Our Stork Is Lost

One year ago today, I nervously shared with the world my first blog post and told everyone the personal details of a very difficult time Mark and I had been going through. Some friends and family knew we were trying to start our family and had suffered a loss, but only a few knew every little detail of everything we had gone through up to that point. I had read many blogs from other women who were also going through infertility, and after some encouragement from Mark I finally decided to share my own.

The amount of love and support we received that day was amazing. So many people reached out to share their love, prayers and support, and some even shared that they were going through the same thing and no one even knew. Since that day we have shared everything that has gone on the past year, suffering two more losses, going through surgery, going through a failed IVF,  hitting another year mark of trying to have a baby, and most recently changing doctors in hopes of a better outcome this time with IVF.

Over the past year, the love and support has not stopped since that one evening when I shared my first post. We have received SO many prayers, cards, messages, etc that have meant so much to us. We have grown stronger in our marriage during a time when so many couples fall apart, have realized who has really been there for us just to check in at random times or let us know  they are thinking of us without prying or asking too many questions, and not just because they have just seen a new post we have shared, but because they truly care. We are still learning to offer grace when we are let down or disappointed by those we expected more out of, or those who sometimes don’t say the best or most encouraging things to us, and we have grown in our faith to be able to surrender control to God and understand that His timing will be perfect. We have gotten the opportunity to enjoy each other and do the things we want that may not be as easy once we do have a child. I told Mark at the beginning of this year if we did not have a baby soon I was going to have to start a farm or something because I needed something to raise and take care of (other than Nelson and Calvin).  Well, we now have 10 animals. (I think Mark thought I was kidding and is now worried what will happen if we go another year without a baby).

There is still a huge hole in our hearts that we cannot wait to be filled, but it has made this journey so much more bearable with the random text or Facebook message offering someone’s prayers or words of encouragement, getting a card in the mail on a day that was really crappy and no one even knew it, and just knowing how many people there are out there that love us and pray for us, that will one day love our children as well!

Again, Thank You so much for the love and prayers, and we ask that you pray for us to have good news to share with you all soon!

 

We are so ready to trade in these sufferings for the joy let me tell you! Last week was the one year mark of seeing a fertility specialist and honestly I hoped we would never make it here! A year ago my hope was that we would have our baby by now but that just hasn’t happened. After our failed IVF cycle in April, we decided to take a break for a few months and enjoy our summer. I definitely needed both a mental break, and a physical break from shots, ultrasounds, appointments, etc. We wanted to be able to relax and enjoy our summer and that is what we have done! Our plan was to start birth control in July for our next round of IVF, and you would think I would have learned by now to stop planning.

While waiting for my period to start in July, we found out I was pregnant. Deja vu from last December when we were planning to start our first IVF and ended up pregnant. I hate sharing bad news so I will just keep it short in that we once again suffered an early miscarriage. It felt different this time, almost expected at this point and I think we both just felt numb. I once again had labs drawn for the next several weeks until my HCG dropped and then we had an appointment with our doctor. I had also decided to schedule an appointment with a different fertility center to get a second opinion and I am so glad I did.

Our appointment with our current doctor went the same as it always does, all of my tests have come back normal, my tube isn’t an issue now, we obviously can get pregnant on our own so maybe we don’t need IVF. He said I could have a SHG which would allow him to look at the uterus again even though he said everything was fine when he was in for surgery. He said it was up to us whether we try on our own, do IUI again, or do another round of IVF. That’s about all we got out of him.

Two days later we had an appointment with the new clinic. The difference was unreal. I instantly felt like this doctor wanted to find out and “fix” whatever was going on ASAP, he took me to an ultrasound room right then and there to look at the uterus. We went over the last protocol I had been on for IVF and he couldn’t believe that is what the doctor had me on based on my labs showing how I should respond to the medications, etc. He was upfront and made no promises, but he gave us hope and that is what we need right now. His advice was to do IVF with Preimplantation Genetic Screening of the Embryos. This way we can check for any abnormal embryos that if transferred would lead to miscarriage. He will also have me on a different medication protocol that will hopefully result in more embryos.

So that is the next step in this journey, we will be doing IVF again in the near future. I don’t know if we will share exactly when this time, as last time was a bit stressful and I hated having to share it didn’t work, but please know that we will share either way when we feel ready, and please just continue to pray for us!

There are so many blogs I have discovered lately that I love following, and Bloglovin makes it so easy! It lets me know when any of the blogs that I am following has posted something new! If you are looking for blogs of any topic to check out and start following, definitely check it out!

