Sunday, February 28, 2010

If the answer turns out to be "no"

Sometimes I sit and think about if I don't ever get pregnant at what point am I going to really decide that the answer God has given me is "no". I have been going through this now for almost five yrs and I still have no thoughs of giving up. So at what point in time will I say enough is enough? When this point comes what comes next?

I know people who have went through what I am going through for ten yrs and they still have not given up. They still feel the sting when someone else around them gets pregnant. Does this mean if my answer is "no" that I will always feel the sting too? Does it mean I will never really be happy for someone else without being jealous for myself?

I have spend all this time concentrating on this one thing. I have to wonder if I didn't have this to concentrate on what would my mind be thinking of then. Of course I always think about my son and pray that he will grow up to be a healthy happy adult, I think of my familyand friends and hope that they all stay healthy and safe, but I have poured so much of my mind, body and soul into trying to have a baby when that is gone what will I do then. Either way if I have a baby or I never have a baby at some point my focus will have to move on to something else.

If the answer is "no" will we decide to adopt or will we just decide to go on with our life just the way it is. Maybe I am not meant to have my own, maybe I am meant to give a good home to someone elses child that needs a family to love them.

All I know is that soon enough I will know what my answer is and after I know that is when I will have to accept whatever it might be and live my life accordingly. Having all this time in limbo in some ways has been a blessing because I have hope. I am in some ways excited to know the outcome of the test and know what comes next, then there is the part of me that is scared to know the outcome of the test because this means my reality is going to be right in front of me good or bad.

I guess in life there are many situations where you are waiting for answers, whether it be for trying to have a baby and you can't, an illness of yourself or a loved one, a job, anything that you are waiting to find out the outcome. At some point you will have the answers good or bad and at that point I guess you have to just face it and realize this is your life like it or not. Then you deal with it.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Jealousy and Guilt

I never in my life remember being truly jealous of anyone else. I have never been jealous of any ones house, husband, job, car, or money. So feeling like a jealous person is something that is really hard or me to deal with. I never started being jealous until it came to trying to have a baby. It seems that most people seem to be able to do it so easily. Not that I would want anyone to ever have to experience what I am going through it's just I sometimes wonder why it is that it has to be so hard for me.

I have many people in my life right now who are pregnant. People that I love and care about very much. People that I pray will have healthy pregnancies and babies. The hard part is at the same time I am very jealous of them. I wonder why it is not me too. When people tell me they are pregnant I want to be able to look at them and smile and say congratulations I am so happy for you. I want to say it and in my heart without any hesitation and REALLY mean it. Instead I feel like I have been punched in the stomach and I force a smile and I say congratulations and then I go off where I can be by myself and cry. This is where the guilt comes.

I feel guilty for many things. I feel guilty that when people find out they are pregnant they dread telling me because they know that it is going to make me upset. This is really hard because I hate that I take away a little bit from their happiness because of my sadness. I hate the fact that I feel guilty because of something I have no control over in my life that is affecting something good in theirs. I hate when people come to tell me and I can tell by the look in their eyes they are sorry to tell me. Mostly I hate that these people who mean so much to me are having something wonderful go on in their lives and in normal circumstances I would be able to enjoy it and embrace it with them but instead my first instinct is to distance myself just a bit because it is just to hard for me.

Then there is my husband. My husband has told me more times than I can count that he loves me and he loves my son and that with the two of us his life is complete. He said more kids or not he will be happy. I know that my husband has always pictured his life with children, yes he has my son and he is a wonderful stepfather but I mean his own children. He loves children so much. I love to watch him play with our nieces and nephews. He always talks about his friends kids and how cute so and so's baby is. I feel guilty that if my husband would not have picked me maybe he would have his own kids by now. He tells me all that time that he thinks it will happen at some point for us but if it doesn't he is perfectly happy. Its hard enough to know that I am the reason that my dreams have not come true but if is even harder knowing that you may not be able to give the person you love what they deserve. He would be such a wonderful father.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Long Story Short or Shorter

Ever since I was a little girl my goal was to grow up get married and have babies. I never really thought much about what job I wanted to have, I just knew that I wanted to be a mother.



Well, I did grow up and get married to my high school sweetheart and after we were married for about four yrs I had our son Blake. My husband and I never really tried to get pregnant but we did not prevent it either. Anyway about a yr after my son was born we decided that we had different ideas about how we wanted to live our lives so we ended up getting divorced. This was not what I had planned. I was going to get married and be a wife and a mom and now I no longer had a husband and I was a single mother.



