Our Infertility Story

I'm a sucker for wanting to ruin endings to stories, so I'll do you all a favor and ruin the ending to this one, we are FINALLY pregnant!! I'm about 13 weeks along, due June 15th, and the baby is looking great!

Now, brace yourselves, this is going to be a LONG post filled with all of the emotions we've been struggling with for the past 2 years...yes....TWO YEARS, and the procedures we had to go through to get this blessing!

 I'm going to go ahead and appologize now for anything that I may say that could offend someone. Writing this blog post will be hugely therapeutic for me. I've kept this struggle inside for the most part. Some may have known we wanted another baby but very few, actually...no one besides Scott and myself knows all of the emotions we have experienced through this trial. I've been pretty private about the heartache, so now is my time to finally release it.  Unless you yourself have been through this painful experience you can't judge any of my feelings, like I said these feelings are real and sorry if you don't like it. With that said...here's our story:

A little over two years ago, Scott and I decided we wanted to try having another baby. It was no secret we wanted these two close together..in fact Scott wanted to start trying when Trent was 2 months old (not sure if he was being 100% serious, but anyone who knows us real well will say it was NO secret Scott wanted to try quickly lol) I wanted to give Trent the time to be a "baby" so around the time when he was 1 we decided to try. After a few months of negative pregnancy tests I started getting this gut feeling inside of me. I'm pretty in tune with "feelings" I have from time to time and I just knew something wasn't right.  No doctor will see you unless you've been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby for around a year.  Well month 7 came around and I decided it was time to call the dr. Thankfully I have such a wonderful OB and Dr. Shebelut wanted to see both Scott and I right away. I can't say anything negative about this man, he is wonderful. Every doctors visit I've ever had with him, he has always made me feel like I'm his only patient. He is soft spoken, gentle, understanding, and such a wonderful listener.  He decided to have Scott have a sperm analysis just to make sure everything was ok. A few weeks later we had a follow-up visit with him and he gave us news we weren't expecting, Scott's count for some reason was fairly low.  I wasn't too discouraged by it because he referred us to a wonderful Urologist for Scott to see. I'm sure Scott on the otherhand was struggling with the idea that this was his "fault". Throughout the entire 2 years we've been trying I've NEVER once thought this was Scott's fault. This is OUR problem, and to be honest this could've EASILY been something with me. If we were going to have a fertility problem it is much better to have the sperm count be the cause then something internally with me...so that right there was a blessing in disguise.  Scott saw his urologist who prescribed some medicine to him in hopes that would boost the count, the problem..you have to wait 3 months to see if it works.  By the time the 3 month period was up, we had already been trying for year (which seemed like 10).  Around this time I noticed we started getting irritable and taking our pain out on each other.  I was extremely depressed, as was he. I felt like I had no one to talk to about this, no one I knew had been through this before. If I have one word to describe infertility it's LONELINESS. You feel like no one around you understands how you feel, that everyone around you easily gets pregnant. This is about the time where I started becoming irritated or envious of others getting pregnant.  Irritated and envious go hand in hand to describe my feelings. I felt like people were "accidentally" getting pregnant, or complaining about it taking 2 months to get pregnant. People having babies close together then complaining about how hard it was (and if we had gotten pregnant right away I'm sure I would've had my moments of complaining. I still have hard days with Trent where I complain and I'm sure I annoy some who are trying to have a baby as well) I'd see unwed teenagers walking around 9 months pregnant already pushing a stroller with a toddler in it...this angered me. What would it be like to have an "oops" baby? what would it be like to only try for 2 months? The anger in me was really jealousy when it comes down to it. (Remember: if you yourself have had an "oops" baby, or a teenager who got pregnant don't be offended, these are feelings I was experiencing and unless you've been in my shoes you wouldn't know how it feels, I would also like to add these feelings no longer reside in me.) I began to feel sorry for myself, going through the "why me?" stage. Looking at every wrong thing I've ever done in my life thinking that this was God's way of punishing me for that bad choice I made 10 years ago.  Sounds rediculous huh? but this was truly how I was feeling. I lost myself in this process. I was no longer that "happy Megan", the one that always joked around and had a good time.  I started to doubt that the Lord was even listening to me when I was on my knees every night crying and pouring my heart out about how bad I wanted to be a mommy to a second baby. My faith was tested big time during this period, and I'll admit that I let Satan get the best of my emotions. He wanted me to doubt the Lord, HE was the one putting these negative thoughts in my head. He loved that I was miserable...and for awhile he won. Everyone around me was asking why I hadn't given Trent a sibling yet (sort of as if I was being selfish in not having another baby for him) Wow..if they only knew. I felt like just bursting into tears and saying "I've been TRYING to have another baby, leave me alone!" I don't fault anyone for asking me when we were going to have another. It's an innocent and normal question to ask someone. People just assume that because we already had Trent that it'd be easy to have another.  I've learned through this process, never assume. I will never ask someone when they're going to have kids unless they're my bestfriends. You never know what struggle someone is going through. I was already saddened that Trent was looking as if he'd be an only child and whenever someone would ask when Trent was going to be a brother it'd bring that saddness and depression right back to the surface again. My go to answer was always "hopefully soon", usually people would leave it at that and wouldn't ask anymore questions.

