Decisions

Sorry I've been MIA for a while. It has been a crazy semester (I say that pretty much every semester). I finally finished my schooling, which was a great feeling. Now the hubby is working on his Masters degree, so we still have a student in the family. All his homework time gives me plenty of time for crocheting, house cleaning, and thinking about our family situation.

No big news to report, but I definitely feel like our family has hit a crossroad of decisions. It feels like a whole lot of things may be happening within the next year, but nothing is certain. We have a few different options that are presenting themselves, which makes everything very confusing. Needless to say, I have been very distracted for the last few weeks.

On a side note, I've been started on a new kind of fertility medication. This one was designed to treat breast cancer, but it also helps with fertility (?!?). So now I'm taking cancer medication and diabetes medication in the hopes that they will help me get pregnant. Weird.

Creeping up on 30

Still playing the waiting game. When I had my surgery in March the doctor said it should only take me three months, six months max. We're on the sixth month, and I'm now back on Clomid. My ovulation has been spotty, so we'll try this for a few months, and if this doesn't do it we'll move forward with IVF.

I turn 30 in 3 weeks. I've really only had two goals that I wanted to achieve before I turned 30: get my doctorate, and become a mother. It looks like I'll be defending my dissertation a week or two after my birthday, so I say that's close enough on that one. No such luck on the second goal. I realize it is not really anything that I can control, but it is still upsetting. I hear a lot of people say that they want to be finished having kids before they are 30. Yeah, those are the people that make all sorts of life plans and they just work out perfectly. :) As the years tick by, I can't help but think about how much older I'm getting, and how my future family size is shrinking. 

I know I have accomplished a lot in my 30 years, and I know that life is still good. But it's also still hard.

We need new water

Water and pregnancy seem to be intricately connected. I saw something on the news about how all of the celebrities are having babies. One of the people commented, "It must be in that Hollywood water". On our street we have an unusually high occurrence of twin babies being born. I was at a baby shower on Wednesday and somebody said, "It must be in the water!" Then last Saturday I was playing at a wine auction in Jackson Hole. Both the 1st violinist and the pianist were about 7 months pregnant, and I heard at least two people say, "It must be in the water!"


I need to start drinking more water.

More Waiting

Nothing new to report. It's been a few months since the laproscopic surgery, and I'm trying not to sink back into that feeling of hopelessness again. Part of me thinks that everything will be okay now, and part of me thinks that we still have a long way to go before we become parents.

I am proud to report that I survived Mother's Day quite well. There were only a few tears, and mostly when our Relief Society president came up to me right before Sacrament meeting to tell me what a great mother figure I am to so many people. She ambushed me in my seat, and it got me going. I also had a lot of extra compliments on my dress, hair, etc. from people who obviously wanted to do something but didn't really know what to say. It was mildly amusing, but I appreciated the gesture.

I am still surrounded by mothers. My neighbor had her twin baby boys, another neighbor had a baby boy, they are everywhere.

My little sister is now 20 weeks pregnant. She finds out the gender of her baby on Friday. I am thrilled for her, but to be honest, it is very difficult. If I think about it too much I usually start to cry. I guess I thought one of my sisters would probably get pregnant before me, but that didn't make it any easier. I appreciate her sharing her pregnancy experience with me, though. I am excited for her, and am very excited to have a new niece or nephew. I hope she knows I will want to spend lots and lots of time with that baby. :)

So we continue to work on faith an patience. We went to stake conference a few weeks ago, and our bishop was one of the speakers. He talked about gratitude, and included faith as part of gratitude. He said that faith was having pre-gratitude for something. I really liked that idea. So I'm pre-grateful for the chance to be a mother. It's going to happen.

Some days are harder than others

I know there's hope for us, but some days, it just seems like everyone else's joys of motherhood is getting shoved in my face. Some days are just hard. The worst part is it's like a car accident. I can't not look. I have to know about everyone's pregnancy and baby news, and then it just makes me feel worse. I'm happy for them, but it can still hurt.

Anyway, I came across this last night. I thought it was very fitting.

Happy Easter

The older I get, the more Easter means to me. I'm grateful for my Savior, who has atoned for us. He not only atoned for our sins, but he went through every pain, heartache, injustice, sadness that we experience in life. I'm grateful to know that He understands the heartache of infertility, of wanting something so desperately that seems to come so easily to others. I'm grateful to know that He has experienced the sadness of having to send my husband away to a foreign country for two weeks. I know He lived and died for us. Happy Easter everyone.

Happy and Hopeful

My husband and I went to my follow-up appointment yesterday afternoon. I feel like I'm recovering very well, and I'm cleared to go back to the gym today! It was very interesting hearing the doctor describe what he saw during surgery. I mentioned that he found a moderate amount of endometriosis. He said it was on the mild side of moderate, but enough that it was significant (Okay, this is where it starts to get graphic. Reader beware). The doctor labeled all of the pictures he took, and one of the pictures had a bunch of liquid. he saw it was a pool of menstrual blood that had backed up out of the fallopian tubes. I guess it's called retrograde menses. They think it could be a cause of endometriosis. He did say that I had beautiful fallopian tubes. :) The most interesting part was my appendix. He was surprised at how bad my appendix looked, but after they took it out they took it to the lab, and it was full of endometriosis! I didn't even know that was possible. The doctor said it was pretty unusual.

