Life is a Journey... and it ain't always pretty

Well, I look back and I have not been here since 2014!  

Life has definitely flown by in the last few years!  

Just a little update on our lives:

•  I am still at my office and truly love my passion for helping people get well.
• I still am a Wildtree Representative and love using their products daily in our kitchen.
• I am also still a Young Living Distributor but more than that, I am an Oil Addict...
• John is now the owner of his own business and keeping very busy.
• Jack and Penny are still driving us crazy on a daily basis and are still escape artists!
• We are on an infertility journey that we never expected to be on.  That is where we start...

Over the next few weeks I will be writing regarding what has brought us to this point, 

but today I want to begin with May 2015...

This is the day that I decided I wanted to take control of my own fertility... or so I thought.  I had been having a lot of female related problems for years, but they had gotten much worse over the past few months.  I remember having a period so heavy and intense that when my husband came home from work I was sitting in the chair in a complete daze.  He was worried, said I was incredibly pale and for him to worry was the last draw for me.  I made an appointment the next day to see my doctor.  

I met with  my doctor, who referred me to another physician and so the fertility journey begins.  I was informed that I had 2 options, become pregnant or go on birth control (again).  I knew that I would not be going back on BC, after so many years of being on it and the horrible effects it had on my mood, I just couldn't do it again.  I also felt that it just wasn't the right thing for me.  We had also been trying for quite some time to get pregnant but to no avail.  I was tracking my temps, ovulation, and my symptoms like a hawk, but something wasn't right.  I was not ovulating... at least not when I was "supposed" to be according to my charting (more on that another time!).  My doctor decided that I should try Clomid, so we did.  We jumped through the hoops, just like anyone else would feeling like this is your only shot at the one thing that you want more than anything else in the world.  Let me tell you though, Clomid is not for the faint of heart.  It made me angry, I mean really angry, depressed, uncomfortable in my own skin, my hair fell out, my face broke out, my body was a disaster, and I gained 12 lbs in the first 2 months.  I have not considered myself "overweight" until my doctor decided to put me on a different medication on month 4, because I was now in a higher BMI bracket.  (Due to the Clomid mind you!!!)  We did all of the meds as directed for 4 months.  Did they work? Technically Yes!  But ultimately NO, because they were not treating any cause, just effects.  Did I ovulate, Yes.  Did I get pregnant, No.  Were the side effects worth it? In my mind, for me. No. 

After month 4 I just couldn't do it any longer.  I had this feeling in my gut that there was something else going on.  The fact that I am not ovulating at 32 years old was not ok with me.  I also was not ok with believing that my heavy periods, intense cramps, constipation, diarrhea, and mood swings (to name a few) were "normal."  I just wasn't buying it.  As a woman, I knew my body and knew that there was something else going on that was not being addressed.  So we took a break to get healthy again.  I did a lot of research and started taking better care of myself again.  I was eating right, taking some supplements to help enhance my fertility and I was continuing my charting.   

We get through the holidays, which was NOT easy on my diet, let me tell you!  But I was determined to prove my doctor wrong, to prove that I could get pregnant without Clomid.  And guess what?!  We did!  We got pregnant in December.  I remember taking the first test, I always took them, but honestly never knew when I was considered "late" since my cycles were so abnormal.  I glanced at it as I went to throw it away (I just assumed it was negative like every other one) and holy moly, it was positive!  It was only faint, but it was there!  I waited a few days and did it again.  POSITIVE!  I was so excited, and scared, and more excited.  We both were!  I was right, I didn't need the medications, I could do this!  Then everything changed in a few short weeks...

I remember it like it was yesterday.  I started spotting... waited a day for it to stop, but it didn't.  Called the doctor, he wanted an ultrasound that day, we went in and they confirmed that we were indeed pregnant!  Spotting can be normal in some pregnancies is what we were told, but if it gets worse to call.  Well this was Friday and by Sunday it was definitely worse.  I was in a lot of pain and the bleeding was intense.  Visited the doctor again on Monday and my HCG levels were dropping.  Needless to say, the doctor tried to be optimistic, but I knew... I just knew this was a miscarriage.  I was so devastated.  I cried constantly for days.  Everything we wanted, gone... we felt jipped.  You have all of those questions...  Why me?  What did we do wrong?  What happened?  Why Why Why? I still feel all those questions.  I would have been due September 14.  This miscarriage was the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with.  To be told that you very likely won't get pregnant without help, to having it happen without it, to having that joy ripped away so quickly... it sucks... no better way to say it.  I was sad, angry, frustrated, and most of all very depressed.  I remember feeling like people were going to judge, saying "but you were only 6 weeks, you weren't "really" pregnant yet"  But to anyone that says that, you sir, are a jerk.  The moment that you find out that you are pregnant, the moment that test is positive, you see it on ultrasound, you are pregnant.  Just because that child could not survive being born makes it no less of a child, and it makes you no less of a parent.  I will never get to see, hold, or know my first child.  That is a very sad fact, as it is for so many other mothers and fathers out there.  A fact that breaks my heart.  

 

Even with all of those feelings I was having, I was also determined to follow my heart.  I was determined to get myself well and find out what was really going on in my body.  I felt that the road we were on was not working and there had to be a better way...  A better journey...
(to be continued...)