I'm coming out

Okay, I know it's been over a year since I've posted.  So many things have changed, and I'm going to try and get you up to par with it all.

First off, I'm going to "come out" and say who we are.  My name is Bridget and my husband is Derrick.  This is our absolutely gorgeous daughter named Riley.  Yup, you read that right.  Our daughter!!!!!

After beginning the gluten free diet, I decided to go speak with a counselor about my fear of trying again.  The diet was working.  I was getting cycles, and we were actually having a shot at getting pregnant.  But I was scared.  I was afraid of losing another child.  After 6 weeks of sessions, we decided to give it a go.  We knew the diet was working, and all we had to do was allow it to work.  After 3 cycles, we received a positive pregnancy test. 

Now that part of this was quite the whirlwind.  June 7th, 2014 was the due date of the baby we lost.  We planned to meet up with our parents to set off some sky lanterns to baby.  It was a way to handle it, and was advised by my therapist.  Well the 7th ended up being a rainy day/night so we had to do it the next day.
I also knew that Sunday the 8th I wanted to take a pregnancy test.  Well, I woke Derrick up to the positive test.  Crying and shaking in fear, but also excitement.  

That night we met up with our parents to set off the lanterns.  Happy, sad, and all sorts of confused with feelings.  Happy to be pregnant, scared of what will come, and sad because we should have been bringing our baby home around that time but instead were mourning the loss of what would have been. 

Getting our Money Makeover On

Since we're currently taking a break from fertility treatments and worrying about trying to get pregnant, we have decided to focus on some other things to better our lives.

Not only am I doing the gluten free diet to get my body to work somewhat normal.  Someday has also been watching what he eats and exercising.  So far he is down 42 pounds since December 15th.  Woohoo!!!

Along with all of that we decided after the miscarriage to take charge of our lives.  When we got pregnant in October we were scared.  Not going to flub about that at all.  As are many people when they find out their pregnant.  Whether they went through fertility treatments or not.  We knew we would be just fine, but we also knew once we paid for daycare, diaper costs, the expensive delivery costs since my insurance sucks, and finishing the remodel on our home.  We wouldn't be living as comfortable financially as we had hoped.

In November Someday text me while at work and it said, "I'm Gazelle intense!"  I knew what this comment was from.  It was from Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, and he says it often on his radio show.  I text him back asking him how he knew that phrase, and he said he downloaded the audiobook and he's ready to go.  Ready to get Gazelle Intense and get our financials in line to better the future for our family.

Oh hell yeah!

Then it began.  Now, we're your average run of the mill, mid 20 year olds.  We have student loan debt of course, car loans, and a mortgage.  We always felt like we were in a good financial state.  I mean come on, we pay our bills on time with ease, have money in savings, and we go on trips and do things we enjoy.  We also didn't have any credit card debt.  When we compared ourselves to our friends we were doing pretty well.
Then throw a family into the mix.  When talking to my boss about maternity leave, he told me that I could take as much time as I wanted.  My job wasn't going anywhere and they would work with me on whatever I wanted to do.  My response, "I can't afford to take more than the minimum 6 weeks."  That hurt.  It hurt both me and Someday.  Wait, we can't afford to go without my income?  Why?  Oh, that's right, because we have payments.
So onto the Total Money Makeover we went.  When you're told that you have to have fertility treatments in order to have a family, and said fertility treatments aren't covered by insurance, you quickly figure out what needs to be done to make that happen.  What are we doing wrong?  What do we need to do differently?  We can't afford to move forward with treatment for another year because we need to save up money to be able to afford the next round.  When we figured up exactly how much that amount was, it was ridiculous.  How is it going to take us a year to save up that little bit of money?  We make good money.  That shouldn't be the case.

Now here we are almost 6 months after making this decision.  Our families probably think we're crazy, we've lost friends because they are making judgments about us selling things (guess they weren't good friends anyways), and we're telling people no constantly about doing things and going out to dinner.  This is our life now.  While all of our friends are having children, we're focusing on getting 100% debt free so we can afford to pay to conceive ours.

Gluten Free Baby!

Okay, don't get all excited.  The word "baby" isn't in the heading because I'm going to have a baby.  But it's in the heading because Gluten Free is working!!!!

Yeah that's right.  It's working!  This girl is having a normal cycle like a normal woman would without any assistance.  That's unheard of for me.

