The Journey Begins Anew

We're starting down a road. A road we've been down before. But this time is different. A lot different.

Eight years ago, I found out I had fertility issues. We'd been trying to conceive for about a year. There were a few moments where we thought things were working out and that I was pregnant. I wish I could remember how that feels - to be excited and hopeful without any of the other crap. I remember being at a baby shower and someone saying to me, "You're next!" and really believing that might be true. But I don't remember how that feels, hope without doubt, faith without cynicism.

Turns out I have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), which is really kind of a bizarre thing because it's not at all the same for every woman who has it. There are a few symptoms that put you into that category but you don't have to have them all to be labeled a PCOS patient. I barely make the cut, really. One is acne, which I definitely have! And another is insulin resistance, diabetes, and extra weight, which I do not have. Hooray!

There are some other minor symptoms but the most obvious sign of PCOS is polycystic ovaries! If you look at an ovary on an ultrasound, you will see a bunch of black spots. Some of those black spots can be cysts and some can be follicles, which I will explain in another post. They call those cysts a "string of pearls," which makes it sound like a desirable thing to have! Not the case!



Those cysts can mess you up in a number of ways. They can really mess up your hormones, and there are just SO many hormones involved in preparing and releasing an egg! Most notably, they can actually stop you from releasing an egg at all! Some women with PCOS never ovulate on their own without the help of drugs. There are women who go months and months with no period. Not only that, but women with PCOS tend to have poor egg quality. You may get an egg to release, but it's just no good.

Really, though, this isn't too terrible of a diagnosis. In fact, this is the most common form of infertility in women but most are able to go on and have a baby. My fertility doctor told me that 50% of PCOS women who just diet and exercise are able to conceive on their own. And a lot of women are able to conceive just by being on "the pill." When you are in the land of infertility, "the pill" actually means Clomid, a pill that helps you to ovulate, something that is cheap and easy to do.

Really, I was pretty lucky with my cycles considering my diagnosis. I actually ovulate on my own, even without the pill! So I am at a healthy weight, do not have diabetes or insulin issues, I ovulate on my own, and I have somewhat regular cycles!

Doesn't sound too bad, right?

But we were so very wrong.

We tried the pill but nothing happened. I was scared to be more aggressive with it, but I was getting anxious. I went on to the next step - intrauterine insemination. That's a mouthful so we call it IUI. It's all about monitoring everything and getting the timing right.  Instead of using a pill to ovulate, I gave myself shots and did a bunch of ultrasounds and watched the egg get closer and closer to being ready. Then I got a different shot - a trigger shot - at just the right time, when the egg was mature and ready to go, and that shot released the egg from my ovary. Then, using a catheter, I get the sperm deposited into my uterus about 24 hours later. The egg is there, the sperm are there. They just need to reach out and shake hands!!

But it didn't work. Again and again, it didn't work.
Why is this so hard!? It's not supposed to be this hard!

What else is there to do but in vitro fertilization (IVF)?

Never did I think I would have to go that far. I remember my first doctor visit, finding out I had PCOS, and my doctor talking to me about the IUI process. Yikes! Catheters!? Self-administered shots!?! No, thanks! Pretty sure I can work this out without getting to that point.

Oh, poor Andrea. Not a clue what's in store. Not one stinkin' clue.

Just look at her. She's so happy. She's thinking she's gonna be having kids in a few years, buying a home. Ya know, living the dream, that ideal we all set ourselves up for. Poor girl. She has absolutely no idea.

I was pretty scared of the IVF process. So many drugs and shots and doctor visits. At the same time, it felt good to be giving it everything I had. With the pill and with the IUIs, I had about a 10-20% chance of success each time. With IVF, my chances shot up to about 50%, which was very exciting.

I was totally acing the IVF experience too. They got 27 eggs out of me, which is downright epic, and I had eight go on to be viable embryos. I was on cloud nine. I figured that even if only half of those embryos turned into babies, I would get my whole family out of this one attempt!

Even better, I got pregnant on my first try! Wow, things were finally working out! After all the doubt and depression and anxiety and struggle, I completely abandoned all that and let myself rejoice - yes, that is the right word, REJOICE - in this long-awaited triumph.

But that was snuffed out and stomped on and shattered and buried deep, so very deep into the ground, in a very short amount of time.

Let me tell you, dealing with infertility is not easy. The complexity of emotions is difficult to bear. You feel helpless that you can't be in control of the process and just make it work, make it happen like everyone else does. You feel frustrated to be in a body that doesn't function the way it should, to be denied this privilege, this beautiful gift and blessing of womanhood in bearing children. Always you are asking why and trying to find some sort of silver lining where there is none. You have to be constantly reminded of how easy this is for everyone else, and how much joy everyone is experiencing in raising their adorable babies. There really is no escaping that unless you completely cut yourself off from the world, and yes, I've done that before to save myself from heartache.