My bloglovin link is below 🙂

https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/our-stork-is-lost-18942677

 

 

I’m not going to lie, there were times in the past two months that I wondered if we would ever get to this point where we were able to move on from our miscarriage and get to try again.

It took over five weeks for my HCG levels to get down to below 10 which would make me no longer “pregnant”. I use quotations there because honestly, the moment we saw that there was no baby in the uterus on the ultrasound, I no longer felt pregnant. I don’t mean that in a physical sense but more an emotional one. Those next five weeks were hard, like really really hard. I continued to bleed the whole time, had blood drawn multiple times a week, and continued to experience some pain. One Saturday night I finally had a breakdown. I was in a lot of pain that night (the Dr. said it was most likely due to my hormone levels finally beginning to drop), and I laid in bed crying, half from the pain and half from just wanting it all to be over with. I remember telling Mark I felt like a crazy person and just “wanted it out of me”. I was so tired of getting blood drawn and being told where my levels were at. I was completely emotionally exhausted. My levels continued to drop slowly but surely, but not before another episode of severe pain which was due to a hemorrhagic cyst that had formed. (We like to keep things exciting in this journey apparently).

We had decided once my levels were completely down, that I was going to have surgery to remove my right fallopian tube. When we first found out that tube was blocked, our doctor had told us that not only could it prevent us from getting pregnant, but it could also possibly cause issues sustaining a pregnancy because fluid can accumulate and become toxic to the embryo. My HCG was finally at 2 on January 26th, and on February 13th I underwent surgery. The doctor was able to detach and cauterize closed the right fallopian tube vs completely removing it, which he said would be easier on me. Once he was in there and could visualize the tube he said it appears this was a birth defect and that my right fallopian tube never formed correctly and therefore was never open like it should have been. He said my left tube was considered “abnormally normal” and looked like it had tried to do the same thing when it formed, but it was open which is how we have been able to get pregnant.

Now that my levels are back to normal and surgery and recovery are over with, we are ready to get things moving again with IVF. I will be starting birth control in the next few days and then injections in a few weeks. We started this journey to becoming parents two years ago this month and are hoping and praying the end is near. We appreciate any extra prayers this next month as we begin a new part. IVF is intense and can be somewhat scary, but we are excited and hopeful to be one month closer to finally having our baby or babies 😉

We shared with everyone that we would be starting the IVF process this month, so we thought with Christmas just a few days away, and that we would be seeing a lot of family and friends who I’m sure may be wondering how everything is going, we wanted to give an update.

We finished all of the lab work, mandatory counseling session required by our clinic, and paid our deposit last month and everything was set up and ready to start this month. Our medications were ordered and ready to be delivered last week, and I had started birth control as required so they can be in complete control of my cycle. Everything was going according to plan until……

We unexpectedly found out we had gotten pregnant on our own this month! To say I was shocked is an understatement! I had randomly threw up twice in a week and Mark told me to take a test. I told him that was silly because I had already had a period and started the birth control, but he insisted so I did. And it was positive, like the fastest positive I have ever gotten in all my times of taking pregnancy tests the past two years. So I took another, and another. I went for lab work that same day and my numbers came back good! I was still shocked and confused how this could happen, but we thought it may be a sign, given the timing of how it happened right before we started our injections for IVF. I had labs drawn again two days later and they were rising as they should. We still were being cautious and not allowing ourselves to get too excited, and two days later when it was time to have labs done again, I began to have some bleeding. My levels that day didn’t come back too reassuring, they had risen, but not as much as expected. We kind of began preparing for things to not go well again, but two days later, my levels jumped back up again like they should. When the nurse called she told me that they were now concerned that it may be a tubal pregnancy and we needed to come in the next day for an ultrasound. I had some pretty intense pain that day as well so that had us even more worried about an ectopic pregnancy. We went the next day for an ultrasound and it was not the news we have hoped for. I had labs drawn again that day and they weren’t dropping as the doctor had expected given my continued bleeding and ultrasound findings. We then began to fear that I would either have to have the Methotrexate shot or be taken to surgery due to the embryo implanting in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus.

After having my blood drawn six times in the past ten days, and our second ultrasound, it was confirmed that we are having a tubal miscarriage. My levels are finally starting to drop so we think my body will be able to do this on its own and I will not have to do the Methotrexate or have surgery.

We are heartbroken and frustrated, but will be ok, and will continue this journey to getting our miracle hopefully one day soon.