As I mentioned in my last post, 6 years ago we had our 1st miscarriage. After that 1st miscarriage we were left to truly begin the adventure of Infertility. I say adventure because for us, there was something new at every turn. We were with Dr. T and he was ready to begin different medications and “treatment” as soon as we were ready.

Off we went on an 18 month journey. We tried medication with timed “husband-wife time”. No positive test. We tried IUI or “the turkey baster method” with medication. No positive pregnancy test. We went through 6 medicated cycles, including 4 IUI’s and we did not get a single glimpse of a positive pregnancy test. This is so disappointing! My husband and I were desperate to have a baby. It seemed that everyone we knew was having a baby or pregnant with their 2nd or 3rd child. We were doing everything we could and nothing was helping. Each time the doctor would say, “Everything looked promising before the procedure but unfortunately it wasn’t successful.”

You see with everything in life, there is a small window of chance that there will not be a positive result. You know the, “There is a 95% chance that this or that will happen.” Well that 5% they don’t talk about… that is ME. With each cycle I had a greater and greater chance of success and then nothing! Enter one of the 1st times I was told that I am in the 5%.

I was on 2 medications consistently for 18 months. One of these meds was a steroid which was to help me with all the treatments. In 95% of cases, women who take this steroid have no reaction at all (during or after). While I was on the medication, things were going okay. Slowly over those 18 months though, things started happening that were not healthy. I had swelling and was just feeling off. We decided, after talking with Dr. T, that we should allow my body a period of no medication. The nurse called and told me to stop the medication and that once we were ready to come in again, we would discuss options. Sounds great! A time to detox my body and feel like myself again… NOPE!

I stopped taking the medication and within 3 weeks I had swelled up 2 dress sizes and over 15 lbs. I had pitting in my legs (when you press, the finger print stays for longer than a count of 10). I felt like I was bigger than the Pillsbury Dough Boy! Simple things were hard and I had no energy to do anything at all. It was awful! When I look back at pictures from that time period, it doesn’t even look like me. I went to my Primary Care Physician (PCP). He was so scared for me medically when I arrived at his office. He ordered blood work and 2 days later when it came back, he order an echocardiogram and had me taking 2-3 water pills a day. Had I waited another week to go see him, he told me that he would have immediately placed me in the hospital. This was serious! I spent the next 3-4 months loosing the water weight and swelling that had come from stopping a steroid. It was work! We were scared and ready once again to give up.

Off we went to a check in with Dr.T. This was about 6 months after we had done our final treatment and about 5 months post medication issues. At that appointment we discussed something that I never wanted to think about… we discussed IVF- In Vitro Fertilization! You see when we 1st began the journey of having a baby, I prayed and prayed that we would not get to IVF. IVF was messy and brought about a lot of things that I didn’t want to think about. That plus looking at numbers of $20,000+ made me want to cry. We talked about what it was and what our odds were. We discussed the medication, the timing of it all, and how I wasn’t getting any younger. My husband and I left the office with a lot to think about.

Things on our mind…

• How did IVF fall for us financially? Where would we get the money?
• How does IVF align with our Christian beliefs?
• What would we do if this didn’t work?
• Was I physically capable of going through the medication?

Those weighed heavy on us. I will tell you those answers all in later posts. I will say that, after a few days of discussion with each other, discussion with our families, and lots of prayer, we decided to go forward with IVF!

Pearls of Wisdom- You never know how far you can go until you are pushed further than you ever believed.

Request: I am a week out from beginning serious medication. Please pray for my body and my spirit that I will be strong enough to see this all to the end (hopefully in 10 months).

Love and Pearls ~ Me

Thank you for following along with me! In the last post, I shared the disappointment of our 1st fertility clinic and the heartache with feeling like there was no hope for our family. Today, I want to tell you all about the hope that came in meeting our doctor and our first week going to a new clinic. Sorry, it’s a long one. 🙂

Clinic #2 and Dr. T were not easy to get an appointment with. However, I knew that he was the Dr. I needed and was willing to do anything to get an appointment with him. When I first called, I was told that it would be 6 weeks before he would be taking any new patients. I impatiently made my appointment for the earliest possible date, because in my mind, we were loosing more time in our journey and I needed to see him right away. I ran out and bought a new notebook (because of course fun notebooks make everything better), I requested all the information from dreaded clinic 1, and I counted down the days to my appointment. I had lots of hope y’all… it was a new day!