At the end of this, I asked the doctor, "Now what?" "Now, you get pregnant!", he said. He said he has a very good feeling that this was the cause of our infertility. He feels confident that we will be pregnant within three months, but if it doesn't happen in 6 we go back in. He didn't even prescribe us any fertility medication, he's that sure we won't need it.

It's hard to describe how I felt after the appointment. I felt whole. I felt not broken. I felt like any other girl who is just starting out trying to get pregnant. At the end of the appointment the doctor talked to us about what kind of prenatal vitamins he prefers for pregnancies. He talked about it like it was no big deal. I couldn't help it. I cried the whole way home. I feel whole again. At least for now.

I Survived

My surgery yesterday was a success. I'm still pretty tender, but I'm happy to be on the recovery side of it. My husband and mom both came with me, and I so appreciated having them there. I had a cold this weekend, so I was really worried they would cancel the surgery, but I got better just in time.

The surgery itself was a blur. After having 5-6 different people asking me the same questions over and over again, they wheeled me into the operating room and put the mask over my face. The next thing I knew I was in post-op with tears streaming down my face (I tend to cry a lot when I'm under anesthesia. My husband tells me I would be a very weepy drunk). I was pretty foggy for the next 30 minutes, and I kept asking people the same questions over and over again because I could remember what the answers were.

When my head got a little clearer, I finally understood what they were telling me. They found some endometriosis. In the doctor's words, "a moderate amount." They were able to clear it out without any problems. It was glorious news. They even took pictures of it for me to take home as a souvenir. I didn't get to talk to my doctor afterward, but I have a follow-up appointment in two weeks. Oh, and they also took out my appendix. I know, I was shocked. I was thinking, "you asked me 6 times what surgery I was supposed to be in for, and you got it mixed up??". Apparently I had an enlarged appendix, which means I had a previous infection and would be more likely to have problems later on. So I guess I got a 2 for 1 deal on surgeries. :)

So now I have three small incisions, including one in my belly button (they pulled my appendix out through my belly button? Weird).

I'm feeling pretty hopeful right now. I kind of feel like starting over again. It still may take us a while, but I have that excited feeling again, not the hopeless feeling every month.

So here's to new beginnings and tender tummies. :)

Anticipation

I'm getting kind of nervous. And excited. And anxious. I'm really glad we're doing this next week. Before I was always nervous that they would find something, but now I'm hoping they do. My doctor is so optimistic that he'll be able to clear everything up and we'll be on our way to making babies. I know from experience that doctors tend to be overly optimistic (oh don't worry, this won't hurt much. . .), but I really want to believe him on this one. After next week we'll know either way. Either we'll be normal people again and get to experience the excitement of trying each month without the feeling of doom and gloom, or we'll be on our way to IVF. Either way, we'll be much closer to bringing our baby home.

Prayers will be appreciated. :)

A bit of progress

We went to the doctor on Tuesday. It was a bit frustrating at first because the doctor didn't even remember who I was, but once he pulled up my file and we talked for a while, I felt better. We're going to have the laparoscopic surgery on February 22nd. It is a completely inconvenient time since it's in the middle of the week in the middle of the semester, but it was the only time available, so we took it. That means in less than three weeks we'll know if we have a chance of getting pregnant on our own or if we need IVF. I'm kind of hoping they find something, so they can fix it and we'll be good to go. If I'm all clear, that's great but it leaves us right back to the big fat question mark.

So for now, there's hope. I'll take it.

Frustrated

I'm feeling stuck again. We're on our third month of the triple medications, and nothing's happening. I'm feeling like things aren't moving forward at all, and I'm getting frustrated. We're going to the doctor on Tuesday for a pre-op appointment for laproscopic surgery to look for endometriosis. Part of me wants to do it, but part of me is terrified of the recovery time and the cost. I'm also terrified of the result, either way. If they find something, it might mean I won't ever be able to get pregnant. If they don't find something, we'll be stuck again.

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed about all of the things that might be wrong. I keep hearing about these natural treatments, and all of the things that could be wrong with you and it's impossible to know. I've had people tell me I need to do reflexology, chiropractic care (tried it), and lots of other things. I can't help but think that we'll never figure out what's wrong.

My husband and I had the IVF talk today. We're still working on other avenues, but we need to start planning. We're going to start saving for the procedure, and tentatively plan on doing it in November. Our insurance doesn't cover it, so it will be around $20,000, and there is only a 35% chance of it working, so we might have to do it several times before it actually works.

Ugh.