When I first got divorced I remember telling my mom if I didn't meet someone by the time I was 35 I was going to have a baby on my own. I really wanted more children married or not.



Then I met my husband Kevin. He had all the qualities I wanted plus he had never been married. Not that if he had it would have matter, but I figured that we had one ex to deal with that adding another would make it even more complicated. Anyway Kevin and I dated for two yrs and then decided to get married.



Kevin and I got married in June of 2005 right before my sons 5th birthday. On our honeymoon we decided that we were not going to use any birth control anymore and that we were going to just see what happens. Well 6 months later I was pregnant! I was so excited that it took no time at all.



Less than a week after finding out I was pregnant I it ended in miscarriage. I had never experienced such a devastating feeling in my life. I always thought that if it happened really early it wasn't as bad as if you were 8 or 10 weeks along, but the truth is as soon as you see the positive on that test you start to in vision your baby and your family.



After I lost that baby, there were six girls that I worked with the got pregnant. It seem like every week someone was telling me they were pregnant. The only thing that kept me sane is I would tell myself that I would soon get pregnant again and I too would be growing a belly and talking about the way I feel and the names I had pick out. As weeks and months went by I started to realize that was not going to be the case.



I went to the OB and he told me I had PCOS and that he would give me some Clomid and in a few months I would be pregnant. Every month the 2ww and every month a negative test. Then he decided I need to have some test run. When they all came back fine he sent me to the Fertility Dr.



By this time I had watched all my friends have their babies and I was still not pregnant or holding a baby in my arms.



The new Dr suggest the we do IUI. So we did twice and this didn't work. By this time I was so heartbroken and sad that I decided I needed a break. I ended up taking a two yr breaking. I was hoping to be one of those stories you hear about where the couple decides to forget about having a baby and all of a sudden they are pregnant, but no such luck.

During this two yr break I started exercising and I lost about 40lbs. This was helpful in making my body function like it should. I also stopped talking as much about trying to have a baby so I think this made people think that I was fine with everything.

One day I was sitting at work and I just thought now is the time to go back to the Dr. I am ready to try again. It at this point has been almost 4 yrs since my first miscarriage. So we go to the Dr and the next month we do IUI again. This time it works. After four long yrs of waiting for a positive on a pregnancy test I was standing in my bathroom looking at a test that had two lines on it. I told my husband. This is really happening! This is really happening!

I went for blood work the fallowing day and waiting for the call to confirm. The nurse called and told me that the progesterone level was great but my hcg level was only 37. I said is that a bad number and she said well we would like it to be 12o at this point but we will redo the blood work in two days and if it is doubling it will be fine. So I go on Wed for blood work and it comes back not doubled in fact it only went up a couple of points. The nurse said I am sorry honey this is what we would call a chemical pregnancy. As soon as your levels drop you will start to bleed. They wanted to do another set of blood draws to make sure they were dropping. So I go for those and the call comes that it didn't double but it did go up to 57 so now we have to wait the weekend and see what Mondays blood draw says. At this point I don't know if i should be hopeful or sad. So Monday comes and I get the call and she says the number is less than 5. I am going to lose the baby or the chemical pregnancy as they call it.

I told the nurse that my husband and I decided that we would like to do IVF. At least with this are chances are better and they will only use healthy embryos. So the nurse calls and says that the Dr would like me to have a Lupus test done. I am very excited at this point because after all the blood work we will defiantly have the IVF and we will get our baby.

I go for the Lupus test. It takes ten days for the results. Finally the nurse calls. Well everything came back fine but one. The Kaolin Clotting time. At this point I don't even know what questions to ask because the nurse says to me that the Dr never judges on just one test so I have to do that test again plus a test called ANA and AMA. I will be doing that this Friday.
The most frustrating part about this is if the KCT and the ANA come back positive that means that my body considers a pregnancy a foreign object and it kills off the pregnancy. It makes me sick to think that my own body is fighting against the one thing the my heart and mind want the most.

I believe in God and believe that he has a plan for all of us. A wonderful person told me once that God gives us three answers, "yes", "no", and "wait". My question is how do I know when the answer is no longer "wait"? How do I know when the answer is "no" and I need to forget about it and move on? Will he take that desire away? Will I always have the desired and just trust that there is a reason for everything. I guess I will have to wait and find out in time.