Gotta Have Faith

"God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, or sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way. If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it."

 -- Unknown

When I scheduled my Laparoscopy, I felt like it was forever away (3 months ago.)  We now have just less than 3 weeks until surgery day, and I am feeling a little (okay, a lot) stressed out.  Stressed about taking unpaid time off work.  Stressed about the recovery process, wondering how long I will be down for.  Stressed about going under for surgery, and the feeling of waking up from the anesthesia.  Stressed about wondering whether or not they'll find the endometriosis.  Stressed about wondering whether or not we will get pregnant within 6 months. 

Getting pregnant is really out of my hands.  As I have said before, when Heavenly Father believes we are ready, He will bless us.  We have to have faith in His plan.  That is the most important element in this whole process.  Faith in His timing. 

Sometimes I find it best for me to just cry.  Whether they are happy or sad tears, it just feels good to get it out.  I love my job, and I love the blessing of being able to work with such fun, energetic, and loving children.  But sometimes when rocking one of our sweet babies,  I find myself wiping some tears, wishing it were my cuddly baby in my arms.  But for the time being, I am grateful to be able to rock those little loves, and give them the love and attention I would give my own.  

 On a side note, Kyhle and I went to Target this morning.  Of course I had to walk around the baby section.  There is a baby swing that we've seen at a few stores, and as we were walking by it today, Kyhle stopped and pointed out how much he liked it.  I'm not rubbing off on him or anything.  :) 

Save! Don't Spend!

Having a baby is expensive.  Obviously.  Well, for us, and others like us, so is trying to have said baby.  

Unfortunately, almost all insurance companies do not cover treatments for infertility.  Many of them also don't even cover testing to find if you have any "problems."  I don't think I will ever be able to understand why.  

So frustrating.  

When we got married, I wanted to start saving right away to someday be able to start our family.  Because of insurance companies not covering our testing and treatments, we have sadly had to spend, and are having to spend, most of that money to cover everything.  We are currently battling with our insurance over some of these bills, and I just want to bang my phone against the wall and scream at the person I am speaking with.  Kyhle does most of the battling, so I know he feels the same frustration as I do.  

We have been given a tough situation with my laparoscopy surgery.  You never think you would say that you hope they find something wrong.  But right now, we are strongly hoping.  If the doctor finds that I do have endometriosis, insurance will cover the surgery.  Awesome!!

If they find nothing wrong, we have to pay for everything.  

Because of all of these new, unexpected expenses, I am working on planning a new monthly budget for us.  We have learned the hard way about what happens if you spend and don't save.  We love to spend, spend, spend!  Obviously, our biggest problem is that we love to go out to eat.  Who doesn't?  We used to grocery shop at Wal-Mart and Kroger, but lately, we have gotten lazy and started to do all of our shopping at Marsh.  I come home from the store with just a few things in my bags, and I have spent $60!  That just can't happen anymore.  My mom and sister have been telling me so much lately that I need to get a hobby.  

Couponing!

I have become very interested in all of the hype that comes with couponing.  The past few days, I am always searching online for coupon sites, blogs, and finding deals.  Last night, I signed up for the Sunday and Thursday Indianapolis Star with all of the coupons.  I don't want to do the extreme and make it a full-time job, but if I can save $10-$20 each shopping trip, I'm all for it!  We have also decided to start a new goal of only having date night once a month.  We will still do "dates", but we are only going to go out to eat once a month.  How much money that will save us!  

I am excited for this new hobby.  I have so many wonderful friends who are willing to show me the ropes and teach me their tricks.  I am most excited to start saving more money!  We have opened a separate savings account to have money direct deposited specifically for this baby journey.  We will use it to help pay the medical bills, and hopefully sooner rather than later, be able to use it to buy baby products!  

Again, thank you for all of your support and love.  We are so grateful for each and every one of you! 

Insensitive

First off, I want to say thank you to all of you for the wonderful amount of love and support you have all shown us.  We are truly blessed to have such amazing family and friends in our lives.  If it weren't for all of you, we would not be able to make it through this battle. 

Thank you, and we love you!

I was debating if I wanted to start this blog or not, wondering what people would think about me putting all of our "business" out there for everyone to read.  After I posted, I was pleasantly surprised by how many women privately messaged me to let me know that they, too, have been through this roller coaster of infertility.  I was hoping that by starting this blog, it would help women who were more private about their journey feel comfortable talking to me about it, and that is just what happened.  On the flip side of that, some people were against me writing such personal struggles on here for everyone to read.  To them, I say if I can touch the life of just one woman going through this battle, it is all worth it to me.  This blog is meant more to be a journal for me to express my emotions through this journey.  My happy, my sad, my crazy, my depressing, my joyous days...it's mine.  

My job is insane!  We have currently have 13 kiddos ages 12 weeks-5 years.  We don't have all 13 everyday, but we usually average about 8-10 of them a day.  Lately, my co-workers have been making comments saying, "These kids make me not want my own!!!"  Okay, I know I am not a mom, and I don't fully understand what it's like to have that crazy in my home 24/7, but I don't care.  I would take the loudest, most hyper, energetic child if that meant I could have a child of my own.  The day I had my appointment with my fertility specialist was an especially hectic day at work.  The kids were having a hard time listening and getting along with each other.  On my way out, a co-worker said, "Are you sure you still want kids? You may hope they find something wrong!"  Are you kidding me?  Do you realize that is probably the dumbest question anyone has ever asked me?! Nice timing, too. I understand she was just venting about the craziness of the day, but how insensitive can you get?  

In The Beginning...

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.