Two days before my appointment I received a phone call from our new doctor’s office. Yay! Time to confirm our appointment… Wrong! It was Dr. T’s secretary calling to tell me that the appointment would have to be rescheduled because another patient had a medical emergency and that he needed to be there for her. She told me that he would be going out-of-town the next week and that he would see me once he returned. I was crushed. To be completely transparent, in that second, I was selfish! This was to be MY moment. Why couldn’t people understand that I finally had hope back and now some “medical emergency” was going to delay the new plans for the future… This was not my finest hour! I reluctantly scheduled another appointment for two weeks later. I tried to be understanding and considerate, but I was crushed. Was this a sign that this was not where we should go? Was this God’s way of telling us to just stop?

Two weeks later, we walked in to meet the man who would change our lives. I remember clearly walking in to his office and seeing other charts sitting on his desk. I couldn’t tell the names but I could tell they must have a history of some kind. You see some of the folders were two file folders put together and expanded over 2 inches thick. That’s a lot of paper and information! When he came in with my little folder, I was so happy to “not be one of those cases”. He even said, ” Hopefully you will never get to this, as he moved the other folders. We are going to figure these things out well before you get this far. Hi, I’m Dr. T and I’m here to help you have a baby!”

YES! Someone who is finally there to help. Not once did he tell me about how bad my diet was or that I needed to lose more weight. We sat and talked for 45 minutes about everything. He told me that size and food were not why I wasn’t getting pregnant. He was shocked to read the notes from our previous clinic and the notes Dr. B had written about us. He knew Dr. B well and was very apologetic that anyone in his profession would treat us that way. (YAY! He understood and saw what we went through.) He asked us if we were okay to do some blood work that day and for my husband and I to come back once they had gotten levels for us both. At this point, I would have climbed Mt. Everest for this man. You see, he had this genuine tone that showed he truly cared about us. He had a determination to make things right for us and he assured us that he would do everything he could to help us have a family! What a breath of fresh air! My husband and I did the blood work and completed more necessary paper work and left the office with a weight lifted off our shoulders. We had found our doctor. We had found the man who we knew in our hearts would help us have a family!

The next day as I was driving home from work, I received a phone call from one of the nurses in Dr. T’s office. She asked for some verifying information and then began asking me some follow-up questions from the paperwork the day before. I answered them all and thought, “Man she is very thorough.” Then she said something that took my breath away! Something I never in my wildest dreams expected to hear. “I am going to need you to come in Monday for more blood work. The labs we did yesterday showed that you are a few weeks pregnant and we want to confirm the pregnancy by running another blood test to confirm. Congratulations… you are PREGNANT!” The rest of the conversation went something like me telling her she had the wrong person and that the blood work was to get us cleared to begin medicine to get pregnant. I assured her that she had the wrong patient and she confirmed everything with me again. As I hung up the phone, I was completely shell-shocked. What just happened? Pregnant?!

Immediately I called my husband from the parking lot of Michaels, where I pulled over because I couldn’t believe what she had just said and had no business driving in that moment. Now prior to this, I dreamed of how I would announce to my husband that he would be a father. I planned out cute gifts and a special dinner. Y’all, having this women tell me I was pregnant was a complete surprise! As he answered the phone, I immediately said “Babe, this is not the way I wanted to tell you this but, I am pregnant!” I don’t know if he thought I was joking or crazy or what. I honestly don’t remember much of the conversation except that when I got off the phone I called the doctor’s office back because I was sure that they had made a mistake. When I called, a different nurse answered. I explained the situation and how someone called me to say I was pregnant but that I was sure she had given me the wrong information. The nurse laughed and said she would transfer me. I politely asked her to please get the chart herself so that I could be sure this was true. Thank goodness the people at Clinic 2 are patient and loving! She retrieved my chart and relayed the same information to me. I was indeed pregnant! She said it was early, and that I should come in Monday for another beta test, but looking at the numbers, I was pregnant. WOW! I thanked her and wished her a great weekend.

