other:

What if it’s God’s plan for us not to have kids?
How will we know whether it is or not?
Are we not trusting in God enough if we go to see the doctor?
Aren’t doctors God’s will?
At what point will we know if we’re just being stubborn?
Is it wise to spend money on medical bills for something that may never happen?
How do I know if I am not trusting the Lord?
What the heck is wrong with me?

My husband has been very helpful in allowing me to ask these questions out loud so that they don’t seem so ridiculous and we can talk through and pray about them. But one thing lingers. The greatest internal struggle that I am harboring the most is this: What is the balance between trusting in the natural human body and God’s sovereignty versus utilizing modern medicine, which was created by God? How I wish there was a meter that could show me what my heart is truly placing trust in.

Soon, it will be time to go back to school. Assuming I do not get pregnant this month, the next steps involve a higher dose of ovulation hormones paired with direct injections of another hormone.

My. Poor. Students.

Knowing what the lower dosage of just one hormone did to my mood and emotions, I can only imagine what the next steps will be like. If you are a coworker of mine, I apologize in advance (although many of you that know me well enough know that I do not have any trouble saying “I’m sorry”). Know that I will continue to do my best at work and put my students first always, but also know that if you hear the kids saying things about me going crazy, there is at least a reason this time.