PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's a miracle! I know it's a miracle whenever a baby is conceived but for those of you who might be unaware this one is truly a miracle! I'll share the whole story but in case you just want the details here they are:

I'm at 14 weeks

Due date Sept 17

There is one perfect baby!

We found out Jan. 16th at about 5:30 pm a moment in our lives we will NEVER forget!! And despite the length of this post there are no words to describe the joy we have found in this!!!

What follows I warn is too much information, too personal, and WAY too long! Do not feel obligated to read. I've just felt like infertility has been such a huge factor in my life the past couple years that I wasn't ready to share with the whole world. Now that we are finally pregnant I feel.....maybe less vulnerable and thus more able to share the experiences we have had in our journey to parenthood!

Ok do you want the rest of the story? I guess if you are reading this it means you do! Prepare yourself it's a long story! It all started when Brent and I fell in love and got married (right that's where it always starts!!) We loved each other so much we thought we should share this love with a little one! But when do we want to do that? We decided to wait 2 years. I had always thought it would be a necessity to wait at LEAST a year to get pregnant. I wanted to lay a good foundation for our marriage before throwing in hormones of pregnancy and then the stresses of a child. Brent was in school and had about 2 years left so 2 years met my requirement of time, for us, to grow together, to learn more about each other, to fall even more deeply in love, give Brent enough time to finish school, etc! Well it was a great plan! But I learned about a year later that communication was also something we needed to improve upon when I had thought 2 years meant 2 years to HAVE a kid and Brent thought 2 years to start TRYING to have a kid! Pretty big difference! So I started dreaming of a kiddo, of joining the elite pregnant club, mommy club! Well it wasn't too long before dreaming turned into longing and my loving patience faded into nagging. Everyone who got pregnant before me was just a reminder that I was not any closer to my dream then the day before. Although I got advice such as just stop taking your birth control, I tried to be understanding of my husband. I also felt that was just dishonest! A child was a decision I felt should be agreed upon by both of us and as much as I wanted to start pursuing that goal I knew it would not be a wonderfully exciting experience if one of us was not excited or happy to hear we were pregnant!! I also reminded myself, we are both young and we haven't been married that long! We have plenty of time, there is NO rush! But once I'd been bit by the baby bug it would not go away!

So finally, as in all great marriages we made a compromise, 1 year 8 months after getting married, I went off birth control! Having a mother who was "Mama peez" and got pregnant just by sneezing (I'm only kidding but I'm also the oldest of 7 clearly fertility was not an issue, except maybe being TOO fertile!) I thought for sure we'd be pregnant right away. Now keep in mind I'd been ready for this for a while, so we were serious from the get go. Charting, taking my temp. Every morning, watching for other signs of ovulation. Well after a couple months I began to wonder if I was ovulating since I wasn't really noticing the signs that are supposed to happen at ovulation! But I was new at all this and gave it more time. Four months later I began to be suspicious that something was off. Keep in mind; this was not solely because I wasn't pregnant. I knew that could take a while, up to a year is considered normal. But we were doing everything right and I was NOT noticing signs of ovulating. I talked to a good friend who is a Dula and she told me some things I was experiencing were actually signs of NOT ovulating. So I check in with my Dr. she said keep trying! Give it time! Put me on a medication for a hormone that was imbalanced in hopes that would help and said try ovulation predictor kits for 2 months, that will help us see if you are ovulating or not. Oh and use them every day to make sure we don't miss it somehow! So I peed on a stick every day. With excitement and expectation! Only to never see a positive test! Check back in with the Dr. she recommends going back on birth control for 2 months to let my body "naturally" reset it's self. That was a saddening blow. Two months of birth control plus pregnancy time meant at least a year before we had a child, and that was IF we got pregnant right away after getting off birth control again, which I knew was not likely! After my "reset" birth control we did blood tests to see if I was ovulating. I became a frequent shopper at the lab! Once a week, for two months to have blood drawn, nothing, no ovulation. The Dr. gave me the news that my body was dysfunctional (that is not how she put it of course!) and it was almost a relief! At least I had a reason why I wasn't getting pregnant! Now that we had that information we could work on it and make progress! My Dr. put me on Clomid, a very commonly used fertility drug. Explained the risk of multiples and side effects and said good luck! I got to have more blood drawn every week for two more months, just to make sure the clomid was doing its job and making me ovulate. Good news!!! It did its job! We also had Brent's swimmers tested just to make sure everything was ok there and everything was perfect!
We were both very optimistic that this was all that we needed! Just a little something to make my body ovulate and then I'd get knocked up! I was really convinced in a month or two it would happen! Well two months later, clomid, other med, pee sticks every day, and still nothing. Check in with Dr. she says lets add this drug, maybe that will help. Nothing. Two months later check back in, well let’s tries adding this med. maybe you have PCOS. Well now I'm peeing on a stick every day, on a whole cocktail of drugs, and still not pregnant! My OBGYN says she's done everything she can do and recommends a specialist!