All my dreams had come true. We didn’t even need to have a fertility doctor. We were pregnant on our own and didn’t even know it! Yay us! Thanks God! I thought, so this is why we had to wait. We were waiting for an appointment because we were supposed to find out that we were pregnant. It all added up. That weekend we went to a Halloween party at my best friend’s house. You see she was 6 months pregnant with her 1st child and I was on cloud 9. She and I were pregnant at the same time! Although we didn’t tell anyone at the party but had a great night because we knew our secret. My husband and I talked about how exciting it would be to have kids just months apart from our friends. We discussed how we would tell our parents, family and friends. We planned our future with this new baby. It was awesome! I went in Monday morning, just as I was instructed to do. They took my blood and smiled as we chatted about how exciting it was. You see, they were the only ones to know my secret. The nurses and staff all knew why I was there and they were so happy for me. I went about my day, happy as could be.

The nurse said they would call with numbers around lunch that day and to have my phone near me. Lunch time came and went with no phone call. I figured the day had gotten busy, since there were at least 10 other women having blood drawn that morning,  and so I kept working. Around 3:45 my phone rang, the office knew that I would be off work by then. When I answered and heard the voice on the other line, my heart stopped. You see, you can always tell when someone on the phone has bad news. “Hi, we got the results back from your labs today. The HCG levels have dropped since the blood work we took the last week. I’m sorry to say that we believe this was a biochemical pregnancy. You will probably start a period within about 2-3 days. We will need you to come in for blood work again to confirm the HCG levels have left your system. Ma’am I am sorry! Do you have any questions for me?…”  WHAT?! Yes, I have questions… my world has just been crushed and I don’t know up from down. Inside I was screaming with a million things swarming in my brain! All I could manage to ask was, “what does biochemical pregnancy mean and does this mean I am not pregnant any more?” She went on to explain that medically they don’t consider a pregnancy viable until certain factors are met and that even though my body was producing HCG (the pregnancy hormone only detectable with a pregnancy) it was not medically a “true” pregnancy because of how early it was. She went on to say that had I not had blood work the week before on that exact day, I would never have even known. She said to consider that it happens all the time to women who may never know. I made the blood draw appointment, politely thanked her and got off the phone as fast as I could.

So many things were going through my head. Not a real pregnancy?… You never would have known?… What did this all mean and add up to?… Why was I going through this?… How would I tell my husband?… Then I thought, “Okay God. What are you doing right now?”… (You see this is when God and I had one of our “angry talks”.) I know God has a plan and I know that my little human brain has no capacity to understand the greatness of the plans He has for my life, but in that moment, I was angry. I was lost and confused and I told Him all about it. Once I gathered myself and stopped angry crying. I called my husband who was about to leave for work. I told him everything and in a matter of words broke his heart with the news. Not only was it bad enough to have to hear it all myself, but then I had to call the love of my life and relay the message that even though my blood showed the pregnancy hormone, I wasn’t “really” pregnant and that in 9 months we would NOT be parents! That was hard! Maybe one of the hardest things I had ever had to go through with him in our marriage at that point.

Even today when I hear the phrase biochemical pregnancy, I cringe. I cannot stand medical terminology that lessens what I am going through. I don’t care if it was early. I don’t care if I possibly would have never known. I care about the fact that I did know and that my body produced, on its own, the hormone that shows a pregnancy occurred. I have read a lot and asked various medical professionals about biochemical pregnancies. Some say it is not a “real” pregnancy while others say that it is a true pregnancy. For me, the fact that the hormone was present (which doesn’t happen as a fluke) and that we had the blood work to prove it, means that I was pregnant. We lost a baby… our baby! Our Angel #1 was now in Heaven. No one has been or will be able to convince me otherwise. You see, what I didn’t understand at the time, is that having those blood levels documented was actually a part of God’s plan. The office now had a real picture of what my levels of HCG and other hormones could look like. This later helped them to make a plan on what hormones we needed to add as a supplement to help me become and stay pregnant.

