Every little girl dreams of growing up, meeting Prince Charming, falling madly in love, getting married, and then having loads of children...or at least I did.
The story of Jared and I started many years ago. Our parents were friends, he was just their older son that came around sometimes. One day everything changed. It had to be God, I mean what parents agree to let their 16 year old daughter date a 21 year old man? We got engaged when I was 6 months out of high school and got married when I was 19. We knew we wanted to be together forever but were not ready for children just yet. Now let's fast forward a couple years. The month after I turned 21 we decided we wanted to start a family. We expected it to take a few months, maybe a year at the most but nothing happened.
Quick flash back to when I was 14. My mother knew something was wrong with me. She would tell the doctor every time I was seen by one that something wasn't right. I hadn't had a menstrual cycle in 6 months, 1 year, 5 years. No doctor would listen or even seemed to care. There were times that she got angry and would yell at the doctor who would then only respond with "She should be grateful." or "Don't worry about it until you want to start having children." so we just gave up.
After a year I went into to see my obgyn to talk it over with her. She was one of the most unhelpful doctors I have ever known, even more so then the ones I saw as a teen. Her response was "You're still young, you have plenty of time to have children." She placed me on a medication that was suppose to help jump start everything. That medication had a side effect that I didn't seem to think would effect me at the time, depression. After one month of use I got to the point where I didn't even want to leave my house. I had quit my job a few months earlier to go back to school but I had already graduated. Sitting at my own birthday party I remember thinking all I wanted to do was get away from everyone. I was so depressed all I did was sit at home and eat all day. I ended up gaining almost 40lbs in about 8 months. After I realized what was happening to me I stopped the medication. Within a couple months I was back to normal but still had all this extra weight to now deal with. I worked and worked at it and nothing happened. I didn't seem to be dropping any weight and was getting frustrated.
By this time I had changed doctors and was started on different medication since she believed our problem to be that I do no ovulate on my own, so I started taking Clomid. I started out low with 50mg and had to chart my temperature every morning. Then I got bumped to 100mg, then up to 150mg. Finally! The 150mg worked! I finally appeared to be ovulating. After 3 months of 150mg my doctor informed me that there was nothing more she could do for me. That after 3 months of any medication they move you on to bigger and better things and that was just out of her realm. We needed to see a specialist. Oh and they were closing the doors to their practice so I needed to find a different obgyn on top of that. Great. Finally, I found a doctor I liked and was actually trying to help and they were leaving.
Luckily, we found Dr. Bartlett! She was pro-active and had a plan in place within the first 10 minutes after meeting us. I was to have a hysterosalpingogram or a HSG test. It is a dye test where they check to make sure nothing is blocked. I was warned that I needed to take pain medication before arriving at the hospital that morning. They took me into a cold x-ray room with doctors and nurses. I was freezing and felt like crying. During the test I was almost in tears, it was the most painful experience I had been through. Every doctor and nurse kept asking if I was okay, if I needed them to stop but I refused to let them see my pain. I didn't want to be viewed as a coward. I mean, if I couldn't handle this one little test how could I possibly birth a child? After the testing was complete and I was being escorted back to the waiting room the nurse asked me yet again if I was alright. After answering yes and secretly wiping a tear from my eye she simply stated "In my 7 years working here, doing these tests, you are the first women to never make a sound. You must be one of the strongest women I've meet." That caught me off guard. Me? Strong? I cry when I stub my toe! A hangnail will knock me off my feet! She must be lying.
The test came back negative, nothing was blocked so we really did have to find a specialist. So the search was on for a Reproductive Endocrinologist that accepted our insurance. We finally found one about 1.5 hours from our house. After a long 6 month waiting period our first appointment finally arrived! We were both beyond nervous. We had no idea what to expect other then what we were told over the phone, that our appointment would last anywhere from 2-3 hours! We walked in, gave are information to the nurse and then waited for the doctor. Within 5 minutes of meeting one the nicest people in the world, Dr. Gago, we finally got the diagnosis I had been waiting for over 10 years to hear...I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome or PCOS. It is actually very common but no one seems to talk much about it. Only a couple of the side effects include...trouble losing weight, irregular periods, depression and infertility. I had an ultrasound to confirm it, yup, that was it. I was placed on a medication called Metformin for insulin resistance and a low carb/high protein diet. So that was why I was having trouble losing my weight? With the combination of Metformin and my new diet I lost over 10lbs in four weeks with even more still coming off.
We then heard the news we were so anxious to know, how do we get our baby? I was to start a hybrid cycle and it wasn't going to be easy. I took 5 days of an oral medication, then 3-7 days of injections and then one more big injection before we could even try to create a little life. Yes, I said injections. We had to stock up on medication and syringes so my sweet husband could give me a shot every night of medication that burned like a fire in my leg.