So here's the lowdown on it.  Gluten free is exactly that.  Eating nothing with gluten in it.  My Dr was sort of against this, but I decided that the least I could do was give it a shot.  What do I have to lose?  Another 90 day cycle?
Normally I'm not a "hippie" person, but now I am understanding the concept of not putting things in your body that shouldn't be there.  Those Cheetos?  Yeah, they're still processed.  Even if they say "organic" on the bag.  They're still a processed puff that isn't cheese in its normal state.  So why not avoid things that are processed too?
So that is what I've been doing.  Eating as many fruits, veggies, and meat as I want.  Yet avoiding things that are processed or have gluten in them.  If you think about it, things with hormones in them will probably affect your hormones, right?  Make sense?  I think it does.

Here's the way I view it.
Fertility treatment = $3,000-$12,000.
Gluten Free = $30 on some start up gluten free flour for baking, but just tweaking your regular meals.

Yeah, I'll take that.

PCOS Diet

There is so much conflicting research out there as to how someone should handle PCOS.  Most Dr's put a woman on birth control to give her regular cycles, and it ends at that.  Others go months or even years without a period.  Some get on medication to help their bodies get cycles, but it doesn't always mean ovulation or getting pregnant.

So what am I choosing?  Option D? PCOS Diet.  This was brought up to my Dr not too long after I was diagnosed.  His response?  "You aren't overweight, so it wouldn't help you."  My thoughts? Why not give it a shot?
The PCOS diet isn't easy. It isn't for the faint of heart, but we want children and fertility treatments are not covered by our insurance.  Nor is testing, seeing a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE), blood draws, ultrasounds, medications, or monitoring.  So we would be 100% out of pocket again, if we choose to do another round of medication.  Something we just aren't up for financially at this time.  So that's when I started looking into other options, and came upon the PCOS diet.

It consists of a mix between Gluten Free and a Diabetics diet.  Low sugar, minimal carbs, nothing with gluten,  no alcohol, and low amounts of dairy.  But I can eat as much veggies, rice, and protein as I want.

Another thing I took into account was my original diet.  At one point in my life I weighed 45 pounds more than I do now.  It's been almost 7 years since losing the weight, but since then I've yo-yo'd my way between 60lbs of weight loss and 20lbs lost.  So I set up with a dietician to take a look at what I'm doing with my PCOS diet and what she recommends.  After her looking at my food diary from the past couple of months, she noticed that I usually do a 1,200 calorie diet.  I'm also an avid runner, and am currently training for a half marathon.  The first thing she asked me was, "how long have you been doing a 1,200 calorie diet?"  Um, off and on for the past 3 years.  Pretty much since we got engaged.
Then the lightbulb went off in her head.  My body is starving.  Which could be causing my reproductive organs to shut down.  My first response to her was that I'm not thin.  Not by any means.  There's still plenty of fat and chub to share.  She explained to me that it didn't matter what my weight was.  I could weigh 200 pounds.  My body isn't getting enough nutrients that it needs to function fully.
So now it's no more 1,200 calorie diet, and is an 1,800 calorie diet (more when I workout, which is 5-6 days/week).  1,800 calories of PCOS friendly foods.

Hello Gluten Free, Good-bye carbs and sugar.

The Fast Poster

Okay, so I'm going to go all "Facebook" on you now.  Obviously this post is regarding a Facebook post.

You know that friend you have on Facebook that you side eye every time they post?  What about the ones that blindside you with their post?  Or the one who is constantly posting about the same thing.

This has to do with the middle one.  The Blindsided post.

Yesterday I logged onto Facebook.  For the average 25 year old, this is a daily task.  To find that my friend commented on something someone had posted on her wall.  The post said "Congratulations, do you know your due date?"  She responded with a Thank You and her due date.  The due date of 9 months from yesterday.  The due date that shows she's exactly 4 weeks along.  And her pregnancy has been posted in public.  4 weeks!

I text this girl today and asked her if what I saw on Facebook was true.  She said yes and she was so sorry I found out that way.  Mind  you, she doesn't know what we've been through.  Honestly, this is the girl whose wedding we went to the day we found out we were pregnant.  Then 2 days after I took the suppository to help pass the miscarriage, I met up with her for lunch.  She's a wonderful friend, and I love seeing her and her husband and I knew that they were likely going to start trying soon after the wedding.  So this didn't come as a surprise.  

But I can't help but be fearful for her.  For what she could possibly go through.  Yes, there are what ifs.  There are what ifs with everything in life.  But it's already been posted to her 500 Facebook friends that she's expecting, and her husbands' 300 friends.  If something happens, that's 800 people to ask if you're okay.  Or the chance of not all of them seeing your post that you lost the baby, and they ask you later how you're feeling or when you're due.  