For me, the loneliness was the most difficult. There are a lot of trials that you have to go through yourself in order to fully understand and empathize with them. I believe infertility is one of them. Most people can relate to financial troubles, or being disliked, or hating their job, or having family troubles, or trying to raise a difficult child. But I don't think it's so easy for people to wrap their minds and their hearts around infertility, of all that's involved in that struggle, because it is really such a huge struggle that can swallow up your whole life in anxiety, frustration, anger, bitterness, jealousy, heartache, and helplessness, not to mention the enormous financial burden that goes along with it.

So, as if all that wasn't enough of a burden to bear...

Now I had to add miscarriage on top of it!

There are many women who can relate to pregnancy loss. At least in that, I am not alone. But when you're giving everything you have - EVERYTHING - to make this baby, when you know your chances to conceive are limited and incredibly expensive, when you're praying and hoping and wondering whether you will ever be successful, whether any of this will ever amount to a baby... it makes the loss of a pregnancy so very very devastating.

And I had to go through it three times.

Blackness. That's really the best way to describe me at that time. It's almost an out of body experience. There's the normal you that's kind of on the outside, observing and analyzing the whole experience, and then there's this shell of a person lying on the ground sobbing. Part of me was feeling my heart shatter into a million pieces while another part of me was intrigued, wondering how it was possible for a heart to hurt so badly and still be beating, still be alive. I didn't know such heartache was possible, to feel like your heart is quite literally being torn apart. It really is a wonder it keeps beating, though I admit I sometimes wished it would stop if only to escape the horrible pain.

I never learned why I'd had all the failures, though I did all I could to find answers on my own. To make matters worse, I hated my doctor as he was completely unhelpful. He was very clinical, devoid of compassion, and seemed to have no interest at all in trying to find answers. If I had questions, he made me feel stupid for asking them. Not only that, but we were living in Hawaii and had no family around to help shoulder our sorrows. I was public about our struggles and we had many friends who expressed their condolences but ... well, as I said, this is a trial few really understand. I was alone. In every way, I was so very alone.

Things are so much different now.

I had two embryos left, having lost six of eight. We were moving to Utah - hooray for family nearby - and I stayed behind in Hawaii to put in those last two embryos. At that point, my hope was pretty much non-existent. Hope had become a risk, a liability. The more you hoped, the more it hurt when it all fell apart, the harder the slap in the face. My heart just couldn't handle any more yearning or expectations. My heart was not even really functioning anymore. Not only was it in pieces, but those pieces were like petrified wood, hardened, immobilized, and numb, no longer able to feel because feeling was just bad.

I didn't ask God for anything anymore. I'd asked for bread and He'd given me a stone again and again and again (Matthew 7). All I could muster was, "Thy will be done."

I was pregnant again, which surprised me since I figured getting pregnant four out of four tries seemed pretty lucky. But then all I had was anxiety. All I could do was try my best not to think about it, what could or couldn't happen. Sad, really. Most women are just thrilled when they find out they're pregnant. Me, I had to try to put it out of my mind because I didn't want to worry and I didn't want to hope either. I just wanted to stay in the safety of the void.

One ultrasound led to another. I would look for that heartbeat and breath a huge sigh of relief. Each day brought a little bit more hope and a little bit more anxiety too. What if I lost it now? Oh, my heart! How could I live through it? It's like walking along the edge of a cliff, wondering how badly your body will be maimed if you fall. But you're not worrying about your body. You're scared to death of the damage to your heart. Very real long-term damage.

Then there was this point where I knew it was all going to work out. I think it's when I found out we were having a boy. He was so active and strong and it became so much more real to me that there was a living being inside of me. A LIVING BEING! That was the first time, at about 18 weeks, that I finally let go of all the anxiety and fear and let myself be happy and hopeful. I finally let myself cry for joy. I asked my husband if he thought there was a spirit in that little body. He said yes and I felt the same. God had given me a very special spirit and he was here to stay.

I can't tell you what an unreal experience it was to have an adorable baby boy. As soon as I delivered him and saw him and held him for the first time, I wanted to do it all over again, right then and there! There is nothing in this world more magical, more close to heaven, than a brand new baby.

You can read my previous blog post all about the delivery of our baby boy, Gavin, or you can watch my youtube video about it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_yI2k6ggjM

Or you can just look at this ridiculous picture of our long-awaited miracle baby who turned out to be much more adorable and enjoyable than I ever even imagined:

Two years ago, I found out I was pregnant with Gavin and started down a new path. Instead of heartache and disappointment, we had joy and success.