This is when I once again was humbled and amazed by the plan that I didn’t see at the moment. You see if  we had gone to the appointment when it was originally scheduled, the levels may not have shown up. This means we never would have know about the pregnancy and never would have seen the low hormone levels which could be monitored and fixed. This is God’s plan at work. Now I don’t believe that God liked for us to hurt. That was not the purpose. The purpose was the result of the experience. The knowledge gained that would help us later. Just like a glass maker has to put the glass in to the fire so it can be molded and shaped, sometimes we have to be put in the heat and fire of life in order for us to be shaped into who we are meant to be!

Our Angel #1 has been in Heaven 6 years this October. The hurt is still there for our little one that I never got to hold, but I know one day I will get to meet our baby in Heaven. Until that day, I will hold our child in my heart.

“Pearl of Wisdom”- “For I know the plans I have for you,” declared the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

Request/Thought: Pray for/Think of anyone who has lost a child. No matter if the got to hold them in their hands, or if they hold them only in their heart, they need our prayers for continued healing daily!

Thanks for reading!~ Me 🙂

To quote Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start!” (Now you’re going to be singing it in your head the whole post. You’re welcome!) In all seriousness, lets begin with a little history of how we made it this far in our journey and are looking towards transfer #5.

My amazing husband and I met in high school. We did a lot together as friends in High School; from Prom to performing in our school plays to working the NBA all-star game to medical mission trips in Venezuela. We really had a great High school experience together! Needless to say, once we finally did start dating, we quickly knew we were a good fit. We were married on the most beautiful June day and began our new life together. Shortly after we married, we sought out a Reproductive Specialist. You see we knew, because of a few “issues’ with me medically speaking, that getting pregnant on our own would be difficult and we wanted to make sure we were “good to go” with a plan once we were ready to have kids.

Welcome fertility clinic #1 and Doctor B. As 20 something year old newlyweds, the last place we wanted to be was in a doctor’s office answering a plethora of questions about everything we were eating and not eating, how much exercising we do, our medical histories and those of our whole family,  and most importantly what we were doing in our bedroom.  (I mean do they really need to know everything?! Apparently, yes.) We filled out and answered every question asked. You see, we are planners and not being able to have children when we “planned” to was not an option. (Ha!- yes, I am laughing at my young self!)

Clinic 1 brought lots of blood work (12-15 vials at a time) and medication trials. Then changing diets and more blood work. In the end we had no answers and only more frustrations. You see we were told by Dr. B that we were, “young and not trying hard enough to do what was necessary to solve our issue.” I had followed EVERYTHING asked of me. From salads everyday at lunch to cutting out Chick-fla-A and even abandoning my love for sweet tea! Nothing I did was good enough. Nothing I did made the numbers get better. Instead of listening to me, this professional assumed that I just wasn’t trying! (I still fume when I think of this very smart, very successful Dr. who crushed my dreams and made me think I was less!) Finally, after over a year of blood work after blood work, medication trials and meetings, we went in to hopefully hear a good report. We were ready! I was 135 lbs, felt great, and had followed the plan perfectly. We even signed up for a 5K and I was so ready to hear that the blood work showed our hard work. This was NOT the case. Instead of happiness, we were met with sarcasm and being told once again that we just didn’t seem dedicated enough. We were told maybe I should lose a few more pounds and THEN we could try another medication. That was it! My final straw… I was DONE! (Y’all, she laughed at me when I told her about the 5K run!)

We walked out of that office knowing we would never return again. If this is what we had to go through to have kids, it wasn’t worth it! The medical stuff and questions were uncomfortable but a necessity. The way we were treated by an elite medical professional was unacceptable! We were worth more than how that doctor made us feel. We were done with this journey. In the next few weeks and months many, many tears were shed.  I cried for the dream that was gone. I cried for the fact that it was my fault. I cried because this doctor was supposed to be one of the best in the country and she didn’t want to help us. Our dreams of children were gone!