Back to the 3 months waiting period to see if the meds worked.  They did, but only a little bit. The Dr decided to do a procedure on Scott that he hoped would up the count even more. Once again, we had to wait 3 months to see if it worked. (3 months is the time it takes for sperm to develop, become mature, and then be ready to be released). I felt as if we were just sitting here in limbo. 3 months here, 3 months there...wouldn't be a big deal if we already hadn't been trying for a year. I felt as though I couldn't get any lower. I had hit my low point. I lost a lot of weight, weight I didn't have to lose to begin with. Not because I wasn't eating, just because I was that depressed that my body couldn't hold onto anything I was eating apparently.  The surgery only boosted the count a little bit, so the urologist decided to refer us to a fertility dr.  I did research on local fertility drs. I looked at stats of doctors up and down California, even in Utah. We came to the conclusion that Dr. Synn here in Clovis was our best option.  He was local so that was very convenient and he had national average success rates. His office staff is the best. Everyone there was very sympathetic and caring, I couldn't have felt better about our decision to go there.  Before our appointment I had to have an HSG performed, where they shoot dye up into your uterus and then it is supposed to flow out of your fallopian tubes to show your tubes are open, all while having an xray done to watch the dye. This was probably one of the more painful things I had to do. I had cramping and spotting that whole day and the procedure itself was pretty uncomfortable. Thankfully my tubes were open, and there were no problems with any of my organs. Upon our first visit, Dr Synn told us that with the sperm numbers, we would most likely benefit from having Invito Fertilization. INVITRO? all I knew about it was that it was thousands and thousands of dollars...average is between $12k and $20k depending on your reason for infertility. This was all out of pocket,paid in FULL up front, insurance rarely covers any of it, and mine didn't. We decided we would try Intrauterine Insemination first..or as you may know it artificial insemination.  The Dr. warned us that this probably wouldn't work but that we should try it out as it was a much cheaper option, and less invasive. They got us started right away. I was put on Clomid which increases the number of eggs you produce. By the time insemination came around I had 1 good egg, and 2 more eggs that could potentially be mature in time of ovulation. They have you stick a needle in your stomach to induce ovulation. This medicine is called Ovidrel. This is all timed so that they can get you in there 36 hours later to do the insemination. (36 hours after you inject yourself your body will ovulate). Sticking myself with a needle was by far the hardest thing I've had to do. I HATE needles, I hate everything about them, and to think I had to put one in my own body was unimaginable. But I mustered the strength and quickly did it. Scott was impressed with me, and ill admit, I was pretty impressed myself. We had to drop off Scott's sample to be washed of any bad sperm so that you have the best of the best left over to work their magic.  Problem is, when you wash the sperm your count goes down naturally, so we were working with an even lower number.  They told us our chances were very slim..but we still had hope, how can you not?  We were both really fascinated with this process, Scott got to watch them inseminate me there in the office. It took all of 2 minutes, and then I had to lie there for 15 minutes and then I was free to go home.  That two weeks was the longest two weeks ever.  As we approached that time, I just had this feeling, that "gut feeling" that it didn't work. I KNEW when I was pregnant with Trent, it was just a feeling inside of me, and I didn't have this feeling. I took a pregnancy test on the day I was supposed to and sure enough, negative. That was heartbreaking. I sat there crying by myself in the room until Scott figured out I was missing and came to see where I was.  I felt guilty for crying to Scott because I knew he was thinking this was his fault. I tried my hardest to be the strong person, that's probably why I kept a lot of my feelings to myself. But occasionally I just had to let go of my feelings and have a good crying session. We made the mistake of telling close family and friends of our insemination so now we had to relive the bad news with every person we had to tell. I desperately didnt want to hear the "oh im so sorry Megan" I hated people feeling sorry for me. I brushed it off and acted as if it wasn't that big of a deal and that I "knew it wasn't going to work anyway". This was obviously just my defense mechanism. 

