Our Journey

Not many people know all that has gone on in the past year and I haven't felt the need to open up about it and write. I know now that our story has encouraged at least one person and I'm writing this in hopes that it can help some others. 

In May 2014, John and I decided that we were ready to have kids. So in May I stopped using birth control (Mirena). We both hoped that we would get pregnant fast just because both of my sisters got pregnant pretty soon after starting to try. I had always said, though, that because it was "easy" for them it would probably take me forever. 

In December 2014, I was about 10 days late. I had taken several pregnancy tests but all showed negative results. I called my regular doctor and asked them if they could do blood work to see if I was pregnant. The next day I received a phone call saying that yes, based on my blood results it looked like I was pregnant. I was ecstatic. I immediately called my OB/GYN office and scheduled an appointment for that week to confirm. At that appointment my urine was still showing negative results so the doctor had more blood tests done. The next morning I started having very bad cramps and was very worried. I called my doctors office and they basically told me that they didn't think I was pregnant. I later found out that I had a chemical pregnancy. A chemical pregnancy is basically where the egg does not fully implant in the uterus. Some consider this an early miscarriage, others don't. John and I were, obviously, very upset after this happened.

In January 2015, my doctor referred me to University of Louisville's Reproductive office. She basically told us that they would do similar testing that could be done at their office but said it would be better for us to go up there. At our first appointment, we were told that most of the time they don't start trying to see if anything is wrong until after you've been trying to conceive for a year but since we came to them that they would go ahead and start the process. That first day they took, I can't even tell you how much blood! Probably between 8-10 vials from me and a couple from John too. Side note: John is not good at getting his blood taken. 😳 

The next time I went up to get results of my blood work and see what to do next. All of my blood work was normal so they wanted me to undergo a HyCoSy. This is a test where they do an ultrasound to look at your Fallopian tubes to see if there could be anything blocking them. While they do the ultrasound they insert a mixture of saline solution and air into the Fallopian tubes to make sure they can see that it gets through (ouch). I ended up having that test done a few weeks later. They tell you up front that if they can't find anything medically wrong then you have to pay for the test that day, which is about $500. Everything checked out good for me so there we went, forking out even more money. 

The next month I went back and had even more blood work done and a fasting blood glucose test done (yuck)! In May 2015, I went back to get results of that. Yet again, everything was fine. At this appointment I got news I had been dreading to hear. The doctor told me that because they couldn't find anything wrong with me or John that they were considering me to be infertile. They told me there was a less than 1% chance of us getting pregnant on our own and less than 10% chance of getting pregnant with their help (IUI, IVF, etc.). They gave me a stack of paper and gave me more information on, what they said to be, our choices. 

During all of this, we had been prayed for numerous times by many people in our families and some wonderful people at our church. They knew some of what was going on but not all of the details. April through June I believe, my church was going through a 90 day process of getting closer to God as a church family and in your own home. Although John and I didn't do all of the stuff that was laid out during those 90 days I feel like we received a blessing from the faithfulness of everyone else during those 90 days.

In the middle of June I found out that I was pregnant! I hadn't been late yet but I was extremely exhausted and knew something was up. I went ahead and took a test and what do you know, we were finally pregnant! We have been so blessed through all of this. Even though now I think about the thousands of dollars wasted during the testing I feel like my relationship with God grew stronger through all of it. I am now 21 weeks, 4 days pregnant with our baby Oliver James and I am just so thrilled for what God has given us. We have trusted Him through everything and I'm hoping that this will give encouragement to someone out there who needs it. 

This is probably the longest post that I will ever do, so enjoy!