Becoming pregnant was a miracle for us.
Brandon and I were married in April of 2007. About a year thereafter, we began trying to get pregnant. In the last four years, we have had several procedures done. The first major procedure I had done was a laparoscopic surgery where the doctor discovered that I had a condition that is called "endometriosis." I also had my tubes flushed at this time. Several months later, we tried an IUI (intrauterine insemination). Brandon was checked and everything was fine with him. Months went by and still no success. My cycles were very abnormal and sometimes I would go for 6 months without having a new one. So we were really at a loss of what to do.
We looked into a fourth OBGYN doctor's opinion and this doctor recommended that we have the surgery for endometriosis done again with a 6-month injection treatment for the condition following. This took a lot of faith but I know we needed to do it. This surgery occurred in the spring of last year and the injection treatment went through the summer of 2011.
In the fall of 2011, I quite my full-time job at the U of I School of Music and began my Masters of Science degree. I completed this degree just this last May of 2012 and we moved to Kennewick, WA. Brandon passed the bar and we were very blessed to find work right away. When we got to the Tri-Cities, we were contemplating whether or not we wanted to see a fertility specialist. My aunt recommended a doctor that was very successful with infertility patients whom she had heard about through a friend of hers.
We decided to give this doctor a go. His name is Dr. Ortolano and he is the only doctor at Arbor Healthcare for Women. He does deal with many infertility patients and is very aggressive. He suggested that since I had recently finished my endometriosis treatment, we try everything we can to get me pregnant right away. We started with regular ultrasounds. These also took a lot of trust. I knew that each time we did an ultrasound, it would cost us $300 but I just had to not think about that and have faith. It felt right. Through these ultrasounds we learned that I also have a condition called PCOS (polycystic ovarian disorder), where your follicles do not general get large enough to mature into eggs. So the doctor gave me some fertility medication (femara) and several shots to amp up the size of my follicles. Again we did several ultrasounds to check my progress. The shots were working incredibly well so the doctor gave me a series of 6-7 of them and then finally a shot to help release my egg near ovulation. After all of the shots, my stomach felt so beat up and sore but I came home feeling that I had done all I could within my power to make things happen and that it was the Lord's turn to decide what I needed next.
At this point, the experience became very sacred and I had several very personal experiences that led me to be very suspicious that the treatment had worked. I took pregnancy tests every day and I wasn't sure if I was tricking my mind into seeing a faint positive line or not. So I waited a few days and took another test to find it was positive. This would have been only when we were 2-3 weeks along. I was able to detect it very early. Then came the scary part. My stomach began to inflate. I was very uncomfortable and thought there was no way that pregnancy really felt like this right away.
I went into the doctor's and learned that as a result of my fertility treatment, I had a rare case of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome. Within a few days, my symptoms became severe and I was sent to the hospital. Those next few days were very dark days. My blood levels were not right and the doctor also had a liter and a half of fluid from my ovaries drained from my stomach. I was also at risk for blood clots. I was terribly uncomfortable and so nervous about the baby and my ovaries, which were now the size of cantaloupes. Fortunately, my blood levels improved within the next few days and I was sent home from the hospital. I was still however on strict bed rest and very uncomfortable. I lived and slept on the couch propped up against a memory foam pad and tried not to think about the risks of my condition.
The hyperstimulation is a condition that is pretty rare and normally goes away within 1-2 weeks if you are not pregnant. However, if you are pregnant, it can last up to your entire first trimester (which was more of what I experienced). I remember putting on my Sunday dress one morning because I really wanted to go to church but after I realized how big I looked due to the overstimulation I was too sad and stayed home.
About a month after I got out of the hospital, I was starting to feel improvements finally. However, I soon began to bleed and went into the doctor's immediately. The nurse found in the ultrasound that I had a pretty big hematoma and that the baby was starting to detach. Again, we were worried and prayed that everything would work out. The hematoma healed after a couple of weeks and made it possible for me to go to girls camp and serve the young women in my ward.
Just this morning I went into the doctor's again because I was bleeding and I have been diagnosed with placenta previa. It really will be a miracle if this baby makes it here but until then, I have been given strict instructions to not exercise or lift anything heavy, to take it really easy, and to make sure I am always fairly close to a hospital in case I begin losing blood severely. So there are still many fears I have but I still feel a tremendous amount of gratitude for the opportunity that we have to be pregnant. Even if something happens and in the end it does not work out, I will have been able to experience some of what it is like.
From this experience and my current challenges, I continue to learn to rely on the Lord and realize that His plan is what I need to try to understand, not my own.
I have also learned that infertility is one of the most challenging experiences that a woman can have and that it truly is hard to understand unless you have experienced it. Pregnancy is not something that just comes easy to everyone but yet it is our greatest joy as women and none of us would want to be denied the great joy that it brings to raise children of our own. I hope that those who struggle with infertility and need someone to talk to will come to me and that I will be able to do the same if I continue to struggle with it throughout the remainder of my life.
Along this journey, a song by Hilary Weeks has been very inspiring to me. It is called "Beautiful Heartbreak" and the lyrics are as follows:
I had it all mapped out in front of me,
Knew just where I wanted to go;
But life decided to change my plans,
And I found a mountain in the middle of my road.
I knew there was no way over it,
So I searched for a way around;
Brokenhearted I started climbin',
And at the top I found...
Every fear, every doubt,
All the pain I went through;
Was the price that I paid to see this view;
And now that I'm here I would never trade...
The grace that I feel,
And the faith that I find;
Through the bitter-sweet tears,
And the sleepless nights;
I used to pray he'd take it all away,
But instead it became a beautiful heartbreak.
I never dreamed my heart would make it,
I thought about turning around;
But heaven has shown me miracles,
I never would have seen from the ground.
Now I take the rain with the sunshine,
Cause there's one thing that I know;
He picks up the pieces,
Along each broken road.