I had to deal with some people saying "well just be thankful for Trent, some people would kill to have one child". This angered me more than anything. That is NOT something you say to someone when they're going through this. Of course I was thankful for Trent!! He and Scott are the best things that have ever happened to me. I couldn't imagine life without him, I'd die for him in a heartbeat. I know people would love to have just one child period, I know that.  I've always wanted to have 6 children, and Scott and I came to the agreement that 4 was a good number to stop at.  Mentally I couldn't wrap my brain around having just one child. It saddened me that I would never be pregnant again. I would never get to feel that baby kick inside of me, never go through labor (yes, I liked it), never nurse a child again, never hold a baby in my arms, and most importantly Trent would never have a brother or a sister...that out of everything saddened me the most.  I would feel like my life wasn't complete. I would always be thankful for Trent and live my life to the fullest with him and Scott, but there would always be something missing.  I have SO much love in my heart to give another child, I wanted desperately to give that love to Trent and another baby.  Call it selfish if you want but my calling in life is to be a wife and a mom. It's hard to explain and I hope I'm not sounding as if I'm not grateful for Trent, he's my everything. Infact over the past 2 years of struggling with conceiving, my appreciation for Trent, the miracle of children, has increased ten fold. I was 23 when I started trying for our 2nd, and I wasn't about to be done having kids at 23 years old. I knew I could get pregnant, so I was determined to do whatever it took to get pregnant again. I knew I had 15 more fertile, child bearing years in me if I needed it...it was going to happen!

Back to our procedures, we decided we'd give it a try again using Clomid again. I had two eggs this time by insemination...the sperm count still low, and once again 2 weeks later a negative test result.  Talk about getting kicked when you're already down.  This time we decided that instead of Clomid I'd go on injections, or shots.  I had to inject myself with a needle of medicine called Gonal F everyday for about a week. But before this could happen they had to check my ovaries for cysts. Sometimes Clomid creates cysts on your ovaries and you can't continue with the Gonal Injections because the medicine would just feed the cysts instead of your eggs, making the cysts grow.  Well, wouldn't you know it, I had 3 cysts. We just couldn't catch a break. I felt like this was such an emotional rollercoaster. We'd take one step forward then 2 steps back. I had to be put on birth control which usually makes the cysts go away. I was on it for 2 weeks then they checked the status of them. They were shrinking, one was gone but there were still the other two. Back on B.C. for another 2 weeks...same thing..one was gone one still there..back on B.C. for another 2 weeks. Are you kidding me? A month and a half down the drain. Doesn't sound like long but when you've been through all of this,  a month and a half was a long time. I just wanted to be pregnant already!

