What to do now? My last few posts have been easier because it was me just telling the story of what we have already been through. I’ve really struggled on what direction to go from here.
My tears these days mostly come from the unknown. The negative pregnancy tests, anger, frustration, unanswered questions, and honestly, loneliness… I feel that I am in constant prayer asking God to remind me that He is here. When I talk to God I tell him he has to really show me a sign. Not a hidden sign but He has to make it clear to me because I don’t “read between the lines” well.
When we had our miscarriage, we had already been trying to have a baby so once I was cleared after the D&C we wanted to keep trying. At that time I thought we wanted a baby more than ever. Today, I want it even more than I did a year ago. 3 months had gone by of us trying, some would say, “naturally” and we had no luck. I contacted my doctor again to see if I could be on either Clomid or Letrozole. Now that he knew I was capable of being pregnant, he went on and prescribed me Clomid. Let me just stop right there…..I had no idea what I was getting myself into. If you have ever taken Clomid you may know where this is going.
The next few months while I was on Clomid were absolutely horrible. I felt like I was in this deep dark hole and I could not get out. Life was just hard. I was talking to my mom one night in the back of the car after dinner and I ended up just crying, for no reason! Somehow, we got on the topic of my medication and she said she had no idea that was how I was feeling. We looked up the symptoms and she had told me about one of her close friend’s daughters who had experienced the same thing with a medicine...come to find out, it was Clomid also. That was all I needed to know. I called my nurse the next month and told her that I was not going to take this anymore. She was so nice. She felt bad that it has been making me feel this way. My doctor has to sign off when I switch medicine but he was already gone for the day. She had called him because I was going to have to start the new medication over the weekend and if I did not get this, I would have missed this month’s window. From that point on for about the next 8 months, I took Letrozole. The months would come and go. I could definitely tell a difference with this medicine. Things were still stressful, especially during basketball season. When taking this medication you have to take on days 3-7 of your cycle, sex every other day on days 14-21, unless you are at your peak and it’s back to back days, lab work on day 26. I mean there are so many things to remember. As I mentioned, my husband is a coach and when he is gone from 6am until 11pm if not later---it is kinda hard to do some of these things.
One morning, I think it was a Tuesday, I was sitting waiting to get my progesterone lab work done. I luckily only had to do this a few times when I first started each medication because it has always shown that I have ovulated. Anyways, God knew what He was doing because He knew I needed a friend. I checked in and saw my friend there. I sat down next to her. We have always known each other but we were never really that close. Oh how things have changed. We small talked for a little bit but I think we were both wondering if we were there for the same reason but it was kinda awkward to ask. I mean people don't just openly go out and say “Hi, I am here to get my lab work because I’m struggling to get pregnant.” Typically, you just sit there quietly trying to get in and out as fast as possible. Finally, we just got it out there in the open, because we kinda figured out that’s what we were both doing anyways. We ended up both seeing the same OBGYN and we started talking all about that. It was so nice to just know another person who sees your same doctor. We were also both taking the same medicine. Things were just lining up. I remember leaving that day and just had this peace of calming and knew this would be the start of a special friendship. Our moms are also friends, so I think it was also nice for them to have someone to talk to that understands what their child is going though. What mom likes to see their daughters struggling? Especially when there is nothing they can do to help.
When COVID hit, I really thought those next few months could be our chance. Austin and I were both at home and got to “follow the rules” to the T. Nothing was standing in our way. But after months of quarantine… still nothing. I was so frustrated. I did not understand. I knew I was ovulating, so why was I not able to get pregnant? It was just not fair. After talking with my OBGYN they did suggest that we go on and see a fertility specialist in Little Rock because maybe there was something more they could do. Austin and I were both just tired of trying the same thing and nothing happening. If there were more to be done, even if it was finding out bad news, I would rather know so that we could either accept the issue or just do whatever we needed to do to fix the problem. They got my referral in and we had our first appointment in June.
We started by getting all sorts of tests done, starting with my TSH, LH, FSH, AMH, HgBA1C, Estradiol, Progesterone, etc. Everything came back normal. Austin got his “levels” checked. Normal. I had an ultrasound to look at my uterus and ovaries…normal. Lastly, I went and got an HSG test done to check for any blockage or scar tissue (which I hated getting done- it definitely brought back how I felt after the D&C)…normal. What in the world?? Nothing has come back wrong whatsoever. The only thing that was a little higher than normal was my AMH, but the doctor said I was only in the 75% percentile. He reassured me that it was still nothing to worry about. As nice as it is to hear the words “normal”, it is almost more frustrating because if things were normal then why can we not get pregnant? I am doing all the right things and following all the rules. If you have experienced infertility, you know that it can be exhausting.
So where are we today? Well…we still do not have answers. I get really frustrated because I know how bad we want this. Our doctor does have a plan for the next few months so we are just having to be patient and pray that we remember it is all in God's timing. Through this He has known what I needed. My friend that I talked about earlier, she and I are both using the same specialist. I am so thankful that me and her have remained friends through all these years. We definitely did not know 15 years ago that we would both be going through this, and although we wish our circumstances were different, being able to go through this together has strengthened our friendship and bonded us in beautiful ways. God knew that we needed each other. Although the last few years have been hard, I have grown as a person, we have grown in our marriage, and we have been given blessings that I would not have seen otherwise and I look forward to sharing that.
xoxo
..Hannah, this is your aunt Shirley. I love you❤ and will be joining you and Austin in prayer.
ReplyDelete