Move forward almost 2 years… I sat for my annual lady appointment with my doctor. He asked how things were going and when we would be looking at trying to have kids. I lost it! Tears streamed down my face as I retold everything that had happened. I sat in his office for 30 minutes telling him everything and how our spirits were crushed. He listened and assured me that it was not my fault. In the end he gave me the name of another doctor who was with a different practice. His exact parting words to me were, “I have coffee with him at once a week and our wives are friends. If he treats you wrong, you let me know and I will call him out personally! Trust me Ashley, you are going to be a great mom and he will help you get there!” Wow! Talk about a change. For the first time in years, I had hope of a family. Hope that there was someone who could help me become a mom! My husband would be a dad! Y’all, I could finally breathe again!

Two months later, we sat in the office of the man who would change the way I view medicine. The man who delayed vacation plans to be there for our transfer. The man who cried with me both in frustration and heartache over a miscarriage. That day we met Doctor T!

To be continued…

“Pearl of Wisdom”- “Kindness changes everything!”

Request: Don’t crush someone else’s dreams! Even when you have hard things to tell someone, show kindness. It can truly make all the difference! 🙂 Today, please pray for anyone who is getting poor medical advice. Pray that they seek other opinions and always advocate for themselves.

P.S.- I believe that medical professionals are amazing people and I will never discredit Dr. B with her knowledge. She was not a good fit for our family and I am okay with that!

Love~ Me

Here we are. One final time we are in a count down of days. Days where my calendar is loaded with which medication to take on which day and what day I need to go for this appointment or that procedure. You see we have begun the process of our FINAL IVF transfer. It is bittersweet as I type those words. The FINAL transfer… It’s the beginning of the end of our IVF journey.

For those of you who know our story, thank you for standing by us and joining us again! For those of you who are just now following along, welcome to the journey! In the next few days and weeks I will tell more of our amazing story of growing our family. I will share the highs and lows; the things that still haunt me at night and the peace that I can only get from walking in faith with God. I will be candid, honest, and raw. I ask in return, that those of you who read this, will understand that I am opening up so that we can have the biggest support group praying, cheering and loving us every step of the way! For now, here is an update on where we are, and where we are headed.

Today is day 4. Day 4 of the cycle before we do our final IVF transfer. This means that in approximately 42-50 days we will take the final leap in our IVF journey and complete the final embryo transfer. If all goes as it should, I will begin injections in about 16 days. From there I will add various medications taken orally, through injections and through hormone patches, all in hopes of reaching a positive pregnancy test. Then, it will hopefully be coming off of medication, having a healthy pregnancy and in 10ish months, having a baby (or two) to add to our family of 3.

Here are the answers to some questions that you may be thinking already. Two, we will be transferring 2 embryos (yes, that means the possibility of both implanting and us having twins). Yes, these are our final two babies (I view them as our babies) to be transferred. No, we do not want to wait and just try 1 at a time. Five, this is our 5th transfer. And Yes, our son was a wonderful blessing of science and the power God has to provide life!

I want to take just a moment to explain a little of what my husband and I believe about IVF as it pertains to our faith and walk with God. We truly believe in our hearts that science must have God in order for the miracle of life to happen. If this were not true and medicine could stand on its own, we would be a family of mommy, daddy and at least 8 children. IVF/medicine is not perfect. We believe that God inspires the medical advances that occur with IVF and that without Him in the process, there would never be life that comes from IVF. Our belief is that God is the one who still knits each baby to his or her mother’s womb and breathes life into each baby born. I will go more into this at another time but for now this is where we are coming from. Some of you may agree or disagree with our beliefs, but in my blog, this is the belief that will be shared.

When this journey began 6 years ago, I never dreamed that I would go through 5 IVF transfers, that we would have our amazing son, and that we would have lived through half of what we have so far. This is our life. I can’t wait to share more of the past and future with you all!

When I conclude each post, I want to leave a “Pearl of wisdom” and something to pray or think about. Here is what I have for you today.

“Pearl of Wisdom”- “You may not always end up where you thought you were going, but you will always end up where you are meant to be!” -Unknown

A Request: Please pray for peace within my soul as I take this final round of IVF. Some days knowing what is ahead can be exciting and others it can be overwhelming to think of doing again.

Love, Blessings and Pearls! ~ Me