To Those Still Hurting...

Man these past few months have been a complete shift in my life. I've gone from taking a bunch of medication that changed my mood and personality, to taking prenatal vitamins. I've gone from crying more days than not over not getting what I want, to crying more days than not for getting what I don't deserve. I use to think "Why does ______ get to be pregnant and I don't?" and now I think "Why do I get to be pregnant and __________ doesn't?"

My friends, just because I have become pregnant doesn't mean I've forgotten the past 2 1/2 years. It seems almost like a celebrity who the public thinks they've forgotten where they come from. I have not forgotten my small town. I haven't forgotten where I came from. Because of where I came from, I have looked at this gift in such a different light than I would have 2 1/2 years ago.

The past 2 years on our wedding anniversary I've been so excited to celebrate another year with my amazing husband. Yet in the back of my mind the past 2 anniversaries have marked the start date of our journey to start a family. The happiest day of my life was also the starting date to a long 2 years of starting our family. As we've watched our marriage grow and our love for the Lord grow, it's been hard to sit back and wonder when our family would grow.

My heart still has days that I hurt. I still wonder "Why now?" I still find myself wishing that this day could have come more quickly. I wish I hadn't had to struggle, to wait, to spend so much time worrying and crying. I know that God has a plan for me, my husband, and this child. I still have no clue what that is and why we couldn't have had this child given to us when we first started praying, but I continue to pray for that answer.

In the 2ish months that we have been pregnant it seems like either everyone else is getting pregnant too, or I'm finding out more and more people are struggling. While I am so overjoyed with the news that Baby Hyde is going to have so many friends so close in age, I know that there are women who see me and many of my friends get pregnant around the same time (totally not planned) and wish to be part of that group.

When we found out that we were pregnant, my heart obviously burst out of my chest and my happiness couldn't be contained. Of course that's how I would react! After fighting so hard, praying even harder, and spending so much time invested, I'm obviously allowed to be happy! But as I was getting ready to tell a few of my closest friends and family, I knew that there would be some people who I am close to who's joy might not be as strong as others. I had to be very careful with how I shared the most amazing news.

But why Amanda? Why not scream it from the rooftops and be excited?

Guys, trust me it was hard not to!! But when your heart has hurt for so long, and you know the pain of seeing your dream come true for someone else, you know (for the most part) how to not be a jerk about it. The hardest part was one of the people I'm closest to in my life is suffering through unexplained infertility. So I knew I couldn't just go jumping up and down to them (even though I wanted to SO BADLY) and expect them to jump for joy along side of me. I had to watch my words. I had to keep my joy to a smile and simple joy. Now, if you asked this person how they felt when they found out I was pregnant they probably are so over the moon excited for us. But if the roles had been reversed, I would have wanted them to act towards me the way I did towards them. Now that the pregnancy has sunk in a little bit more, that "awkwardness" I guess you could say has started to go away (at least on my end) but I still make sure I don't text them every day with my complaints of morning sickness.

Friends and family, random people of the internet, I know infertility sucks. Just because I've come around the other side of the mountain and have beaten the odds doesn't mean I forgot my past hurts. I am overwhelmed with joy to be pregnant, of course, but my heart still grieves when another friend posts her negative test, that their IVF treatment has been pushed back another month for the third time, that infertility is ripping apart a marriage. My heart hurts because my heart knows.

Anyway, this has been long and babbling, and I probably didn't even make the point that I wanted to when I started writing this. So I guess here it is. All of our stories are different. 2 months of trying to get pregnant can be just as hard on someone who has been trying for 2 years. Someone who has no infertility issues can still be upset when they can't get pregnant right away. My 2 years of trying felt like an eternity, and yet there are some people who say "I remember the 2 year mark, that was 8 years ago." I was a "lucky" one who's first IUI worked. But I still have so much pain and sadness from those 2 years of waiting.

Never give up, never lose sight of what your dream is (no matter what it is!), and always remember who is the one who has your back!

"'Cause love can fix a busted heart like mine
Put it back together every single time
Turn my mess to a miracle
Anything is possible" - Matthew West- Anything is Possible

XOXO
Amanda

Little Miracle

WE DID IT!


It only took us 805 days, 3 doctors, 6 rounds of Clomid, countless blood tests (and other invasive tests), and one IUI, but we did it! There's a little nugget growing inside of me and I couldn't be more thankful!

So here's what's been going on in the TTC to pregnant journey!

On June 26th, Mike and I had a 9 am appointment at a different IVF office than we were use to. We knew we had to be out of there by 940 at the latest to make it to our church outdoor service on the lake, and so we were only rushing around like crazy. We got there and I assumed it was only blood work to check levels and then we'd be on our way. Oh no, we also had to have an ultrasound done too. Which would have been totally fine, except they never put my name on the ultrasound list so we waited and watched everyone around us go and then more people come in, and they got to go and we just sat. I finally spoke up and they were like "oh, you weren't on the list."

I was NOT happy.

I finally got into the ultrasound tech's room and was prepared for them to say "sorry, your follicles aren't where they need to be come back again for more ultrasounds until it's where it should be." They obviously can't say what's going on right in the room, but she did say she could see a cyst on the left side *remember this because it comes into play later on* and that it was rather large.

So we finally get out of there, drive to our church picnic (which we've now missed the entire service) and just try to relax. My mom did get baptized that day so I can NOT complain! We got there just in time for the call to baptism and so she said "you're here, I'm doing it" and I got to watch my husband and our pastor baptize my mom in the lake. It was a beautiful moment!!!