So finally the cysts were gone and I got to start my injections. Needles everyday, that was hard..it got easier but you never get used to sticking yourself with a needle. At the time of insemination, I had 3 good eggs..sounds like pretty good odds one will take right?...two weeks later, negative pregnancy test.  I had had it! I didn't understand why, again, the Lord was "punishing" me. I'm terrified of needles and here I was pushing one in my stomach everyday and you still aren't going to give me a baby but you'll give that 15 year old girl I saw pregnant at the mall one? It just didn't make sense. I was devastated, as was Scott.  I didn't handle any of this as well as Scott did. He seemed so optomistic that this would eventually work, and to be honest, the optomism was getting on my nerves. Probably because I felt so alone in all of this that the one person who knew how I was feeling wasn't down in the dumps with me. Sometimes I felt like HE wasn't as depressed about it as I was, but that was just because he wasn't showing his emotions the same way I did. He was trying to be the strong one for the both of us.  Even though his optomism got on my nerves, I have to say, it is so much better to have an optomistic person around you than a pessimistic one. So thank you Scott for being annoyingly optomistic, you kept me going. I had a hard time hearing of people's pregnancies, it seemed as though everyone around me was pregnant. Going to church was hard, because it's filled with so many babies and pregnant people. It was hard going to hospitals to see good friends with their newborn babies. I desperately wanted that for Scott and I.

On a side note, NEVER tell someone who is going through fertility treatments all of the people you know who it didn't work for. Why would you do that? yes people did that to me. I already feel like crap, I don't need you to take that one ounce of hope I have that it'll work for me and stomp on it by telling me you know of so many people who have done insemination that it didn't work for.

Now we got to the point of realization. We realized, the Dr was right, Invitro was the answer to our problem.  This terrified me. I had no clue what to expect, I heard it was very invasive. That the meds make women crazy, lots of needles..pain...etc etc. But my drive to have another child was stronger than my fear of any pain I'd feel. Invitro it is! Scott had another urologist by this time, who told us that he could surgically take out the sperm from Scott and inject it into my eggs..instead of relying on a sperm sample from him the morning of, so this made me feel so much more positive that this would work for us.  During this time I really worked on my relationship with the Lord and Scott. I put more faith into him that he would eventually answer our prayers.  We never know the reasoning behind some hardships in life, but I just put all my faith in him that there was a reason to this and that one day we'd get our little baby.  When you become closer to the Lord, you become closer to your spouse. I started to feel like things were heading back in the right direction for us, and instead of letting this trial bring us down, I let it bring us closer together.

So..I ordered my meds, they get to your doorstep within 24 hours of ordering, packed..on ice all the way from the East Coast..made me feel special! Here's a pic of them once I unloaded them from their packaging..quite the stash huh? There's boxes and boxes of shots stacked on each other, you can't get quite the appreciation for the amount unless I took each needle out of the box and lined it up next to each other...but that wouldn't be very sanitary.

 The moment when the Fed Ex guy came with them I just got this overwhelming feeling of excitement. I wasn't afraid of the dozens of needles staring me in the face, I was excited to stick them into my body and get this process going! The instructions for your medicine intake and the time you are to take everything is intense! I thought I was going to go to my appointment and come home with one little sheet of paper explaining my meds...wrong! I had a PACKET of papers explaining each medication I had to take and PRECISELY at what time I had to take them. It was a brain overload. One little mistake, taking a med one hour later than you're supposed to can ruin the entire procedure..everything is timed! So the needle sticking began, multiple needles a day, in my stomach. By day 4 or so, my stomach was covered in bruises. I became overwhelmed with trying to find a spot I could stick a needle in, that didn't already have a prick mark indented into my stomach.  By day 6 or 7 I had a mini meltdown in the kitchen. I was feeling really alone, staring at my many bruises and bloated stomach.  I was thinking I was completely and utterly alone in that moment. That no one knew how I felt, no one knew what it felt like to go through so many treatments over months and months.  No one knew what it felt like to pump your body full of drugs, it was unnatural, and extremely lonely. I wiped away my tears and finished my injections for the day.  That would be the last time I felt sorry for myself, and the last time I let these meds get the best of me.  I didn't go crazy on the drugs, in fact I didn't feel too bad on them. I may have been a tad bit more emotional than usual, but nothing I couldn't handle.  My ovaries started to feel like they were just going to expload with eggs.  Think about it, your ovaries are only meant to produce one..SOMETIMES two eggs a month. Mine were producing 10x that.  My injetions were over, besides one last one...the one I had been dreading. This sucker:

