Our Journey to Growing our Family - Part 1

Brian and I got married in January of 2015. We both really wanted kids and were excited to start a family.  While dating we agreed we wanted four kids and had two boy names and two girl names picked out.  After getting married we knew it would be wise to wait a few years before trying to get pregnant make sure to build a good foundation for our marriage and also to become financially stable.

After about a year of marriage, several of our friends started announcing their pregnancies.  We were overjoyed for them, yet secretly lamented that we would be in different stages of life, and longed to join them in parenthood. Brian and I started an ongoing conversation about when would be the right time to start trying to grow our family

There were signs we weren’t ready. Our house was small, we were still paying off student loans and we were pretty heavily reliant on our dual incomes, which left the prospect of staying home with baby (something I really wanted to do) as a giant question mark.  But the more we thought and prayed about it, the more I wondered, was God leading us into a season of trust?   

When the fall of 2016 rolled around, we discussed moving forward and instead of trying for a baby, we just stopped trying to prevent it.  We trusted if God gave us a baby, he would also provide for our means to care for one.

If I’m being honest I expected it to happen right away. But it didn’t, and instead, that winter I ended up with mono. That was one of the darkest, longest winters of my life.  Boise had a record breaking snowfall. Brian and his students enjoyed more than a week of snow days. All the while I oscillated between feeling like I had to rally and push myself to keep on showing up at work, and feeling defeated when I would go home, utterly exhausted and unable to do anything due to the fatigue.

With Christmas came a myriad of pregnancy announcements from friends and acquaintances. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for myself that while my friends were getting pregnant, I instead had mono. I still tried to keep a smile on my face, but in reality I was really struggling.

Since we knew the road to recovery from mono was long, and that my body was already under a lot of stress, we decided to postpone any sort of trying (or not trying, not preventing) until I was feeling better.  We focused instead on trying to get healthy. I saw a naturopath who recommended various supplements to help my body heal from mono and also help balance out what she determined was a hormone imbalance. We attempted the Whole 30 and Paleo diets and ate gluten free for several months.

By May I still had days here and there were I felt fatigued, but overall was feeling much better. We felt like we had the green light to start trying again. By this point I really wanted a baby, and so did Brian, so we transitioned into “officially trying.”  I wondered if before God had prevented us from conceiving because of mono, but now…now maybe would be our time.  

We tried through the summer and fall, but when we weren’t pregnant by November, I started to get a little worried. Most doctors recommend for anyone under 35 to try for at least a year before doing any sort of fertility testing. I had some concerns about my hormones and pain with my period, so I went to my doctor just shy of a year, thinking that if something was up I wanted to know as soon as possible.  The doctor recommended we start with a semen analysis as 40-50% of all infertility is male factor and this would be the quickest and cheapest test. We waited until after the holidays and in a moment of weakness got a puppy and named her Jubilee.

By mid January we had the results of the semen analysis, and thankfully there were no concerns there.  For the next step they recommended a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) test (try saying that three times fast!). The HSG test is a type of x-ray of the pelvis where contrast dye is injected into the uterus and flows out through the fallopian tubes. The purpose is to determine if the fallopian tubes are blocked or clear, as well as any abnormalities with the uterus and fallopian tubes. I was very hesitant to proceed with this test. Our insurance didn’t cover it, and I had heard it could be painful. Still hopeful that this next month would be our month, we decided to hold off.

At the beginning of March, I had been having pain in my left side on-and-off for about 5 days. I was also having symptoms similar to a urinary tract infection. I felt (after consulting Dr. Google) they were related to my ovary and wondered if I had an ovarian cyst, so I called my doctor explaining my symptoms and asked if they could do an ultrasound. They asked if I could come into the office that afternoon.

While the ultrasound tech performed the ultrasound, I was watching the screen, but not sure what I was looking at. I could tell she was measuring something and typed a few notes. As much as I wanted to ask her what she saw. I refrained from doing so, knowing that she couldn’t tell me anything and that the doctor would need to review the ultrasound.

After the ultrasound I drove home. I hadn’t been home for more than a few minutes when the phone rang with the news: I had significant cysts on both ovaries and they could tell by the ultrasound that the cysts had endometrial tissue. I needed to follow up with the doctor as soon as possible.

The next day I had an appointment with a nurse practitioner. She explained that the cyst(s) on my left ovary were significant and my only option was to have surgery to remove them. She wasn’t sure the left could be removed without having to remove my whole ovary. She also explained that because the cysts had endometrial tissue (which they could tell from the type of sounds waves they were seeing on the ultrasound) they were known as endometriomas, affectionately called chocolate cysts because they are filled with old blood which looks like chocolate (gross). Endometriomas are often present in patients who have endometriosis. Endometriosis, a reproductive disorder that affects around 10% of women, is where the tissue that normally lines the uterus, the endometrium, grows outside the uterus. It can cause pelvic pain and infertility, both of which I was experiencing. The presence and size of the endometriomas on my ovaries, indicated that I had at least stage 3 endometriosis, and was the likely culprit preventing us from getting pregnant.

I received this news with mixed emotions. On one hand, I was relieved to have answers as to why I wasn’t getting pregnant, and a newfound hope strung up as we could now look for solutions. On the other hand, I was devastated by the news. I did my best to be a healthy person, eating right, taking my vitamins, and exercising, and yet my body was apparently being ravaged by a chronic disease unbeknownst to me. To top it all off, I found all this out about three days after deciding to make a job change. So many worries and questions burdened me, including if the new company would be accommodating to me having to take a leave of absence for surgery right after starting.

Instead of moving forward with the doctor who reviewed my ultrasound, we decided to get a second opinion with a fertility specialist.  We had our 1st appointment at the fertility clinic a week later. She did another ultrasound and again recommended surgery. She advised us that my chances of conceiving naturally with my level of Endometriosis were less than 3% and that in her opinion, my best chance of conceiving after surgery would be to do IVF.  We weren’t sure if we were ready to go that route, but definitely agreed the next step would be to proceed with surgery, which was scheduled for June 4. In the meantime, I distracted myself with a trip I had planned to southern California to visit with friends and family.

My doctor also recommended I proceed with the dreaded HSG test because they wanted to know if there were any abnormalities so they could potentially correct them during surgery. I had the test done and surprisingly it wasn’t as bad as I had expected, although by this point I was pretty used to doctors and tests. The HSG results thankfully came out normal.

On June 4 2018 I had laparoscopic/robotic surgery to remove the cysts on my ovaries.  The surgery discovered extensive endometriosis with endometrial implants in all areas of my abdominal cavity including as far up as my liver and diaphragm.  The doctor told Brian after the surgery, “Endometriosis is rated in a severity scale of 1-4 with 4 being the worst and she is about a 5.” Hearing that news was quite disheartening.  I knew it would be bad due to the size of the endometriomas, but I was holding out some hope that somehow it didn’t spread. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

Before surgery…

Hair nets should be a fashion statement

After surgery…the anesthesia was making me super drowsy and out of it. That double chin is definitely a win though…

They attempted multiple times to get my IV in before surgery so I ended up with a couple of sesame street bandaids.

One of the hardest parts for me in all this was accepting the broken reality of my body.  I had been doing everything in my power to try to be healthy and prepare my body for pregnancy, and yet little did I know my body was far from a hospitable environment for growing a baby and I had no control over that.

Yet we weren’t too far off from our miracle babe and that story is to be continued…