I've prayed for her multiple times since this afternoon.  Prayed that her appointment on January 30th goes great, and that there's a loud thriving heartbeat.  And that she has a very uneventful 9 months.  That her and her husband don't go into their appointment 3 weeks from now and have to go through anything we did.  That she never has to "untell" people.  That don't have to make a follow up Facebook post that their baby isn't growing.  

It's great to be excited.  Wonderful to be excited.  The creation of another human being is a wonderful thing.  But let the pee dry on the test before you tell 800 people you're 4 weeks along.   For your own mental state, and their mental state too. 

Amazing people

The day that Someday and I had the appointment scheduled to officially find out whether baby M had grown or not, we decided to both take the day off of work.  If the appointment went great, then we would go to Babies R Us (1.5 hours away from our appointment) and test out jogging strollers.  Being an avid runner and half marathoner, I was already researching the best one and didn't want to skimp on quality.  If the appointment went bad, then we would still head that direction but we would go shopping at the mall and just take a day to be together.

As I've already posted, we found out that we lost the baby.  After the appointment we got back into the car and just started sobbing.  There was no stopping it.  We couldn't drive anywhere yet, because we couldn't see to drive.  I didn't want to go shopping over 2 hours from home and it just be the 2 of us...... sad together.

So once we were finally able to see to drive, I told Someday that I wanted to go get my wedding ring cleaned.  For some reason I felt that even though we just found out the thing we had created together was being taken away from us, we still had each other and our marriage to fall back on.  So I wanted to have my ring sparkly and new.  While we were there, Someday called one of our friends to see if they had the day off of work.  It was Columbus day, and she works at a bank.  It was also her birthday.  They both had the day off and were planning to head out of town for a leisure day of lunch and shopping, and they asked if we wanted to join them.

For some people they would think that the last thing they wanted was to go somewhere with people after something like this.  But this couple knew everything we've been through.  They knew about my PCOS, when we started trying, when we found out we were pregnant, and that things weren't going right.  They also knew that we had the appointment that day.

For some reason spending the day with them made everything all better.  They didn't ask about the appointment, but Someday and I brought it up soon after we got in their car to leave.  It helped to have these friends to discuss this with.  I firmly believe that what has made it so much easier is that they have very similar religious views as us.  They got our mind off of things, talked with us about life, and helped us to comprehend what we were going through.  Even though they haven't been through it themselves.

What next?

This is a question we both have been asking ourselves over and over again.  What next?  Do we try again? Do we go through treatment again? Do we see if my body does its thing on its own?

These are all questions we asked at our last appointment.  What next?  What does the Dr recommend?  Through all of this, I had been moved from midwife to midwife, and hadn't seen the same one twice.  So at this appointment we met with Jennifer.  Jennifer had gone through IF treatment herself to have each of her 3 children, and I instantly put all of my trust in her hands.  For some reason I didn't care what was medically correct in what to do next.  She was someone who would know and understand what we had just gone through, and we both felt that she would give us her thoughts on what to do next.  Even if it wasn't what she needed to tell us as a medical perspective.  She told us that medically they say to have at least 1 cycle before trying again.  But with my history, I do not have any sort of cycle.  So this was a mute point for me.  I told her that I was willing to try again.  Wanted to put this loss past us, and move forward.  Turn the page and wake up tomorrow feeling renewed and ready to move on.

Then she asked us the question I never would've thought of myself.  "If you were to get pregnant again right away, could you mentally handle it?"  My response, "yes."  "Now, if you were to get pregnant immediately and then lose the child again, could you mentally handle it?"  Someday and I: "Not a chance."

There it was. Decision made.  No proceeding with treatment. No jumping right back in.  Another loss just wouldn't be good.  We just can't handle it.

Sometimes Dr's can give more than just giving medicinal advice.  They can also meet the mental needs too.

Dr's visit after Dr's visit

So it's taken me a while to get up enough courage to post a follow up to the prior post, but I'm going to be straight forward with it and just come out and say it.  We lost baby M.  No heartbeat. No growth.  Nothing.

I went through an appointment per week for 4 weeks straight to see if the fetus had passed on its own.    At week 3, it had not.  So the midwife I was meeting with recommended taking a suppository to make me go into labor and pass it without surgery.  It consisted of taking a day off work and going into full blow labor, contractions, and dilation.  This was definitely quite the experience, and has made me officially consider a natural birth.  Well, maybe someday, a natural birth. If I ever get to that point.  Thankfully the suppository worked, and I was able to avoid surgery.  But there's still so many unanswered questions.  Why did this happen?  Will it happen again?  Did I do something wrong?