(HCG shot in the butt, pretty long needle)

This one was to be injected 36 hours before my scheduled egg aspiration...and it was to be injected in the butt. (sigh) I did the dumbest thing and looked up videos online of women getting this shot performed on them by their spouse and watching them in pain made me scared.  Scott was scared to administer it to me because he didn't want to hurt me. I closed my eyes and the next thing I knew Scott said he was done. He's done? I didn't even feel it..what wimps these girls are, and they had a lot more meat on their behind than I did! haha Here's some pictures of the needle container I had to put my needles in and how full it was...just gives you an idea as to how many shots were put in my body

(this container was filled to the absolute top, time to move on to container #2)

Now it was the waiting game, I had to wait til my arrival time at Clovis Community Hospital. The day came,Wednesday September 22nd. I was so nervous that maybe my body ovulated all of my eggs on their own and that when the Dr went in there wouldn't be any eggs there for him to get out of my fallopian tubes. Scott also had to go to the hospital in case he needed to have surgery to take the sperm out.  He gave a sample and there was MORE than enough there, so no surgery needed.  This is where I felt like things were heading our way, such amazing news already. I had my IV put in, and given some kind of loopy drug to make me relax while they wheeled me down the hall to the OR. The last thing I remember is me scooting my butt onto the operating table and I was out!  When I woke up I was told that I had 13 eggs aspirated (or removed)...PHEW...I hadn't ovulated my eggs haha. They immediately take my eggs and inject Scott's sperm one by one into each egg, so amazing what they can do these days. They let the eggs grow to form embryos for 2 days then they'd pick out the best looking ones to put back in me for the egg transfer. 3 days later on Saturday September 25th we went in for the transfer.  We discussed with the Dr the option of transfering 3 versus 2. Sounds crazy I know, but we were desperate to make this work.  The Dr. advised us to only go with 2 bc the chances of  me getting pregnant didn't go up with a 3rd egg but the chances of me getting pregnant with all 3 eggs were 50%! 50/50 odds of having triplets? that was too much for us, so two it was.  He assured us that I had two of the best looking eggs you can get.

This was where I just had an amazing spiritual experience.  You get to be awake for this part, so they were wheeling me back into the OR and I had an OVERWHELMING feeling overcome me that this was going to be alright. It sort of took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes, I had never experienced this strong of a spiritual feeling before.  I didn't know at the time if that was the Lord telling me he was there with me, or him telling me this was going to work, but either way it was extremely comforting. I was as calm as could be.  I got into the OR filled with nurses and two doctors. The nurses confirmed my name on my hospital bracelet multiple times with the name on our petri dish with the eggs on it...yeah we don't want to get that wrong haha. Then they carefully and slowly placed the eggs back in my uterus. This was amazing to watch. They have an ultrasound going so you can see the needle being put into my uterus and releasing the eggs one by one. I can't even describe this, it truly just amazed me. After they were done the Dr then made sure I could see the two eggs floating in my uterus...just so cool!  The next few days I was basically on bedrest. no moving, just laying on my back legs elevated. This was the hardest part for me, and the LONG 2 weeks slowly went by.  I was to go in for a blood test 2 weeks later on wednesday October 6th to find out if I was pregnant or not.  Ok, like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I'm a sucker for ruining endings..there was no way I was going to wait for a bloodtest.  I secretly took a home pregnancy test on tuesday morning the 5th.  My hands were shaking and I was sweating while peeing on that little stick.  It was a digital test so I set it down and watched it blink waiting for the results, when within 5 seconds the blinking stopped with an answer... PREGNANT!