I was trying VERY hard to not get discouraged but by this point that was becoming difficult. A whole slew of people had gotten pregnant and had their beautiful babies before I'd even gotten pregnant! It seemed like every week at church there was either a new baby born or someone else who was announcing their joyful news! I could have had a baby by now if my body worked the way it was supposed to! I prayed harder than I ever had before in my life! I hurt and longed for this more than I ever had for anything else in my life EVER! I quit going to baby showers. I'd send a gift and my love and congratulations, but it was just too hard to sit around with a bunch of pregnant women and mothers talking about how joyful children are! Anyone who became aware of our struggles had some pearls of wisdom and well meaning remarks. Which often were just hurtful, despite their good intentions. I focused on the heart of the comments rather than the comments itself but really some things people say!! There are always the stories. EVERYONE knows someone who had a hard time getting pregnant and finally did! Although thoughtful, not particularly helpful! That didn't change the fact that I was hurting, that I was still longing. Yes I knew it could happen, but the question was would it happen? Although most of the time people get pregnant there are plenty of people who never do! Would I be one of them? Was this my Heavenly Fathers plan for me? I searched my scriptures for understanding, scoured conference talks, searched of a good LDS book on infertility (not out their) and felt alone! Although Brent has been amazing though all of this, he is a boy, he processes things differently, feels things differently, and it wasn't his body that was preventing us from having a child! It was mine. I wanted to hate my body! I wanted to hate God! I wanted to hate every person who complained about their child! I wanted to hate every person who complained about pregnancy! I wanted to hate every new baby! Every time I wanted to hate someone I prayed! I poured my soul out! I cried and cried asked for strength to make it through that moment, the day, this trial. I started focusing on why, not why me but more what? What is the purpose of this experience in my life. I was reminded of the principle of "The Blessing Of Adversity" and started focusing on the blessings in my life. The blessings I had received in my life because of my trial and just the blessings I had as a living breathing daughter of God. I even made a list of blessings from infertility. It took me a while but not as long as I would have expected! When it all became too overwhelming I turned it over to The Lord (and believe me more than once it was just too overwhelming the pain and sadness were just too much to bear). As I prayed "Father I cannot do this! I know this is your will and I'm willing to accept it but you have to give me strength, it hurts too much! I cannot do this" Somehow the strength came and I had peace in my heart again. Month after disappointing month my Savior did not fail me! There were moments I was convinced had I prayed for this. Previous prayers of "Please help Brent and I to grow closer to each other and help our love to grow. Please help me to gain a greater understanding of the atonement and my Saviors’ sacrifice for me." Yep it's true, be careful what you pray for! Because I certainly got it! Not in the way I had ever imagined but those prayers were certainly answered!

So we go see a specialist. They review all the info sent my by Dr. and I'm happy to hear she's done everything right! They tell us they'd recommend Intrauterine insemination (IUI) We discuss that and feel positive about it! I'm certain that this is going to work and work quickly! I'm also VERY hopeful it will work quickly because the cost is not cheap and not covered by insurance! They recommend 4-6 cycles before suggesting moving on to In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). IVF is EXTREMELY expensive and really not an option for us! We discussed if IUI did not work we would pursue adoption. The cost was similar and I felt IVF was in our situation like gambling, adoption more like, shopping. Either way we could only afford to pursue one option! After 3 months working with the specialist my hope was running thin. My mind wondered more and more if I would ever get to experience pregnancy, feeling a child move within me. The fun of I hope they have your dimples, my eyes...... Have the joy of child birth. Being the first person to hold a newborn child and welcome them into the world. I'm not saying there is a single thing wrong with adoption. In face I still consider it something I'd love to do. But when that is your ONLY option there are a lot of dreams you have to give up and a lot of experiences you never get to have. I started browsing adoption agencies online, finding out about adoption benefits through Brent's work and tried to not become extremely depressed. I'd remind myself the one thing I really wanted was to be a mother and it didn't really matter how that happened!

Then when hope was running thin a miracle happened! We were pregnant! It's actually pretty funny I took a test and it had a very light, very thin line. I was thinking it was like the ovulation test where they reference line and the test line has to be the same so I THREW IT AWAY!!!! I thought it was negative. Then later that night when we were babysitting I told Brent and he said "I think that any line on a pregnancy test is a positive" I told him, no they have to be the same. We went back and forth about it, I was convinced I was right. We get home, I Google it, look on the paper and about died when I read "any line on a pregnancy test is a positive, even a faint line" But in reading what can cause a faint line I kept myself from getting too excited. A faint line can be a sign of an early miscarriage tubal pregnancy or other not good things. So the next morning I called the Dr. I once again headed to the lab and had blood drawn. We waited ALL DAY to get the call with the results. I was at the lab by 8 am, we didn't get the call till 5:30 that night!!! It was an eternity, but not as long as the two weeks after a procedure to when you can take a test to find out!!! When we heard, well you are definitely very pregnant I swear my heart stopped for just a moment! We were both screaming, laughing, crying!!! It was truly overwhelming! I still get teary eyed if I think about all we've gone through to get here and that I'm really actually pregnant! Once we stopped screaming we immediately kneeled down together and prayed. It was a prayer full of tears and barely audible, but I'm sure our Heavenly knew exactly how happy and grateful we were!!

A couple days later we had our first ultra sound. I got to see a heartbeat and got a picture. I cried! There was just no holding it in! There are no words to describe the joy of that moment!

Just want to give a big thank you to all those who have supported us and prayed for us, fasted with us and cried with us!!!! We love you!