I have not forgotten that I'm still in the middle of our infertility story and I will get to that soon....hopefully. But I so wanted to share with you all that we finally have our adoption video and the "Dear Birth Family letter" done! Yay! Now our social worker goes before the adoption committee to get our home study approved and we should get put into circulation sometime in the next couple of weeks. That means that our videos will be available for prospective birth families to view and that means we could be identified as someone's adoptive family! So in case you want to view them, here are the links to both.
The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BpB2M8p-G4
The digital letter/album: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0IauWLZwyctHQA
A big thanks to our brother-in-law, Michael, for helping us with the video. And thanks to Kurt and Christen for letting us borrow your video camera.
We love you all!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
How did we get here... (Part 2)
Okay, so I stopped at August 2009 but before we get there I have to share some of the tests we did in that time frame. I had blood tests done which showed nothing out of the normal. My progesterone was a little low but nothing to be concerned about. If I became pregnant I would take progesterone. I had a hysterosalpingogram. That is a somewhat painful test where they shoot dye through my fallopian tubes to make sure that they are clear and that an egg can travel down them to the uterus. My tubes were fine. Then Kyle was tested. He was fine. I did an ultrasound to see if there was anything out of the ordinary with my ovaries. They were good and didn't even show signs of poly cystic ovarian syndrome. Alrighty, so we're all good! But why haven't we been able to have a baby or even get pregnant!
Now we come to August 2009, 2 years and 5 months after starting to try to have a baby. I'm still experiencing severe symptoms of stress/worry. A.k.a, I couldn't give this over to God! That made me stress out more. What was wrong with me?!?! I started thinking of all the sins I had committed and that he must be punishing me in some way. I couldn't make that work with what I know about Jesus' love, however I couldn't get those thoughts out of my head. In August 2009 we moved from our first full time ministry in MO to another full time ministry in IL. Closer to family but farther from dear friends. It was almost immediately after moving here that Kyle discovered this book in the library. It was actually really cute because he was reluctant to touch it or pick it up. He came and got me and said, "Hey hun, there's this book over here I think you should see." And from a distance he points at it... ahhaha. This is what I saw:
Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny. This book is about eastern medicine and more particularly acupuncture. After much research, I decided I would move forward with this. Then in January of 2010, only months after beginning acupuncture, I became pregnant. I won't go into all the details here but I didn't get on progesterone right away because of being with a new doctor. I can't say that's why but I did miscarry :( Talk about heart wrenching. There has been so much uncertainty surrounding my miscarriages. What I mean by that is there is this time when I know I probably have miscarried and don't know for sure. I had a bit of spotting and called the doctor. They kind of just said it's probably normal and call back if you start cramping. So I did. Finally I got in for blood tests which revealed very low levels of hcg but I definitely was pregnant. In the mean time they scheduled an ultrasound and did another blood test. On the way to the appt to have the ultrasound, they called and said that I it wouldn't do any good to have an ultrasound done. My hcg levels had dropped and they were below the levels of what they can do an ultrasound. My worst fears just became reality! Even though I knew before, there's something about the doctor saying it that makes it so final. Wow, where do we go from here? Well... we didn't know. We grieved our loss and I continued acupuncture in the mean time.
I just have to say a bit here about grieving the loss of an unborn child. It's like nothing I've ever felt. It seems so difficult to grieve in the normal ways, i.e. time off work or time with family, because it's not a loss that anyone besides us can see. It seems as though life must go on as normal when really a part of our world has collapsed around us. If you have ever gone through a miscarriage, you may know what I'm talking about. However hard it may be, grieving is a necessary part of being able to move on so I did take a couple days off work and cried. And Kyle held me while I cried. And we cried together. And grieve we did.
A few months go by and we decide to try a fertility drug called clomid. The doctor said we would try this for three months, raising the dose each month to the maximum. If I didn't become pregnant after that then a specialist was in order. In October 2010 I became pregnant again.
Unfortunately this isn't a happily ever after story but will be continued soon. Again.
Now we come to August 2009, 2 years and 5 months after starting to try to have a baby. I'm still experiencing severe symptoms of stress/worry. A.k.a, I couldn't give this over to God! That made me stress out more. What was wrong with me?!?! I started thinking of all the sins I had committed and that he must be punishing me in some way. I couldn't make that work with what I know about Jesus' love, however I couldn't get those thoughts out of my head. In August 2009 we moved from our first full time ministry in MO to another full time ministry in IL. Closer to family but farther from dear friends. It was almost immediately after moving here that Kyle discovered this book in the library. It was actually really cute because he was reluctant to touch it or pick it up. He came and got me and said, "Hey hun, there's this book over here I think you should see." And from a distance he points at it... ahhaha. This is what I saw:
Anyway, I thought it was pretty funny. This book is about eastern medicine and more particularly acupuncture. After much research, I decided I would move forward with this. Then in January of 2010, only months after beginning acupuncture, I became pregnant. I won't go into all the details here but I didn't get on progesterone right away because of being with a new doctor. I can't say that's why but I did miscarry :( Talk about heart wrenching. There has been so much uncertainty surrounding my miscarriages. What I mean by that is there is this time when I know I probably have miscarried and don't know for sure. I had a bit of spotting and called the doctor. They kind of just said it's probably normal and call back if you start cramping. So I did. Finally I got in for blood tests which revealed very low levels of hcg but I definitely was pregnant. In the mean time they scheduled an ultrasound and did another blood test. On the way to the appt to have the ultrasound, they called and said that I it wouldn't do any good to have an ultrasound done. My hcg levels had dropped and they were below the levels of what they can do an ultrasound. My worst fears just became reality! Even though I knew before, there's something about the doctor saying it that makes it so final. Wow, where do we go from here? Well... we didn't know. We grieved our loss and I continued acupuncture in the mean time.
I just have to say a bit here about grieving the loss of an unborn child. It's like nothing I've ever felt. It seems so difficult to grieve in the normal ways, i.e. time off work or time with family, because it's not a loss that anyone besides us can see. It seems as though life must go on as normal when really a part of our world has collapsed around us. If you have ever gone through a miscarriage, you may know what I'm talking about. However hard it may be, grieving is a necessary part of being able to move on so I did take a couple days off work and cried. And Kyle held me while I cried. And we cried together. And grieve we did.
A few months go by and we decide to try a fertility drug called clomid. The doctor said we would try this for three months, raising the dose each month to the maximum. If I didn't become pregnant after that then a specialist was in order. In October 2010 I became pregnant again.
Unfortunately this isn't a happily ever after story but will be continued soon. Again.
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