Impatiently Waiting for our Miracle(s)

I have debated writing about this topic, because I’m certainly not the expert. And I didn’t want this to come across as “I have issues in my life, so you should work on yourself so that you can help me.” But honestly, whether your fertility-challenged friend admits it or not, they need you. I’ve heard so many times along this journey, “I just don’t know what to say” or “how can I help you? Tell me what I can do.” Whether you have been one of those people or not, I’m going to give you my advice. These are the things that have helped ME throughout this process. We are all individuals, with different personalities, so this is not a one-size-fits-all, but hopefully some of this advice will help you help someone else who is struggling. Listen. You can learn so much about how to help just by listening. If you are a good enough friend to be reading this, you probably know your friend well enough to pick up on those cues. Are they quiet? Maybe they don’t want to talk about it. Distract th...

This post has nothing to do with infertility or pregnancy loss, other than the fact that we won’t be getting pregnant this month. I’ve alluded to the fact that Reid has some chronic health issues. 3 years ago in June he was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) and Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC). Ulcerative Colitis you’ve probably heard of, it’s a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, which cases him some discomfort and pain. PSC is a chronic, long term disease that slowly damages the bile ducts in the liver. According to the American Liver Foundation, PSC “causes bile to accumulate in the liver, where it gradually damages liver cells and causes cirrhosis, or fibrosis of the liver. As cirrhosis progresses and the amount of scar tissue in the liver increases, the liver slowly loses its ability to function. The scar tissue may block drainage of the bile ducts leading to infection of the bile.” So that one is a little scary. Since his diagnosis, we have learned so much more, as ...

I kinda left you all hanging on the 3 rd loss. But I promise it wasn’t on purpose. Until this past Thursday, we didn’t have all the answers. We heard from the nurse last week that the baby had trisomy 11, and was a boy. I was actually relieved it was a trisomy. How terrible is that? But that meant that it was a more common miscarriage, not one of these 2% chance events. But we didn’t really know what that meant until we met with the doctor on Thursday. He explained that with Trisomy 11, the baby wouldn’t have survived outside of the womb, and it’s unlikely we would have even made it past 8 weeks. He went on to explain that all 3 of our losses have been totally random. There really is no explanation as to why one person would have an ectopic, a triploidy, and a trisomy. Which may sound frustrating, but it was actually a relief to us. That means there probably isn’t an underlying issue with one of us (other than my low AMH). He suggested we do a miscarriage panel on me (which requi...

As a kid, I would cringe every time my dad would say “now, what lesson did we learn from this?” I felt like I heard it all. the. time. But as an adult, I realize I ask myself that often. Thanks, Dad. Going through this battle with infertility and pregnancy loss, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also grown a lot. Early in our struggles, I hated when people would tell me “this is all part of God’s plan.” I finally see that. Even though some days I still struggle with it. So what have I learned? We have very very little control over when and how we have a baby. I am a control freak, there – I admitted it, but I’ve learned to let go. That’s been a hard lesson to learn. I’ve learned that people don’t mean to hurt your feelings by the things they say. I have had so many people say hurtful things, not meaning to, over the course of this process. I could make a couple posts just about that, but I won’t. The truth is, if they really understood how badly their words hurt, they would never s...

Today is one of those days. If I’m really going to be very real about this stage of life we're in, I feel compelled to share the hard days too. I don’t want sympathy, I don’t need anyone to do anything for me, I just want to bring light to the fact that you don’t just “get over” a pregnancy loss (or 3). It never truly goes away. It’s grief. And grief comes in waves. Some days it will hit you like a ton of bricks and you think “where did that come from?” Some days there are triggers everywhere that set it off. Today is one of those days for me. I’ve been doing pretty well. I haven’t cried much since the last loss, I haven’t felt like a crazy person, I actually have been feeling pretty great. The support that I’ve gotten from this blog, and the fact that I’m putting those feelings on paper, really helps. But there will always be set-backs. This morning I woke up sad. I wasn’t really sure why, I was just sad. I started browsing Instagram and not only saw all of the babies in ...

December 1 st , 2016 we were finally cleared to stop “avoiding conception”. So here we go again. I have now realized that I have absolutely no control over this process, and that I can’t revolve my life around trying to get pregnant. That sounds like a no-brainer, but I had a really hard time getting to that place, as shown in my last several posts. I had to come to that realization on my own, not from other people trying to convince me of it. So we determined we weren’t going to “try”, but we also weren’t going to “not try.” Meaning, I’m done with ovulation tests and thermometers. We’re just going to enjoy our lives and hope things work out how they should. I had spent that last 2 ½ years planning my life around hoping to become pregnant, or being pregnant. Not gonna do it anymore. One thing that I did do that helped me feel like I was doing something to “help” the process and my stress-level was see an acupuncturist. Before we were supposed to start IVF, the fertility doctor rec...

As you can imagine, the recovery was difficult. With our first loss, I was starting a huge 400-person move (that’s my job, move coordination) the next day. Naturally, I had to hand that one over. The day that my grandma suddenly passed away, I was starting a project and had to hand that one over. So I had a pattern that I was determined to break. As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I had a move starting the day after my D&C. It was for a company that I used to work for, Greater Houston Partnership, so not only did I not want to miss it personally, emotionally I just needed to accomplish something. And do something where I felt I was in control of the outcome. My boss and co-workers are so wonderful. They knew that I wouldn’t be 100% for the moves, but also wouldn’t keep me from doing them as they knew that’s where I felt I needed to be. So they filled in all the gaps. I was able to be a part of it where I could, but was still in some pain from the procedure so I couldn’t be...