Motherly Instincts

So I'm writing a separate post about this, because I never understood the whole "motherly instincts" until now.  Many people would say that when you get pregnant, you just have those instincts. The instincts that baby is moving, growing, etc. Then these instincts grow even more after the baby is born.

Well I completely understand that it does happen after conception.  There were a few times where I told S that I think something was wrong. I had spotted a lot, and that spotting turned to clots at a couple of points. I knew that wasn't normal and wasn't okay.  I had instincts that something wasn't right, but whenever I called the Dr's office they told me that what I was describing to them was normal.  Guess not.  Now I just regret not pushing it further. I should've requested that I come in and be checked anyway. That something wasn't right and didn't feel right.

I even prepped S the night before our ultrasound that it will go 1 of 2 ways. We'll either see our 9 week baby forming and hear the heartbeat, or the tech will let us know that she doesn't see anything or that it is smaller than it should be.  Maybe those instincts did kick in from the start, and I knew it was happening. 

First Appointment and Ultrasound

So yesterday we had our first appointment. As first time parents, we were so excited to be able to see baby and hear the heartbeat.  The spotting was still around, but I had called the Dr's office another time to just make sure it wasn't anything to be concerned about and they told me it was fine and normal for some women.

Awesome! We get to see baby!  Of course we had an afternoon appointment and had to work all day beforehand with the anxiety of what was to come that afternoon.  Is everything fine? Will baby cooperate and we'll get a good picture of him or her?  Will we start crying when we hear the heartbeat?

We got to the Dr's office 15 minutes early to fill out paperwork. The ultrasound tech was all ready and set up for us, and said she would squeeze us in a few minutes early. Yay! We get to see baby.  We get in there, and she lets me know that she's going to try an abdominal ultrasound first.  She started going on my stomach and let me know that my uterus tips to the back, which is normal, but makes it difficult to get an ultrasound of when the baby is still this small.  So she switched to the transvaginal one.  For any of you who have never seen one. It looks like a sex toy. We'll just leave it at that.

She comes back in and lets us know that she's going to take some general shots of my organs. Very similar to when I had the ultrasound done a couple of months ago when I was on Clomid. She took some shots of those then said, "now we'll get to the good stuff.  The reason you're hear and what you've been waiting for."  She gets to the uterus and points out that the black blob in the middle is the gestational sac that holds baby. YAY! She then lets us know that she's going to zoom in on it so she can get us a closer look of baby, and get us a good profile picture.  She zooms in, and nothing is too clear. It looks like a sac of mush.  She asks me if I was 100% sure on the date of my last period.  Um, yup. Did a round of Clomid, ovulated on day 16, and took a pregnancy test accordingly. Also had Beta's drawn at exactly 4 weeks. So it was pretty spot on as to when this child was conceived.  

She then let us know that baby is measuring small for being a 9 week pregnancy.  She measures the gestational sac and lets us know that it is measuring at 5weeks and 6 days. She next said that she will give us a couple of minutes, and then we will be meeting with the midwife after she looks over the pictures.

I looked at S with my eyes full of tears, and the minute that door closed I lost it. Why?  Why us? Why isn't baby growing?  What did I do wrong?  What can I do to change this?  We had a couple of minutes of just the 2 of us, then I knew I needed to suck it up.  The tech was going to walk back in and lead us back out to the waiting area until the Dr could see us.  And I remembered there being another couple sitting across from us that you could tell were here for their first ultrasound too. So I didn't want to be a blubbery mess when we went back out there.

We went back out to the waiting room, and sat down across from that other couple.  Holding each others' hands, trying to choke back tears, staring off into space.  It kept running through my head that the other couple is probably going to go in there and have a wonderful ultrasound. Get to see their healthy baby at the week it's supposed to be at, shed tears of joy, get a printed black and white picture of their baby, then meet with the Dr and discuss the do's and dont's of pregnancy, those list of questions I had in my purse that I knew were no longer needed. That I wasn't going to get an opportunity to ask, that weren't needed today.  Instead I was thinking of the questions I should ask about miscarriage, the odds of baby just being a slow grower, what happens if I don't miscarry naturally.  All of the questions I didn't bring with me, because we were hopeful that we were seeing our healthy 9 week baby.

The nurse came out and got us. She had us go into the room, took some vitals, asked us different health questions, then asked me a question that completely stumped me.  How long is a normal cycle for you?  I know what this question was for.  They wanted to try and figure out if this baby was just conceived during a long cycle, and that's why my dates were off.  S and I both started laughing. I've never had an actual normal cycle since getting off birth control.  So how was I supposed to answer that question?  I gave her an answer of, "anywhere from 50-90 days. Longer ones were usually ended with Provera to make my period come."  So she put 50. HAH! 50 day cycle. I wish.