I couldn't believe it, I just stared at it then the tears started flowing down my cheeks. Trent was watching me asking me "mommy why are you sad?" I told him while crying that Mommy was just sooo happy!  I will never forget this feeling, ever.  I was shaking, like on a complete high. Scott was at work and had no clue I was doing this. I ran to Babies R Us and got a shirt for Trent that said "I'm the big brother" put it on him and showed up to Scott's work. (meanwhile I took a different brand test in the bathroom at babies r us to make sure it was still positive...two pink lines on this one) I told Scott to come to the parking lot because Trent wanted to say hi before we headed to the mall.  He opened the back door to see Trent out of his carseat standing there showing him his shirt.  He looked at me and all he said with a huge smile is "you are?" I smiled and cried and told him I'm pregnant and took a test at home.  You could tell he started to tear up but couldn't fully express every emotion he wanted to because he had to go back into work and act like nothing was up. He was all smiles though, this was what we had been waiting for for 2 years. This day had finally come! The next day I had my blood drawn and the dr's office called to confirm my pregnancy. I bursted into tears with the poor nurse on the phone, making her cry too. I was just so happy to hear the words "you're pregnant". I wondered if this day would ever come.

The next few weeks would be filled with confusion and worry. I had to have my blood drawn every week til I was 6 weeks to make sure my HCG level (the pregnancy hormone) was doubling every 48 hours. Well mine wasn't, it was lower than the "average" pregnancy was, and they told me to prepare for the worst but that they wouldn't know anything until my 6 week ultrasound to check for a heartbeat. I was so upset. We went through all of this just to lose the baby? I was on pins and needles (I say "I" because Scott kept telling me in his optomistic way that everything would be fine) for the next two weeks. The morning came for our ultrasound and I was a nervous wreck. The nurse came in and first started her speech by saying that sometimes the baby just doesnt keep growing but that she'll go ahead and check for a heartbeat.  The ultrasound machine turned on and instantly I saw a little flutter.  She was shocked, there was a heartbeat. The little teeny "creature" as she called it was certainly there and alive. The baby was measuring at 6 weeks 3 days when I shouldve been 6 weeks 5 days, so they had me come in for a follow up 8 days later to make sure there was 8 days of growth.  I of course, had another week of being in pins and needles. That day came and the baby was perfect. Strong heartbeat, 8 days of growth, just perfect. The nurse said we definitely beat the odds. This baby truly is a blessing.

So we've had the difficult task of keeping this quiet until my 12 week  ultrasound to make sure we were in the clear.  12 weeks was last week but I couldn't get in to see the genetic specialist until today. I'll be 13 weeks tomorrow. This is the ultrasound where they look for genetic abnomalities. The baby looks perfect, no problems and it was wiggling around like crazy. Such an amazing experience to see your baby moving around. They told us what they think the baby's gender is, but that'll remain a secret til I'm 20 weeks :) sorry haha. It's good to know that we have frozen eggs waiting for future use at Clovis Community, those will be our future babies :)

I want to quickly say in no way am I judgemental of anyone who has had a baby out of wedlock or while they were teenagers. I really hope I haven't offended anyone, that wasn't my purpose, it was to solely state my struggles and thoughts during the most difficult time in my life. I'm thankful those thoughts no longer reside with me, it's not who I am as a person. At the time of struggling to have a baby I guess I felt that I was living my life exactly how I was "supposed to" and still not being blessed and that frustrated me.
For those of you who are SO incredibly blessed to have no problems conceiving, really count your blessings. You are sooo lucky, I would never wish this heartache on anyone. But I am glad we went through it. I've always appreciated life, and the creation of it, but this just gave me such a deeper appreciation for it. I have to work to have children, I don't just wake up the next day pregnant. Sometimes when you work so hard for things, you appreciate them just that much more when you get them.  Babies are blessings, and I'm so thankful that Scott and I have now two precious blessings in our lives.

Here's some pics of Baby Wilcox

Baby stretching, just melted my heart