Along with the medication I needed to get blood draws and ultrasounds every other day for about two weeks every cycle. That meant I was either late to work or leaving early a lot to get these done. My boss and coworkers all knew what was going on so I had no trouble taking this time off. After just one round of this medication we got the news...we were expecting! We couldn't believe it, after all this time and we got pregnant the first try. I felt like it was too good to be true...and it was. About a week later I lost our precious baby. How could this have happened to us? We didn't understand. We started trying again right away but after two more cycles we had zero success. Do you remember when I said that after three months they move you on to bigger and better things? That's exactly what they did. We were told we needed to do an IUI. They were to trigger everything with the same medication as before but the only difference was instead of us trying to create a child in the privacy of our own home we now were being required to have a nurse help us with that in a doctors office. Doesn't sound like that dream I talked about in the beginning does it?
Every little girl dreams of growing up, meeting Prince Charming, falling madly in love, getting married, and then having loads of children after getting knocked up with a syringe in a brightly lit office while Prince Charming sits on the other side of the room playing Angry Birds.
Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?
Any procedure from this point on was no longer covered by our insurance but we decided to go ahead with the IUI. They are non-invasive, they don't grow our babies in a dish for a few weeks before we can go back to get them, they simply target the exact (or near exact) time of ovulation and place everything in there together to do their job. Everything else was up to me.
I hate those words "everything else was up to me." It was my fault we didn't have a child yet anyways so why was everything being placed on my little shoulders? There were many, many times during the past 3 years where I broke down into tears. Jared had no problem having children but he chose me, the medical disaster. He could have married anyone and already had his dream come true. These are the thoughts I had many times and sometimes, still to this day, they creep into my mind.
After two weeks of waiting, and being afraid to take a home pregnancy test because of the hundreds of negatives I have seen over the past 3 years, I finally was able to get my blood test run. It came back positive!! We were so worried something would go wrong that we didn't rush to tell our families like we did the first time. We waited to make sure my hormone levels were doubling and double they did! After 48 hours they should double, mine tripled. After 72 more hours they had gone up by five times the second number. That was our first clue.
We had to wait two weeks to get an ultrasound to make sure there really was a baby in there. The night before the ultrasound I don't think either of us slept. We waited, and waited, and finally the ultrasound tech walked in the room. My stomach was in knots, Jared couldn't sit still and then bam! I saw them. I saw two little sacs before the tech even said anything. I barely heard her say "There's two in there!" I know, shh! I'm trying to stare at my children, do you mind? I looked over to see what their daddy thought about them and there was my big, strong husband in tears. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life. Two weeks later we went back to hear the heartbeats. Hearing one thumping heart was worth the drive in the horrible weather we had the night before, but two? Nothing compares. Dr. Gago said our medical treatments had nothing to do with us having twins. In fact when she started telling us the risks and I told her about my family history she just laughed and said "Yup, either way you're getting more then one." My paternal grandmother had 2 sets of fraternal twins and a set of triplets, including my father. Fraternal twins are genetic, identical are luck of the draw.
We are in for a long, crazy, amazing ride with two little ones on the way. It was not easy to get to this point.
- First, it put a strain on our marriage. Infertility is one of those things that tests your wedding vows in way that you never expected. When you think of, “in sickness and in health”, you think accidents, cancer, and old age. But infertility?
- Second, it put a strain on my relationship with God. There were many times that I questioned, screamed, yelled, and doubted Him. Why us? Why me? Why didn't He care? Why was He taking so long? Everyone else was getting pregnant that didn't even want children but us? The ones that have prayed so long for a child to love have nothing to show for it? It took a long time, a lot of pray, a lot of soul searching, and a lot of tears to finally come back to Him. I praise Him everyday for a renewed love and a deeper relationship with Him.
- Third, it put a strain on my body. Getting poked, prodded, stabbed, injected, and anything else you can think of almost non stop for almost 3 years starts to take a toll on you physically, mentally, and emotionally. I ultimately ended up leaving a job I loved because I couldn't handle it anymore. I needed to just be home, to take care of myself. One month later I was pregnant with our blessings.
Believing you may never have a child hits hard and you think there is no way you are ever going to escape the sadness. That is until you dig deep and have hope that one day it will happen. You take that leap of faith and believe that you will be given the chance to be one of the lucky ones. It has not been an easy 3 years but it will get better with time. Right now we are hoping and praying that our sweet little angels stick around to take their first breaths and then for another 100 years.