Then the midwife came in.  She just confirmed what we already knew.  That baby wasn't measuring right. The dates didn't match up with my past appointments, beta numbers, etc.  Which meant baby was likely not growing.   So our next steps are to come in 1 week later and see if there's any growth between now and then. 1 week of not knowing whether your child is growing or not. 1 week of not doing things a non-pregnant woman would do, because your baby might still be growing, but you have a feeling it is not.

Fear, Worry, and Anxiety

Since we had to do fertility drugs, my Dr requires we do what they call BETA draws immediately after finding out you're pregnant.  So I called the Dr on Monday morning to let him know about the positive test, and he got me set up for blood draws at the local hospital. The first one came back at 82.  Then I had another draw exactly 48 hours from the first one, and it was 156.  These are both good numbers. They want the numbers to double or at least increase by 60% in a 48 hour time period.
Then the next step was scheduling our first appointment and what they call a dating ultrasound to figure out how far along I am.

The appointment was set at exactly 9 weeks. Which meant waiting 5 weeks for our first appointment, and the ultrasound.  That's a long time for a newly pregnant woman to wait, but we had already had the blood draw done to confirm the pregnancy and they wanted to wait until they could give us a good profile picture of baby and so we could hear the heartbeat.

A couple of weeks went by, and everything was just fine. No issues, nothing to worry about.  We had fun telling our parents and a few of our friends. But of course, there's always the fear in the back of every couples' mind.  What about miscarriage?

Around 6 weeks I began having some spotting. I called the Dr's office, and they said what I was describing wasn't anything to be concerned about.  If it got worse or heavier, to let them know.  Whew, good. There's nothing to worry about.

Saturday....Wedding Day

I had mentioned in a previous post that we decided I would take a pregnancy test on the Saturday of my friends' wedding.  Because we wanted to know whether I should drink or not.

So that Friday night I reminded S that I would be testing in the morning.  According to what I've read, it's best to test right away in the morning. So I planned to do so accordingly.

We both got up that morning, I took the test, and we waited so we could walk in to look at the results together.  We both stepped into the bathroom to look at the results, with a lot of emotion running through us, and the test was a dud. No lines on it. Nothing.

Great. That was a waste of money.  On to take another one when I need to pee again.

So I tested again.  This time we didn't both walk in at the same time. I looked first, and showed him the results.  One bright pink line (the control line), and one very faint line you had to squint to see.  What does this mean?  Off to the instructions I go.  It said that any 2nd line is a positive.

Positive? No way!  I brought the stick to S and let him look at it. With telling him he needed to squint to see it, but there's a 2nd line. He asked what that meant, and I told him it meant no more fertility treatments and no more meds. No freaking way! Only 1 round of meds? That's all it took?  We seriously expected this to be worse. To be a long journey. To be a lot more discussions and disagreements about how far into IF treatments we were willing to go.  Could this really be? We're going to be parents?

Like any other insane woman out there.  Since the line was faint, I just HAD to do another test (a non-cheap one) to see if it gave the 2nd line.  Sure enough.  2 bright pink lines!

There were many tears of joy, elation, and worry that day.  Which we knew would happen for us.  We wanted children. We had no idea when we wanted them, but we knew we couldn't just "try" and have it happen.  So we gave it 1 shot.  1 shot of medication. 1 shot of trying. 1 shot of my body responding and cooperating.  And it's there. We're pregnant!!!!!!!!

Well damn, now I can't drink at Cassie's wedding.

Follow up appointment

I know I'm late to giving a result to this, and I apologize.  But I wasn't sure how I wanted to write these next posts.

I went to the Dr's office to get the Progesterone levels drawn.  He confirmed that I ovulated on day 16 of my cycle, and that our timing was perfect. This was on a Wednesday, and he told me to go ahead and take a pregnancy test on the following Tuesday if AF hadn't come yet.
Then he prescribed me Provera to help induce my period (if it didn't come on its own), and Clomid for the 2nd round.  I expressed to him that S and I were not ready to do a 2nd round.  He pushed that he would prefer we begin immediately with another round, but understood if we weren't quite ready.  So he told me to take it again in 3 months, because he doesn't want me going longer than 3 months without a period.

On the drive home I called S and explained to him what the Dr said.  He said he wasn't comfortable doing another round on the medication, but understood my Dr's reasoning for not wanting me to go that long without a period. So we would re-visit it in 3 months.....if we even needed to revisit it.

The 2 weeks.