Now we're starting all over again and are scheduled to do IVF this July.

A lot of people ask me if things will be easier this time, if we'll be able to have success without so much heartache and loss. I wish I knew. One thing I've learned is that your past experience has very little bearing on what will happen next, at least if you're thinking in terms of what's fair. After my second miscarriage, I thought it'd be fair for me to finally have a baby on my third try. But that's not what happened. Instead, I miscarried a third time. But I was thinking in terms of "paying my dues" and in my mind, my dues had been paid. I'd gone through the heartache, now I deserved to be healed. But that didn't matter. Just because you flip a coin and get heads twice, that doesn't mean it's any less likely for you to get heads on that third flip. It's still a 50/50 chance and I figure my chances should still be about the same, no matter my past experience.

Of course, it's not that simple. The reproductive process is so complex and there's really so very little we understand about it because it's just so darn difficult to study. There are so many factors, known and unknown, and it's not an exact science because women's bodies are not all the same! For all I know, I could be infertile because I just stay up too late all the time! Maybe something I eat just messes up my eggs and we have no clue what it is or what it's doing! We just really don't know and unfortunately there's not much we CAN know. As I said, you just flip that coin and bite your nails waiting to see what you get.

So that's how I look at it. We're flipping coins again. It may be easier. It may be harder. We won't know until it happens.

But things are definitely different this time.

First, we have Gavin. No longer do I have to worry and wonder and cry about whether it will ever happen for me. It may never be easy, it may require a whole lot of patience and money and perseverance, but I know that I can conceive and carry a baby.

Not only that, but Gavin is there to fill the deafening silence of an empty family. It was so difficult to come home and feel the emptiness where you know your children should be. To go to social gatherings where everyone has their little ones and it's just you and your husband, year after year. To sit in church and see moms and dads struggle with their wiggling children while you weep silently in your pew, year after year after year. Now we have our own monkey in church, our own babbling baby in the home. If we fail again, it won't hurt so deeply because our lives are not empty anymore. In fact, our lives are very full. :)

Second, I have a new doctor at a new facility and he is so much more trustworthy and supportive and attentive and compassionate than Dr. Loser in Hawaii. Finally I feel like I have someone who is really hoping and fighting for my success. I brought him a huge stack of my medical records and he was thrilled to have it, and told me he had homework to do to look over my history and see how best to help me. And I have full confidence that he did just that! When I brought my medical records to my doctor in Hawaii, he didn't even want them!

It is a whole new experience to be in the care of someone CARING and it gives me a little bit more hope that things will be successful knowing I have someone so attentive on my side. Unlike my previous doctor, he enjoys my questions - he even told me that I ask very good questions and that I know a lot about the subject, which is what happens when you have to do all your own research because your doctor tells you nothing - and he answers my questions thoroughly. I'm so much more comfortable and confident and excited to work with this new doctor and have a positive experience with him instead of all the stress and frustration I had before. Even if things don't work out, it's such a comfort to know you're in good hands.

Lastly, we have family here and a much bigger support system now. It's a lot less stressful to start down this road and know that you're not alone anymore. There's never much anyone can do in hard times. But family does help.

As I said, this is a difficult journey full of so many emotions and I think many people are not able to grasp that experience. I first became public with my infertility journey because I wanted the support of others and for them to rejoice with me when I would have my success. But my journey turned out to be so much more difficult than I ever anticipated and as I struggled through so many terrible emotions, my focus shifted. I still welcome the support of friends and family and hope to share my joys and successes with others. But my primary focus is to give a little more depth of understanding on the journey of infertility and all it entails. It's not necessarily that I believe infertility to be a more important trial than others, if you can really place varying levels of importance on trials anyway. I just believe there are few things that bring people closer together than compassion and understanding and the best way to get to that place is to walk a mile in someone else's shoes, to see and feel things from their perspective.

And so we start on this journey again and I've decided to document the process and keep this blog updated. I've put out my shoes and it's up to you if you want to walk in them. But I can't make you any promises on what kind of a journey it will be. I'm hoping for a leisurely stroll, of course. A walk through the neighborhood park would be nice, or an easy trail through the forest. Something calm, enjoyable, peaceful. Hmmm, yes, that sounds absolutely lovely.

But if there ends up being a snake on the trail, or a wall of brambles, or few steep sections, or a whole bunch of mud, or a dangerous cliff ... well, don't say I didn't warn you!

If you choose to join me, thank you. It's a lot to ask of others, to take on your burdens and your sorrows along with the joys. I've found that most people aren't keen to do it. But it's what draws us closer together, what separates the acquaintance from the friend.

I can't make any promises about the trail, but I can promise you one thing about the shoes. They are well-worn and broken in! Good luck to us both! :)