And
so begins our baby journey...We had been married about 9 months when we decided
we were ready to start trying for a family. So in November 2014 I had my birth
control (Implanon) removed from my arm. Would I have 3 by 30? No. I was 28 and
unless we got pregnant with triplets that hope was gone. It was already on
shaky ground since my husband only wanted 2 kids while I was set on 3. The
decision was we’d have 2 and see how things went, but full disclosure I’m still
hopeful for 3. :) So off we went into unknown territory. We were trying to get
pregnant and even though we’d been discussing it for years at this point, every
month if I was even 30 seconds late part of me worried. I imagine that’s how
all women feel when they are hoping to be pregnant. It’s scary. I mean, if all
the stars and baby dancing align you start growing a human! How unbelievably
amazing and terrifying. When you decide to start a family, you start a
Pinterest board. Haha! No. Well, yes. You do start a Pinterest board but that’s
not where I was going with this. When you decide to start a family you imagine
how it will play out. We started trying in November and I honestly believed
we’d be able to surprise our family with a Christmas announcement. But when we
weren’t pregnant in December I started planning for Valentine’s Day. When it
came and went I considered our anniversary in March. Then Mother’s Day in May.
Father’s Day in June. The 4th of July? We were now half way through 2015, over
a year into our marriage and no baby. Everyone asked “So when are you having
kids?” and we’d be so excited in responding with “Soon!” We knew we were trying
but we weren’t broadcasting that so when people asked it was still exciting,
like it could happen any day! But as we neared the year mark of trying we got a
little discouraged. Was it this hard for everyone? Had my Mama given me the
wrong “the birds and the bees” talk? Was something wrong with me? So off to
Google I went to find my shady WebMD answers. Infertility. That’s a thing?
Women can’t get pregnant? Why didn’t I know this? Why hadn’t anyone mentioned
it before? Did I have that problem? Were kids out of the question? Was I
broken? So I joined a ridiculous number of baby groups on Facebook. I watched a
million videos on YouTube. I watched every documentary I could find on Netflix,
Amazon and Hulu. If there was a way to fix this myself I would find it. So
along came the charts and Basel thermometers. I started tracking everything. My
food, my water, my exercise, my periods, our intercourse, my discharge. It got
real detailed real quickly and my husband wanted no part of this “behind the
scenes” baby making. He didn’t like knowing when I was ovulating, he wanted it
to happen naturally. So we started calling it my golden week and I’d drop a
hint that it was coming up then leave it alone. The last thing you want is the
man you are trying to have children with freaked out because he knows too much
about how your body works. Honestly, I was freaked out at how much I knew. By
2016 despite my best Dr. Google efforts we still weren’t pregnant. So I went to
my OB/GYN and asked for help. Since we’d been trying over a year he recommended
a fertility doctor. A fertility doctor. This was getting serious. I was a
nervous wreck walking in. Physically shaking. What if I was broken? What if I
was the reason we couldn’t have kids? If it was Clayton I was ready to handle
that. I just couldn’t imagine how I’d handle things if it was me. Dr. Kaufman
came in with the most upbeat and positive attitude. He high-fived us and said
“Let’s make a baby!” Every ounce of fear left. This man knows what he’s doing, he’s
pumped, he’s happy, he’s positive! He’s going to help us! This was just a
consultation and exam to get a baseline on everything so no real scary info was
dropped in that first meeting. There was bloodwork and an ultrasound and
scheduling of my husband’s sperm count test but after that meeting I had so
much renewed hope. We wanted a baby and we were taking the steps to make that
happen! We were ready. It wasn’t scary anymore. Over the next few weeks all the
tests came back. Normal. Perfectly normal. “There is nothing wrong with either
of you. You are both young and healthy. Your sperm count is excellent, your egg
count is even higher than I’d expect. What you have is just unexplained
infertility.” Unexplained infertility? We can’t get pregnant and you have no
idea why. You can’t help us. You can’t fix me and make this happen. This is
just our lives. Totally unanswered questions.
You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth. None of your men or women will be childless, and all your livestock will bear young.
Deuteronomy 7:14NLT
~Ashley~
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