Since we're doing 1 cycle on Clomid, I'm going to elaborate a bit on what has been going on with that.
I began the medication at the beginning of this month (September), and it is supposed to make you ovulate about 14 days later.  Well, it did. YAY!
But now I go back to the Dr tomorrow to get blood drawn to make sure my Progesterone levels are even high enough to keep a baby inside me, if it does work. Such fun.

So now I'm in that 2 week waiting period, and getting closer to taking a pregnancy test. I never thought that I would be scared and nervous for this.  This is what we wanted, isn't it?  So why am I so afraid of the "what if?" Is this normal for people who are trying?  Or am I just not ready for this?
We have decided that I will take a test on Saturday morning, when both of us are home to be able to see the test results.  Oh, and because my friend is getting married that day, and dammit, I want to know if I can drink or not!

But in this 2 week waiting period, I've been analyzing every temp in my chart.  For some women, their chart will begin to look Triphasic if they are pregnant. Which means that you have 1 set of temps before ovulation, 1 set after, and 1 more set after implantation.  Which is why it's called "tri"phasic.  So of course, I've been staring at my chart on a daily basis, and weeding through it with a fine toothed comb.  It is looking triphasic. It is giving me hope.  It is making me really want to take a test earlier than you are supposed to, but I don't want to take one without S there to look at the results with me.  Because I'm not really sure whether we will cry happy or sad tears, be extatic, or be freaked the F out!. But I'm holding off. I just can't take one yet.

In the meantime, I've been browsing Pinterest for cribs, jogging strollers, what you can and can't eat, things to do/know at the beginning of a pregnancy. Oh, and the estimated due date. Probably shouldn't have Googled that one, but I'm curious and just couldn't hold back. A womens mind goes a million miles a minute, and step inside my brain for one second and you will realize that I am no different. Oh the mind of a woman!

So I've Googled lots of things that I am ashamed of, and would rather not admit to. But that's the mind of a woman who is going through the 2 weeks of "am I, or am I not."

Patience vs Control

S and I are both religious, and we attend church regularly.  Well we have had many discussions about taking matters into our own hands and using medications to make my body work, if we will ever do Invetro to conceive a child, etc. These are all things that have been on our minds for months now, and are conversations we do not enjoy having but know we need to for our spiritual being.

Well as I had posted before, we decided that we will do 1 cycle with medication and see if it works. If it does not, then we know that we will not be doing another round of it for a while. S is also very adiment that he doesn't want to take this decision out of Gods hands, and he doesn't want to play God.

This is something I've had a hard time with.  Thankfully I have a very supportive and religious BFF that I'm able to chat with in this regard, and bring some light to the situation and some sense into my mind.  But it doesn't help with what S thinks and feels about our decisions and options.

This past Sunday we went to church and the sermon really got us both thinking.  The pastor talked about Patience. Then elaborated that many people do not have patience with things and want to take control of situations and have them go their way. To where God has a plan for everyone, and if we just have patience, then it will work out in the way he intended. 

I will be the first person to say that this is entirely me. I want to have control. I want to know what is going on.  Not just with my body, but with anything I have my hands in. Some would say I'm a control freak, but I just consider myself motivated and organized.

During the service, S squeezed my hand and looked at me when the pastor was talking about this.  For many of you couples out there, you know and understand that sometimes it only take a look or gesture and you know exactly what the other person is thinking. Well that was the case on Sunday. I knew exactly what he was thinking, and he's expressed to me his concern multiple times about us taking control of our Infertility situation. We have also had discussions on how far we are willing to go with treatments before feeling that those treatments are "playing God."

Now, S did not know at that time that I had a positive OPK the day before and the day of. We had already um......done the deed.......so there was no backing down on the choice we were making.  But at what point do you begin getting assistance without feeling like you are taking too much control over the situation?  At what point is it too far?  How do you decide to take these medications and then think further on them and not be so sure about it?  Are we playing God and taking too much control over the situation?

What happens when you and your husband do not agree on these decisions?  How do you decide to move forward?

Then there's the last question on my mind.  Why? Why do we have to make these decisions and go through this? Why us? Why can't it just happen for us like it does for others?  I wouldn't even wish these questions or thoughts on my worst enemy.  These are conversations no couple should have to go through, and questions they shouldn't have to ask each other.  You are talking 2 morally sound, religious human beings to make a decision on whether to just trust fate and God, or use the tools God gives you in assisting you get to what you want.

What is this?

As you know, we are in the middle of a cycle with Clomid. Crossing our fingers and hoping that my body reacts to the medication.

