So here is a quick update for anybody who has been out of the loop. Chris and I were married nearly five years ago, we move to NY and we are currently living in a great town called Glens Falls. Chris is an associate pastor at a church up here and I am currently at home not working really. I had a lot of health concerns last summer and we just decided to have me stay home since we never know what a day will consist of for me!
Honestly I hate the term Trying To Conceive or TTC! I guess though it is the best way to describe things for almost three years now. We had been very quiet about it and about our desire to have kids. We really didn't want a lot of people to know. But then again we also did not think that it would take the course or turns that it has taken. Knowing now what I know and looking back I think we both thought something was wrong and didn't want to admit it. For two years every month without fail we would silently wait hoping, and never got the answer we were praying for.
Things really took a turn for the worse when we moved upstate so Chris could work at New Hope Community Church. I had recently been diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis and thought that with the meds and watching the foods I ate things were getting better until they got much worse. I started being sick to my stomach all the time, every month Chris and I prayed I was pregnant, but knew deep down I was just too sick to deal with a pregnancy also. I was also having double the bowel problems I was having before I had started the meds. I would wake up in the middle of the night in some of the worst pain ever, heck even in the middle of the day. I would cry and beg for somebody to do something. There were so many days I was stuck at home and couldn't get out of bed it was so bad. I also was having a hard time eating and digesting the food I did eat. I feared food, drinks, and movement. I was in the ER almost every month the first year Chris and I here. Every time I would get IV to help with the dehydration and as things got worst they started giving me serious pain meds. There were times I just thought I may die from the pain.
There comes a time after dealing with this for three years and TTC for two at this time, that you just start to wonder are you crazy. I remember so many times asking Chris if maybe I was just making it up or I just was crazy. Praise God for a great husband who was there and knew the reality of the situation when I couldn't see clearly through the fog. Finally it had gotten so bad I had a what had become regular colonoscopy and the doctor informed me that the colitis was not colitis, it was something on the outside. by this time about 8 inches of my bowels were no bigger than a pencil. I had a lap surgery with several of my doctors and they found endometriosis all over my guy, but the worst of it was on my sigmoid colon. This is what was causing all my pains. So ha ha all the diagnoses previously were wrong!
Well in July of last year I was opened up and they removed the portion of my bowel that was damaged, and removed my left fallopian tube that was destroyed. After some more treatments and the doctors okay us, we were cleared to start again as soon as everything normalized out which never happened. This pretty much catches us up to now where we are now. I have to say having a good doctor who listens to you is the most important thing in the world when you are sick, and even more so if you are younger! I don't know if I couldn't even count the times doctors didn't listen. I know that if I had had the team of doctors I had here sooner this could have taken a different path. Then again God has a plan and a reason and I am no one to question that. (On the side, I feel great now, yeah things are hard still not having a baby, but food is my friend again, a little too much, and I can even eat ice cream which i hadn't eaten since Chris and I had gotten married. I can ride a bike, go camping, enjoy my life without serious pain!!)
Like I said before we really didn't start talking about this until things came up with the surgery. At that point we had to share what was going on with our families and some close friends. This is what I have found though, people don't talk about infertility openly. According to the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth by the CDC, infertility affects about 12 percent of the reproductive-age population. In the United States, this includes 7.3 million women and their partners. That's a lot of people!! I am sure there are people out there struggling that you just don't know who they are!
The other thing I noticed is people are not sure what to say to you. They want to give you hope and inevitably they know someone who had endo. or some other issue and they have adopted and they miraculously conceive a child of their own after their adoption! I don't mean this to sound mean, but that doesn't make me feel better, I wanted a baby three years ago. I am not sure there is much anyone can say or do other than pray for ya! Pray for one another, that you may be healed. Jam 5.16b. I think though if more people shared there story and their pain others going through it wouldn't feel so alone. Just last week Jimmy Needham ( my current favorite Christian music artist) posted the story of his wife's miscarriages and the joy that they are now expecting a child after some surgery and what not. Check out their story here! This has inspired me to share my journey just in case there is someone out there who hasn't heard you aren't alone, even though it feels that way sometime when everyone you know is pregnant.
Currently Chris and I are on round two of Clomid and HCG Trigger shot, this month though something happened and either I o'ed too soon or there just wasn't a big enough egg, and there was no shot. We still are praying that this month is our month!
So I always thought I would blog my pregnancy, looks like I am going to start a little early.
Love you guys. I am still praying that God gives you your hearts desire. You will make great parents. The time will come when it's His time not yours. Keep up the blog it's a great way for us to know how to pray.
ReplyDelete