Fertility Specialist: Some TMI

I know I left the last post with somewhat of a cliff hanger, but I just had to make myself stop writing because it would have gone on forever.  I have thought about this next post a lot and so many different ideas have come to mind of what I would write about, but I'm just going to continue the story.  Let me just begin by saying that God has brought me to the point I am at now as only He can.  He has been faithful through this entire thing, but sadly I can't say the same for myself.  I have allowed myself to go to some dark places in my mind and in my heart.  Right now, today, I believe I have turned a few corners and am in a much better place than I was even just three or four months ago.  I have come to realize that the things that happen in my life that I see as interruptions are wonderful, divine interventions.  I have been doing a study on Jonah and it speaks to so much that we have been through and about my attitude through most of it.  Like Jonah, this was not my plan, but also like Jonah I know that God can use my story for generations to bring Him glory.  I know that what I have been through is not about me, but about God and His plan for not just me, but for many.  At church on Sunday we were singing It Is Well With My Soul.  I have sung this song so many times in my life, but this Sunday I really listened to the words and could sing them really meaning what these words were saying.  No matter what happens, it is well with my soul.  I can have peace through my trials because I know what Christ has done for me.  A few months ago I was not even able to sing the words because in my heart I did not mean them. 

Back to the story...

Our first appointment with our fertility specialist was in September of 2010.  As I said, he is wonderful.  I have decided not to share his name in the blog, but if you want to know who he is because you would like to use him please feel free to email me at mandynedwards@yahoo.com.  We went for our first appointment and we were both pretty nervous, but since I was the patient I felt like I was the one on the hot seat.  He walked in to the room and we immediately started talking about different people in the Bible, Hannah and Sarah, who had "fertility problems".  I remember him saying that he would work with us, but that he knew God was the ultimate giver of life and that he was just a pawn for God to use.  He so was so open with his faith in Jesus Christ that he even prayed with us at the end of our appointment.  He has prayed with us at almost all of our appoitments.  We knew this man believed in our Savior and that he was the person we were to walk this journey with as our doctor.  And so the blood work begins.  If you have never been through this then you should know that there are months that I have had to give blood three or four times.  The blood work checks your hormone levels and can tell the doctor different things about you throughout your cycle.  Through the blood work we figured out that I do not ovulate so we started our first round of Clomid, the answer to all of our problems (so I thought).  Jon was also tested twice and the first time his numbers were not good, but the second time they were a little better.  The doctor mentioned the possibility of Jon going to see a Urologist at this point, but said we would wait on that.  I remember the first month on Clomid after my blood work my doctor called me almost giddy because my progesterone was so high.  He had rarely seen it go from 0-whatever it was that day, which meant I had produced plenty of follicles.  I was extremely hopeful, but by the end of the month there was just disappointment.  We tried Clomid alone for two months and then the third and fourth month we combined it with and HcG shot, which is used to trigger ovulation.  We never got a positive test.

In January 2011 we stepped things up a notch with an IUI, Intrauterine Insemination.  This month we moved on to a new medicine called Follistim.  It does the same thing Clomid does, but the differences are it is an injectable and it does not have the same side effect Clomid had with me.  Every time we tried something new I would have new excitement and hope.  I could almost feel our baby in my arms I was so excited and I was sure that this would be the month.  Once we started the Follistim I was being watched more closely with multiple visits to the doctor for ultrasounds to see how the follicles were maturing.  Everything looked great!  I had multiple follicles in both ovaries, but not too many to worry about.  We went in for the IUI.  Jon gave his sample and the doctor was giddy again b/c Jon's numbers were phenomenal!  We were even more excited at this point.  We go in to the examination room to start the IUI.  As the doctor is in the middle of the procedure he comes across a problem (I apologize if this gets too graphic), he can't get the catheter through my cervix.  Well, this is pretty important for an IUI b/c if you can't get through the cervix then you can't get to the uterus.   He tried a couple of different catheters and even tried to dilate my cervix (which was not pleasant to say the least), but nothing worked.  He ended up inseminating my cervix.  The whole point of an IUI is to get the sperm through the cervix and closer to the fallopian tubes so they don’t have to work as hard and swim as far.  We just prayed the sperm would find their way.  The doctor was perplexed and frustrated.  There have been times I believe our doctor wanted this as much as we did.  I was devastated.  I tried to hold it together while we were still in his office, but as soon as we walked into the hallway I completely lost it.  Jon was awesome.  He continued to be encouraging and just kept believing that if God wanted this to work it would.  Part of my believed that too and the other part was already considering this a failure.  As the month went on I was more optimistic.  The two weeks between the insemination and the pregnancy test were so long.  Unfortunately it was negative.

By this point I had already been through a good bit, but I kept telling myself that my body is just now working right and for most couples it can take a year to get pregnant when everything is working right.  I tried to be positive, I tried to tell myself that when God wanted us to have a baby it would happen. The medicine, mostly the Clomid, really messed with me emotionally.  I believe the Follistim does too, but Clomid was worse.  While on Clomid I was very emotional.  I cried a lot and was even angry some.  I remember when we started all of this I would say that I didn't want to become bitter.  I had heard of women becoming bitter to the point they couldn't even look at a baby without crying.  I didn't want that to be me.  I worked very hard to hide that part of me b/c I did become that a little bit, but I wanted to be positive.  I loved being around children, that never bothered me, but some things have been tough.  Baby showers can be tough, Mother's Day can be tough, holidays can be tough, my birthday can be tough because its another year that I'm not a mother.  The end of the month has been tough at times because each month we didn't get pregnant pushed us back a month to having a baby.  Sometimes a certain commercial or television show would be tough.   I remember one night Jon and I were watching a movie and a character in the movie announced she was pregnant.  I looked to Jon and said “really?  does it seem like everywhere we turn someone else is having a baby”.  The thoughts that have gone through my head as to why God has not allowed us to get pregnant have been crazy at times.  This has taken a toll on me in many ways, but I keep going.  The determination to have a child keeps me going.  

The story continues, but I am going to stop for today.  I know today that God is faithful, not because I have a child, but because I have a Savior.