My last appointment with my Dr, he told me to take OPK's beginning on day 13 of my cycle. When I get a positive, "go to town." Well after 15 days of my cycle, I got a positive. Never ever have I seen a positive OPK. I've used them a few times when I thought that maybe my body was working, but they had always been stark white negative.  So getting those 2 lines were exciting. Also, never did I think I would be extactic about seeing 2 lines on something you pee on (except a pregnancy test).

Then the next day, my temps confirmed that I ovulated.  Most people do so on day 14 of their cycle, and I was on day 16. But it happened, my body worked somewhat like a normal persons!!!  We also didn't really "plan" sex, but our timing was about perfect.

Now we wait. There's a 2 week window between when you ovulate and when your period comes, or you get a positive pregnancy test. So we just play the waiting game for now, and hope for the best.

But for the 2nd time since getting off BC almost a year ago, we have a fair shot.

Next!

So now is when I'm going to begin jumping around a bit, and quickly get you up to speed.
In May, the diagnosis happened, we said screw it to fully preventing (which we weren't really doing very well anyways), and we decided to let things happen.

In July we decided to have a consultation with the Dr. The 2 of us. This way we could both see what he had to say about my "issues" and answer any questions we both had.  He explained to S and I that it would take us 3-5 years to conceive a child at the rate my body was going at, and that he couldn't guarantee that in that timeframe we would even be able to conceive a child.  It all depended on whether my body decided to work or not.

So I did some research on how to "naturally" regulate my body with PCOS.  Upon my research, there was a diet called the PCOS diet.  Now I was really interested in this, because meds weren't necessarily the direction we wanted to go yet. So why not. I'll give it a shot.  Much to our surprise, it worked during a 90 day cycle. After 72 days of no period, I ovulated.  Our timing with sex was pretty much spot on, and we were hopeful that this could be our shot.  But of course, then Aunt Flow made her presence.  It just HAD to be while we were on vacation too.

Then we were back to square 1 again.  When we met with the Dr in July, he gave me a prescription to Provera to force my period to come, along with a prescription for Clomid. That way we could try a medicated cycle if we wanted to.  He also ordered that I come in during day 3 of my period to get an ultrasound done to see how bad the cysts were on my ovaries.

Well as you read, the cycle I had where we actually had a fair shot to have a child. It was a dud, didn't happen, done.  Of course, we were on vacation when AF came, so I wasn't able to get the ultrasound done, and we didn't want to begin the Clomid prescription without the ultrasound.  So another cycle down the drain.......
After 32 days AF came.  The negative part to this is that it meant I didn't ovulate, and we had no chance to conceive a child.  The positive part was that it meant I could get the ultrasound done, and we had finally decided to give the Clomid 1 shot.

Now, we both were not sure about doing Clomid.  It is a very harsh drug that has a lot of side affects, and if not watched properly, it can cause problems.  But we wanted to give it one chance. See if my body reacts to the medication, and if we can conceive a child while on it.  It also has a higher chance of multiples, but we know that's an issue we are going to face through our journey.

So in September I finally had a period, got the ultrasound done, and began the Clomid.  Of course the ultrasound proved the cysts on my ovaries, and the Dr just asked me how the side affects of the Clomid were.  My response, "Um, so this is the hot flashes women go through at menopause? Because these suck!"  The next set of instructions were to take Ovulation Prediction Tests (OPK's) and time sex accordingly.  Ugh, timing sex. That part sucks. No matter whether you are trying for a child or not.  The minute you put a "purpose" to sex, it is not longer fun. Plain and simple.  This is also something that I never ever wanted.  I had always told S that I never wanted to feel like we HAD to have sex for a purpose.  I just wanted to do it whenever, and if we happened to get pregnant then great. If we didn't, oh well.

Now you're pretty well up to speed.  From this point on it will be further updates and more feelings and emotions during our journey.

So buckle your seatbelt, because this may be a bumpy ride.

Options

So after the diagnosis of PCOS, it caused S and I to have some long and in depth conversations.
With having PCOS it means that I do not get a period every 28 days like a normal woman.  It can be anywhere from 28 days, to every 6 months, or never.  Without a period, that means you don't ovulate. Without ovulating, you can't get pregnant.
The options my Dr left me with was to either not worry about it and every 3 months call in to receive a prescription that makes my period come, or begin fertility drugs to make me ovulate and begin trying for a child.
The 2nd option would mean that we can't just "see how things go." Which was what we originally wanted to do.  We wanted to have that fun time of just trying for a child without schedules, timing, planning, medications, etc.  This isn't what we planned, isn't what we expected, and isn't how we wanted to make the decision to have a child.  But we knew we needed to make a decision. We are financially ready to have a child. Mentally, we know children are something we want, but we wanted to have that choice of no longer preventing and just try. Not have to go head first into fertility treatments. That's right....Fertility Treatments.  Not just sex. Not just "baby making." Not just "seeing how things go."  Instead it will be planning, temping, charting, trying to predict ovulation, taking medications that have a lot of side affects, and going through the emotional toll of not knowing if any of it will ever work.
Short after the diagnosis in May, we decided to just let things be and hope maybe it can happen. After a few months we will possibly look into the next steps, but in the meantime if God wants to grace us with a child. Then great. We can afford it, we want a child, but it will no longer be on our timeline.  It will be on the timeline of my body and the fertility treatments.

