Dear Aunt Flo, WHERE ARE YOU????

I never imagined that I would be begging for my period to come. Usually it's the other way around. I'm usually begging for it NOT to show up hoping that I could be pregnant. But this time is different. We can't start "trying" again until aunt flow comes! Well, it's been 7 weeks 3 days since I had my d&c and I haven't even had a period yet. Not a good sign. Looks like my body is not even THINKING about regulating itself. That's kind of upsetting to me because for ONCE in my life I would love to just be "regular". I had hope that my body would reset itself after the miscarriage, but I guess body is just as stubborn as I am and is just SET IN IT'S WAYS! My doctor told me to wait at least 8 weeks to see if I started on my own. If I didn't, then I would have to take a pill called provera. I am VERY use to taking this pill because when I use to take the clomid I had to use it to start another cycle. Provera just releases the hormones that I need to make me have a period. I still have to wait another month or so before my doc will put me back on clomid, so who knows how this next month will go. So Aunt Flo, please come visit me ASAP!!!! If you don't, I'm going to have to hire an INVESTIGATOR to come find you! Lol!

Why is infertility such a SECRET???

Why do people find it hard to talk about infertility? Are people ashamed of not being able to get pregnant? It's not something that we should be ashamed of. It's not like it's a choice that we made, it's just our life. Dustin and I are guilty for keeping our infertlity a secret and not telling our family about our infertility issues in the beginning and now I really don't know why we made that choice. There were SO many times that we needed someone to talk to. Someone to just let us get our frustration off of our chest. But we didn't tell anyone. We kept it a secret and tried to avoid the "When are yall going to have a baby?" questions. That is one thing that I do regret. We didn't tell anyone about our struggle with getting pregnant until we found out that were pregnant. Why did we feel it was ok to tell them then instead of 6 months earilier? I don't know. But, I know now that you should never be ashamed of something that you can't help. Let your family be there for you because they don't care what's going on, they are going to be by your side not matter what.

The Blog Is Finally Caught Up...YAY!!!!

After a little over two weeks of cramming posts in, I am FINALLY caught up to the present. Although there is not much going on right now, it feels good to know that I can post things that are happening to me "right now".

As far as our starting a family journey goes, today makes 7 weeks since we lost our little one and things are pretty much back to "normal".

There was a song that really helped me throughout these past few weeks. It's called "He Is With You" by Mandisa. This song talks about how God is with you no matter what you are going through. It relates to several different real life situations but the verse that really hit home to me was:

"He is with you when your baby's gone
And your house is still
And your hearts are stone
Crying 'God what'd you do that for?'
He is with you!"

Even though I had a hard time realizing this, I know now that God NEVER left our sides. He has ALWAYS been here with us!!

To hear the song you will have to go to the bottom of my page and click the "pause" button on my background music. Then you can click play on the music video.

6 Week Post-Op Appointment

I went for my 6 week post-op appointment on February 16, 2010. When my doc came into the room I could see the hurt for us in his eyes. He quickly stated how sorry he was for us and wanted to know how we were doing. I explained how we had our tough times in the beginning, but we were much better now. We talked for a few minutes and he asked me "So how are you both feeling about getting pregnant again?". It didn't take me but a minute to answer that question. I quickly said "We feel the sooner, the better!". He just laughed and said "I knew you were going to say that". Then he explained that I was physically healed from the miscarriage and that if we were both emotionally ready to begin trying again, then we could get right to it. LOL! He said that sometimes women's bodies will regulate themselves after a pregnancy, so he wants us to wait before getting back on the clomid to see if my body will regulate itself. Wouldn't that be great. I have never been regular in my whole life. If not, then we will begin the clomid again in a couple of months.

As I left I thanked my doc for a sweet card that he had sent Dustin and I about 2 weeks after our loss. He had hand written it which meant a lot to us. He stated how sorry he was for our loss and told us that our family was in his PRAYERS! I love having a Christian doctorwho knows that prayer is the best medicine.

Thank You For Being Such A FORGIVING God!!!!

Those next few days seem like a blur to me now. My emotions were literally all over the place. But as the week went on my anger slowly turned to sadness and then finally to guilt. Why guilt you might ask? Guilt for my lack of faith in God. I knew God wouldn't forsake me, but still I questioned his plans. I was mad at God. How could anyone not feel guilty for being mad at God?