As we were getting ready to leave I saw that my phone had been ringing and had a missed call. It was the Dr. who left the message that said "Your follicle is 17.33 mm so do your trigger shot tomorrow night and then come in Wednesday for your IUI."

I was in shock.

I told my few close friends from church how excited I was that it was actually happening and they prayed over us and sent us off with smiles and cheers!!!

The trigger shot Monday was nothing, so we don't have to get into detail about that.

Wednesday (June 29th) morning came and I was so nervous and excited. My appointment was at 10, so I made sure we got there a little bit before. It was a good thing we did, because (to not give gross details) we were suppose to bring Mike's swimmers to be cleaned at 9 so that they were ready to go by 10. Woops! The nurse assisting the Dr. told us that next time we should make sure we bring his boys (or girls) in an hour before. To which I replied "Well, no offense, but hopefully there won't be a next time!" The IUI went great. It wasn't as uncomfortable as I was expecting. It took about 30 seconds and we were done! We were now in the Two Week Wait (TWW).

I was not sure how long this wait was going to feel, but I was prepared for the longest 2 weeks before I'd go in to the Dr.'s for my first blood pregnancy test. Thankfully in that time, we  had a 4th of July party and my birthday so at least the first week of the TWW would go by quickly. The party was great, Mike brought me to Saratoga Springs and Lake George for my birthday, and we had just a wonderful relaxing few days.

Fast forward to Saturday, July 9th. I was home all day and Mike was working. Something just felt really off, but I had told myself that we wouldn't take a home pregnancy test until Monday or Tuesday. The trigger shot we did can show false positives if you take a test too early so I didn't want to see that second line and know it wasn't real. But something told me to go buy a test.

5:00 pm I took the test. I was expecting to see one line, just as I had always seen for the past 805 days. Every test has been negative. No slight positive, no "squinters", nothing. Blank tests. So I wasn't expecting this.

 

It wasn't as dark as the control line, but there was definitely a line there. I absolutely lost it. I cried some of the ugliest cries I've ever cried.

 

And then I freaked out.

 

So many thoughts ran through my head, but the first one was "How do I tell Mike?" I had thought about cute creative ways to tell him over the years, but now that it was real, I had no idea how to tell him the biggest news of his life. I ended up getting him a bottle of "Smashed Pumpkin" Pumpkin head beer, a bottle of Maine Root Root Beer, and a baby bottle. I also had found a onesie that said "I love daddy" and I put the pregnancy test on top of it. He was definitely in shock to say the least. The best part was him saying "I mean, can you take a test this early? Well, obviously you can, I mean, there it is right there!"

 

The next morning I had to be sure, because obviously the 5:00 pm test couldn't have been right. So I took the second test that was in the box...

 

 

Well, it doesn't get much clearer than that!!!

 

So on Wednesday July 13th, we had our first blood pregnancy test. My numbers were at 216 which was very good (usually at that time anything above 50 is good). On the 15th my numbers had way more than doubled to 754, and then on 22nd they were at 9860. Everything was going perfectly! I felt great, my appetite was up, my energy was up, and I was feeling on top of the world!

 

And then I started spotting.

 

When you spot when you're pregnant you tend to freak out. I let the nurse at IVF know, and she said it could still be implantation bleeding and not to worry about it. I was suppose to go to Maryland for a week with my youth group kids, but because of the spotting I decided I should probably stay back just in case something happened.

 

And I am beyond glad that I stayed home.

 

I took the week off from work because I started having some nausea and would rather take the week to relax since I was already scheduled off from work anyways. The spotting was still constant, but I was trying not to worry about it.

 

Until I started bleeding that Friday morning.

 

I woke Mike up at 4 in the morning and said we had to go to the hospital NOW. Thankfully, we live about a 2 minute drive from the hospital so it wasn't a long drive. We got there and spent the next 4 hours at the ER. They put an IV in me for blood tests, took my blood pressure, and I was feeling horrible. My stomach was in knots from the morning sickness and from the anxiety. I looked at Mike and told him "I can't do this. God wouldn't do this. After all this time, all this praying and hoping, why would God do this??" They brought me in to have an ultrasound done and I made Mike come in with me. I couldn't do this alone. I couldn't look at him and tell him there was no baby. I would never be able to formulate the words. But I continued to just pray and pray and pray and said "God, you're so good. Don't let this be the end."

 

And then I looked up at the ultrasound and saw the most perfect little dot on the screen. There was a baby. There was a heart beat. There was promise and hope.

 

And there was also a 5cm Hemorrhage.

 

So long of the short is I have to wait for the hemorrhage to clear up. It isn't uncommon in pregnancy, but it still scared the living daylights out of me.

 

We are currently at about 9 weeks and the baby is doing great! We saw little nugget at 7 weeks with a perfect heart beat of 153!  Mom however is being hit HARD with morning sickness. And can I just say, it isn't morning sickness. It's every day sickness. For anyone who hasn't been pregnant or had no morning sickness (ps I hate you) I pretty much feel hung over 24/7. I've been pretty good about drinking lots of fluids, but as the IVF Dr. said, the first trimester is survival mode. So I'm not eating a ton, and when I do eat it isn't exactly "normal meals" (fruity pebbles has been making up most of my meals the past week) but when I do eat (like the hamburger and half a brat at my moms over the weekend) it's like I'm super woman!!! 

I couldn't do any of this without the support of my closest friends and family, but especially without my husband. Babe, you are so patient with me and I can't thank you enough for the breakfast in bed every day and for all the little things you do for baby and I. Once I'm back on my feet and not spending most days in the bathroom, I will make YOU breakfast in bed!

Xoxo

Amanda (and baby!)