Diagnosis

So you are now up to speed with what my body is doing, and how we picked out the Dr.  Now onto the diagnosis.
The Dr had prescribed me a medicine called Provera that will force my period to come. Then on the 3rd  day of my period I was to get some blood drawn.  Now, for many of you women out there you realize that this could be a bit interesting. #1 you never know when Aunt Flow is going to grace you with her presence.  #2 most Dr's offices only do lab work M-F. #3 I would now have to give my work 2 days notice about a Dr's appointment since it would be during work hours.
Mind you, I work in a very small office and everyone knows everybody's business.  You say you have a Dr's appointment, then you play 20 questions...."Is everything okay? Are you alright? Is there something you aren't telling us? If you need anything please tell us."  So, AF came on a Sunday, which meant I had to go in on Tuesday to get the tests done. It also meant telling my boss on Monday that I would be coming into work late on Tuesday (due to fasting before the blood draw).
So yeah, 7 viles of blood later, the testing was done.
A week later, it was time to go in and go over the results. Like many Dr's, if the results come back okay, then will have a nurse call you and let you know everything was clear.  If it doesn't, then they call to say the results are in and you have to go in to discuss the results.  Of course, that was the case with me.
The diagnosis: High testosterone level = PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome).
Here's the Wikipedia description:The principal features are (1) anovulation, resulting in irregular menstruation, amenorrhea, ovulation-related infertility; (2) excessive amounts or effects of androgenic (masculinizing) hormones, resulting in acne and hirsutism; and (3) insulin resistance, often associated with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and high cholesterol levels.

Sounds fun, right? Acne, male hormones, obesity. Great.  With a side of no period and infertility.

So many OB GYN's!

Onto the next step.... Choosing an OB/GYN. 

I didn't think much about having to go to an OB/GYN.  Before this, my assumption was that S and I would begin trying to conceive (TTC) at some point down the road.  I would call my family Dr and let her know that I had a positive pregnancy test, and she would recommend an OB/GYN or I would search for the hospital with the best looking delivery room and choose my Dr from there.

Instead, I was choosing an OB/GYN based on one that also specialized in Fertility (or had a specialist in their practice), and was affiliated with a hospital that had a NICU unit.  You may be wondering why I was searching for these 2 items (hello chick, you just have some long cycles. So what). Well, after reading TCOYF I learned that women with long cycles have a harder time conceiving and usually have to pursue fertility treatments.  *Here comes the domino affect*: With fertility treatments and drugs, comes the higher chance of multiples.  With multiples, comes a higher risk pregnancy and higher risk that they are born prematurely. Hence the hunt for a hospital with a NICU unit.  *Follow me?*

Here are the things I found...
1. There are no Fertility specialists (Reproductive Encronologist) in rural, religious areas.
2. Dr's put the Infertility page on their website in a small hidden corner. While the "YOU'RE HAVING A BABY" is in bright, bold, flashing letters on the top of their website.
3. When you live in a rural area, in the event of your child needing a NICU, they will be airlifted to a hospital 1.5-2 hours away from you, while you continue your stay in the small town hospital. (This caused me to also research our out of pocket portion of our health insurance plan, for airlifting.  Oh, it's only $5,000 per person. So if you have twins, it's $10k. On top of the cost of labor and delivery, of $4,500 minimum. Cool)
4. There are exactly 62 OB/GYN's under my PPO (preferred insurance network), within a 100 mile radius of our house.
5. Only 4 out of those 62 work with anything Infertility related.
6. Only 1 out of those 4, works with a hospital that has a NICU unit inside it.

Well, welcome Dr. Nayhlor. You fit the profile. Not like we really had a choice anyway.

Never in a million years did I think that I would be researching a Dr solely based on their Infertility treatments and NICU units. I thought I would be basing it on which one offers the best bedside manner, who my family and friends recommend, and which hospital is closest to home.

Guess not.