I love strollers, diaper bags, baby clothes, nurseries, swings, bumbos, etc...
If it has anything to do with baby, I love it.
Even when I was a little girl out shopping with my mom, if we walked by the "baby section," I had to stop and look at each and every little thing. When strollers were down on the floor, I would take every opportunity to push it around. (Yes, I loved pushing empty strollers.) Now that there is a Buy Buy Baby open down the street from us, Kyhle is a dear and takes me there every so often just so I can look at the different nursery ideas, melt over all the different baby outfits, and yes, push around the empty strollers.
As you can probably guess by now, I am a little baby obsessed.
I always knew I wanted to be a mom right away. When people in school would ask me what my dream job was, I would always respond that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. Unfortunately, getting pregnant has presented many challenges for us. After 12 months of no success, my OB would finally discuss it with me. She took some tests and did an exam, but said that everything looked and seemed fine. She decided to start me on Clomid to see if ovulation was the problem. Clomid is a nasty, mean, horrible drug. It makes your hormones get all out of whack, gives you miserable hot flashes and headaches, and messes up with your cycles, making you think you are pregnant each month.
Every month I would take 5-9 ovulation tests, and 1 (sometimes 2) pregnancy tests. Every month, I would get a negative. Every month, I would be in tears.
After trying Clomid for 5 months with no success, we decided to visit a fertility specialist. I went in to this appointment hoping they would find something wrong, but something that could be easily fixed. (Obviously.) I wasn't at all prepared for this appointment. When we got there, we first sat with the doc in his office so he could get to know us and hear our "story." He then gave me a pelvic exam and ultrasound. After that, Kyhle and I went back in to his office and sat for a few minutes waiting for him to come in with results.
I felt like it was a scene straight out of the movies. He came in, sat down, looked up, and paused. Never a good sign. After hearing all of my symptoms and doing the exam, he felt that I have endometriosis. He is not 100% sure of this, which is why I will have a laparoscopy (surgery) to find what is really going on in there. Being a little unsure made Kyhle feel uneasy, but the nurse told us that he has never recommended this surgery and found that he was wrong. He also said without a laparoscopy, we have a 5% chance of having a baby on our own, and with it, it goes up to 75%. That's a pretty good percentage boost. After the surgery, they want us to try for 6 more months. If we still have no success, they recommend doing IVF treatments. Kyhle and I have already decided that if we are unable to have children naturally, we would like to adopt.
I will be having a Laparoscopy on Thursday, May 10. After surgery, I will be down recovering for 7 days, and then can't lift anything over 20 lbs for 30 days. That will be a little challenging with my job!
While we were sitting in the office with the nurse going over all of the scheduling for the surgery, pre-op and post-op appointments, I was trying so hard to keep it all together, but I just couldn't. I felt like I had just been told my body couldn't do the one thing it was put on this earth to do. I felt like everyone around me was pregnant, whether they were trying for it or it was an "accident."
I was on overload.
I don't know what I would have done if Kyhle hadn't been with me during the appointment. When we got home, I called my parents to let them know what had been going on. Kyhle and I kept it at secret that we had been trying the entire time. About a month before the fertility appointment, we decided to let our parents know what was going on. After the appointment, I went ahead and talked to the rest of my family about it all, as well. I am so glad I did! I feel horrible that I kept it from my sisters all that time. I know that it upset some of them, and I completely understand why it would. I know families are there to love and support us, in good times and bad.
I am doing much better with everything now. I have had time to accept the fact that we have been given this trial, and I know that I just have to have faith in Heavenly Father that our time will come. When He is ready to bless us with a child, He will. He does not give us anything we can't handle. I am so grateful my brother and his wife had a similar trial, and now have 4 beautiful children through the blessing of adoption. I know that we still have a chance to have a baby on our own, but I am also happy with the possibility of adoption. I am also so grateful my church has an awesome adoption program for couples like Kyhle and I. In a weird way, I am grateful for this certain trial in our lives, because I know that it will make us love and appreciate our future babies that much more.
