That's my story, and I'm sticking to it...

*Note* - this is a very long and personal post, so if you don't think you can read it without being critical, save time and don't read it!

I'm not really sure why I'm sharing this right now, after all it's a very personal thing and up to this point I've been very private about it all. But it's been bouncing around in my head a lot lately and maybe I'm hoping that it will help us all be a little more aware of others, not to necessarily know what they're going through, but not judge them, because we never do know what they're really going through.


So, here's my story about our family and this little baby...


It started, well, a long time ago. From as far back as I can remember I wanted nothing more that to be a mother when I grew up. "House" of course was my preferred game of choice, but it didn't just end with that; we'd play "adoption", "quintuplets" and "pregnancy" (that's right, I remember a weekend where my friend and I decided that we were going to spend all day Saturday with a beach ball under our shirts and the rule was that it had to be touching your skin at all times. So, when bath time came around, I of course took a bath with that ball and made sure I was touching it the entire time)...weird, I know!


So, needless to say, when Jacob and I got married there was no question that we wanted to start our family after we were out of Africa and the Malaria medicine was out of my system. So, our move to Maryland for his new job sounded like the perfect time. But, as I've come to realize over the years, our plans aren't always what is planned for us. And so the struggle began. After a year of trying, we turned to doctors, who I learned weren't really all that interested in me getting pregnant, so after plenty of "oh, you're so young, you have plenty of time" and testing misdiagnoses that left me terrified, I asked to see a specialist. Six months of countless phone calls finally resulted in my doctor signing the referral and I was off to a new office (although much further away) that renewed my faith in the medcial profession and treated me as if I was human again. It was wonderful, and for the first time in 2 years, I finally had hope again!


I went through a myriad of testing and started my first round of clomid and other medications, which brought on morning sickness-like symptoms, but I was finally moving toward a goal. After several rounds of clomid, and upping the doses with absolutely no results, we decided to go ahead with injectable drugs, but I thought that was as far as I wanted to go, no IVF for me. So my mom, being a nurse, flew out for my first round of injections until I got comfortable giving them to myself. And finally they worked, something had worked, although, a little too well and all those hour and a half (each way) visits to the doctor, sometimes every 2-3 days, were worth it, I was seeing progress. But then we had to make a heart wrenching choice...since the medicine had worked so well, I had far too many mature eggs, which could result in high order multiples and since I had told my doctor that I wasn't going to do any selective termination, he decided that we'd either have to stop the cycle completely, or switch to IVF...and we had 2 hours to decide. I was distraught, and immediately called my husband, who was still at work and we decided that we'd have to go ahead and do IVF (thank heavens we made that choice)! We were able to retrieve plenty of eggs, but a few days after that procedure I found myself on the couch, in pain with my abdomen swelling and my breathing becoming more and more difficult. So after a week of spending my days lying flat, it eventually reached the point where I was scared to go to bed at night, telling Jacob that if I stopped breathing, he needed to just call 911 and not try to drive me to the hospital myself. That was the breaking point where I made an appointment to see my doctor on Sunday morning, and with tears running down my face I asked if I might have fluid in my lungs. Remarkably my blood oxygen level was 99% and my pulse was normal when I was laying down, but as soon as I would sit up, my pulse would jump to twice the normal rate, so after tapping my back, my doctor agreed that I might be retaining fluid and sent me to be admitted to the hospital. That hospital experience was not a fun one, but after 3 days in the hospital, iv's, one very large needle in my back and 1 1/2 liters of fluid being drained out of my right lung, I was feeling much better, but was still quite sore from what I learned were grapefruit-sized ovaries. I learned a lot about the love and support of my family during that time. My mother, who had just been out to visit 2 weeks earlier, jumped on the next flight out when she heard I was headed to the hospital, and I still tear up to think of the sacrifices that both she and my dear husband made during the next week of caring for me. Because of my complications, the embryos had to be frozen until I could recover enough to have them implanted. And so the regimen of shots, medicines, more shots and even more frequent visits to the doctor started. And then, our little miracle!

And through all this, although it's been harder than I ever thought possible, I have also had more peace than I ever thought possible. I know there are so many people that have gone through the same struggles that I have gone through, and many who go through things much worse, but through it all, I've learned some very valuable lessons...patience, faith, the love of a family, and the peace that can only come through the Savior. Although I wouldn't say that I fill blessed for having these trials, I am grateful for how much I've been able to grow through it all.

I don't want your sympathy, it's all in my past (hopefully) and if I had wanted sympathy you would have known about it long before now. But I'm proud of the journey I've made and what we've overcome! My hope is that we can all judge a little less, love a little more and never feel alone.