Most of you who will be reading this, will already know of what I'm about to share, but...I'll start out by saying Nathan and I have been married for a little over 4 years. He's a Software Developer at Cooper Tire here in Findlay. He also helps his brother, Matt on Saturdays with Matt's excavating business. I'm a Licensed Social Worker working at Children's Mentoring Connection (formerly Big Brothers Big Sisters) as well as working at Blanchard Valley Center with the Mentally Retarded/Developmentally Disabled (MRDD) adults. We have a dog who we've completely fallen in love with. :) She is a 4 year old Beagle (we got her when she was only 6 weeks old) and her name is Bailey. I'm sure you'll hear more about her in later posts!
Anyway...over a year and a half ago (19 months to be exact, but who's counting?!), with much thought and prayer, we decided we were ready to expand our family. What we thought would be an easy journey turned into a very challenging, trying journey. We went to a doctor only after 4 months of trying to conceive. I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome which can affect fertility. I began a medication to help with this, yet we still did not have success after several months. My doctor suggested having surgery (a laprascopy, hysterscopy, and a chromotubation) to "diagnose and treat." My surgery was scheduled Friday, September 7th of last year. To my surprise, I was leaving work the evening before and looked at my cell phone. I had a voicemail from my doctor saying I needed to call her right away because there were some issues regarding my surgery. I was puzzled, but picked up the phone and called her back. To make a long story short, my pre-op blood work showed I was indeed pregnant! As you can imagine, I was shocked, yet ecstatic. I ran home to share the news with Nathan and we celebrated with a nice dinner. We barely had enough time to fall in love with the fact of me being pregnant and a few short days later it was all stripped away from us as we suffered a miscarriage. We were devastated and exhausted with all of the emotions we encountered in those few days. Anxiety for the surgery, excitement at the fact of being pregnant, devastated because of our loss, to frustrated with the fact of my surgery had to now be rescheduled. So, my surgery was re-scheduled and that took place on October 2nd. The day started early and they said I should return home by lunch time. Well, the anesthesia kicked my butt and we didn't make it home until dinner time! They, again confirmed I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and Adenomysosis (similar to Endometriosis). I thought I was on the road to recovery once I hit our couch at home, only to end up in the ER a few days later from a terrible infection from the surgery. It took me about a month until I finally felt somewhat like me again! I must credit my amazing husband who took such great care of me!
We then began the wonderful world of fertility drugs and procedures. From Clomid to Femara (a breast cancer drug that has shown to help with fertility) to injectables and on and on and on, it felt like! Started out simple and quickly became more complicated and involved. Never in our wildest dreams did we know trying to conceive was going to be such a "chore"---and an expensive chore, I might add! After months of this, we decided to go to a fertility clinic 2 hours away. We knew this was going to be a huge sacrifice with it being 2 hours away. Spending 4 hours in the car driving, with high gas prices, and having to rearrange work schedules, we decided we had exhausted all other resources and it was a sacrifice we were willing to take. Two months with this clinic and we are PREGNANT!!! It probably could have been one month, but the first month we didn't do all that was suggested due to finances. We allowed ourselves a month to save up more money as our insurance company had put a label on me as "infertile" and refused to pay for anything. So, you can imagine how costly things were with blood work, ultrasounds, medications, appointments, etc.
So, the fun part is beginning! Our exciting news was confirmed on Monday, July 26th with blood work. I since have had blood work two more times to make sure my hCG levels (the pregnancy hormone) was rising as it is suppose to. Last Tuesday we had our first ultrasound. We made the trek to Kettering (the fertility clinic 2 hours away) as they will watch me closely for the first trimester. The doctor told us at the beginning not to be discouraged if we did not hear anything because we are very early into the pregnancy. He said only about 50% do hear a heartbeat. So, he started the ultrasound and we got to see "our little bean on the screen." Yes, it was literally smaller than a bean, but the cutest little speck we have ever seen! He then turned the doplar on and there it was...THE HEARTBEAT (! We were so thrilled! I think we both fought back tears, yet smiling ear to ear as we watched and listened to our precious baby. "It" measured 3.40mm and the heartbeat was at 105 beats per minute. Truly the most amazing thing both of us have ever experienced!
We always thought we'd wait until we were further along to share our fun news, however our situation has been different as family and close friends have walked beside us each month and we think they always knew about when we'd be finding out if things worked or not. So, yes...we shared our news early, but we are feeling very at peace that this is it. I, again give much credit to my precious husband who has been laying his hands on me each night and praying over my body (and now praying over the baby). God is good, all the time...all the time, God is good! And we of course, give all the glory to God as we have truly learned that the gift of conception truly does come from Him.
I know this is a super long post and I'm sure future posts won't be this long and in depth, but one last thing I want to share are some pictures. We wanted to share our news in a fun, creative way with our families. Nathan thought of the Mastercard commercials (the whole priceless concept) and I couldn't think of a better way to share than this!
