Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Our Baby Journey

Finally, the cat is out of the bag!  Barrett and I are expecting our first child in April of 2014.  We are beyond excited, in fact I don't think there is a word to describe how ecstatic we are.  After trying to conceive for almost 4 years, this pregnancy is a complete miracle.  I plan to script my pregnancy experience on this blog and I hope that is will serve man purposes:  giving infertile women hope, giving pregnant women a laugh while, and encouraging others to seek Christ when they are in a difficult place.  Welcome to the ADD Pregnant Woman's blog - it's sure to throw you for a loop ;-)

Let's start with the infertility journey.  Like every young couple, Barrett and I were under the impression that our pregnancy would happen quickly and easily.  Boy were we wrong.  After about 6 months of trying, I went to see my Gynecologist because in my heart I knew something was wrong (side note: ALWAYS trust your instincts).  My gyno blew off our efforts and told me that when we had tried for a year and were still not prego then I could come back and she would refer me to a fertility specialist.  I can't explain how angry I was.  My family does not have a history of infertility, the women in my family think about getting pregnant and wake up the next morning with a baby bump.  I knew something was wrong; so I took matters into my own hands.

I called the fertility clinic, Reproductive Endocrinology of Charlotte (aka REACH), and pretended to be my gynecologist's office and referred myself.  When REACH asked for my paper work to be faxed, I then called the gynecologist's office and told them that my information needed to be faxed over, STAT!   So our infertility journey began.

We started with simple testing, and everything came back fine.  The specialist's repsonse, "You should be pregnant and you're not, so we're going to make that happen."  Oh, I could finally see the sun shining again - this doctor wanted to help us conceive a child.  YAY!

So we began bloodwork and based on my hCG levels each month we would have more bloodwork and scheduled intercourse.  After a few months, the specialist decided to do a little digging to find out why my ovulation was off, I was ovulating around day 8 instead of days 12-14.  With more tests they found that I had Stage 4 Endometriosis.  Because of the advanced stage, I was immediately scheduled for a laparoscopic procedure to remove the endometriosis.  This was a procedure that they estimated to take about 30 minutes, as they simply remove the endometriosis with a laser and then close the 4 incisions.  My procedure took over 2 hours.  The endometriosis had spread so much, that it was on my uterus, cervix, stomach, bladder, and bowels.  Additionally, the endometriosis had caused my cervix to be angled backwards and they had to move it.  Needless to say, my recovery which was projected to be 1 day took an entire week.  But we were hopeful after having the endometriosis removed and ready to start fertility treatment.

With the endometriosis removed, it would still continue to grow and affect my ovulation timing as well as the maturation of my eggs.  So the specialist decided to treat the situation this way:
Step 1.  Follistim Injections: A commonly-prescribed fertility drug for women. Given by injection, FSH works by stimulating the ovaries to produce more follicles and thereby, more eggs.  I take this to help produce more eggs so there would be more of a chance of the sperm fertilizing one.
Step 2. Lupron Injections:  Ovulation cannot occur naturally while on Lupron because LH, which triggers ovulation, is suppressed. This prevents a premature surge of the LH before the retrieval, which could cause loss of the cycle.
Step 3. hCG Injection:  One injection given to trigger ovulation.
This is a very expensive treatment cycle and we were spending around $600/month on the injections and doctor's visits. We used this treatment cycle for several months but then stopped because my endometriosis levels were too high again.

I underwent treatment again and we sat down with our specialist who wanted to know whether we wanted to proceed with the same procedures or advance to IVF.  We weighed our options and after sitting with the financer and finding out that our IVF procedure would cost $26,000 we opted to not try it since it's not guaranteed.  We did not want to go through the months and months of injections again, so we told our specialist and his nurse that we would be putting our faith in God.

Eight months later, with no focus on ovulation or hCG levels we conceived naturally thanks to God's love and miraculous healing.  I have only been to the fertility specialist once since finding out we were pregnant, and that was just to "confirm" the pregnancy.  I have not had any levels taken but I truly believe 100% that God has healed my body of endometriosis and that is why we were able to get pregnant on our own without any fertility!

Soooo, now that we are preggers - I will be posting some updates of our Baby Journey!  Here's to a healthy baby and an exciting journey for our family!


5 comments:

  1. Matthew 19;26...with God all things are possible. Excellent testimony. Praying for you three.

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    1. Thanks, Jill! All the prayers and support mean SO much!

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  2. this really about made me cry. I cannot tell you how happy I am for yall. you deserve to be a mommy more than anyone I know and im so dang um happy lol that its happening!!!!!. God is amazing and he sure does work in mysterious ways. cant wait to see that beautiful baby! :)

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    1. Thanks, Brittany! This situation has brought us so much closer to God and we are amazed at the miracles he can perform!

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    2. Very Welcome! please keep me informed on when you found out what your having bc I would love to get yall something for the baby! :)

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