By the time the weekend came I was ashamed of myself. I begged for God's forgiveness. I realized that God was not trying to hurt us at all. He had given us a miracle, a baby. Even though it was only for a few weeks, he answered our prayers. I could feel God's arms holding me and comforting me as I mourned for our baby. I could feel that God wanted us to trust in him and let our faith grow during this hard time in our lives. I realized that the anger I felt was the devil trying to pull me down. The devil kept me from realizing the love God was trying to show me. I didn't realize that God was already preparing me for our loss even before we heard the bad news. He kept me from fully "feeling" pregnant. He knew that those feelings would devastate me when I woke up from the surgery and they were suddenly gone, so he chose not to allow me to feel them from the beginning. I know that sounds crazy, but I truly believe God knew it would be even harder for me if I had those feelings and then lost them. Also, I realize that God blessed us with a slow prognosis. Even though the weeks were agonizing as we waited to see if our baby was going to be ok or not, he allowed us time for HIM to prepare our hearts for what was to come. He could have instantly taken our baby from us and allowed me to endure a long, drawn out miscarriage, but he didn't. He could have waited until I was farther along in my pregnancy before taking our baby back to heaven, but he knew that the emotional attachment for that long of time would break me.

Honestly, I believe God knows how much we can handle and he will NEVER give us more than we can take. He wants us to be able to trust in him when things are going good and especially when they are BAD. Dustin and I have not been through anything together that would test our faith in God, but this really did. Not so much for him, but it was a wake-up call for me. I had begun to rely on the doctors for miracles and God showed me that the doctors can't do anything without HIM!

Although this was the hardest time in our lives, I thank God for everything that happened to us now. I look back and realized that I am truly blessed. Some women don't even get a chance to become pregnant. God knew that one of my biggest fears was not being able to get pregnant and throughout all of this, he eased my fears. He showed me that HE controls everything. Even though things may not have went the way I wanted them to, God allowed me to realize that everything happens for a reason. I don't know what that reason is now, but I know that one day I will look back and see that I couldn't be where will be then, without where I have been now.

I know that God doesn't like to see us hurt and he understands our pain. He didn't hold a grudge against me for questioning him. Although I know he didn't like it, I know that he forgave me for my faults and strengthened me in my faith for him. Thank you God for being such a FORGIVING God!!!!

WHY, GOD????

Those two weeks actually went by fairly fast. I tried to keep my mind off of the "what if's" and tried to stay positive. Even though I wanted everything to be ok, I knew in my heart something wasn't right. I didn't FEEL pregnant. I didn't FEEL anything. No sickness, no soreness, no twinges in my uterus, NOTHING! But even though I knew that something was wrong in my heart, I still tried to have HOPE! I have never prayed so much in my entire life then I did those two weeks. I pleaded with God and begged for ONE last miracle!

On January 4, 2010 we went in for our last ultrasound and our worst fears were confirmed! There was NO BABY! As soon as I heard those words I could feel my heart grow cold! I didn't feel sad, I felt MAD! Mad at who you might ask? I am ashamed to admit it today, but I was mad at GOD! Questions started piling up in my mind about why God would let something like this happen? Why would he give us a baby and take it away? I laid in bed that night just bawling in my husbands arms screaming at God! I didn't understand. He knew how hard we had prayed for a baby. My husband tried his best to calm me down and reassure me that God did not do this to hurt us. He said that God knows what is best for us and we just have to trust in him. But I didn't want to listen. I was angry and hurt.

That next morning my mom went with me to have my d&c done. Dustin couldn't take off work again and the next person that I would want to be there with me was my mom! She is always there to comfort me when I'm hurting and there's never a hug that can help as much as a mom's hug. The fact that I was having a d&c didn't feel real until I was lying in the hospital bed about to go into surgery. They were giving me some meds to relax me and I couldn't help but feel as if I was about to kill my baby. At that time my mom came in and we both started crying. She tried to change the subject to calm me down so she started telling me funny stories about work to make me laugh, but behind those laughs, deep down I was screaming. I was still so full of anger and hurt. The next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery room and the nurse was handing me a tissue. I still had tears streaming down my face when I woke up and I didn't even realize that I was crying. Within minutes my mom came in and we started talking about different things to get our minds off it what had just happened. The surgery wasn't bad. It wasn't very painful and I was surprised that I didn't feel much different when I woke up. I didn't realize it at the time, but God had already begun to heal my pain. He took away the emptiness that I would have felt even before I could even feel it. He was watching over me and I didn't even know it.

Note: Sorry this post is kind of jumbled. This is the hardest post that I have ever written.

Ultrasound #2 and #3 ....Good News, Bad News

A week later (December 21) we had our 2nd ultrasound appointment. I can remember it like it was yesterday. We were so nervous and SCARED that the fluid would get worse. Well as soon as the began the ultrasound I automatically realized THERE WAS NO FLUID! The nurse even said "I can't believe it, it's GONE!". I knew what happened. God performed one of his precious miracles. He had heard our cries throughout the following week. He totally healed my hemorrhage. But, then I could see the fear in the nurses eyes. She kept looking real hard and moving the probe to different angles. I quickly asked what was wrong. My heart began to sink again. She said, "I can't find a baby in the sac. I'm so sorry!". All I could think was NO. She didn't know what she was talking about. God gave us this miracle and even performed another miracle by taking away the fluid. He wouldn't take our baby away! The nurse started telling us about how this condition was called a blighted ovum and honestly that all I can remember her saying. I was in shock. She did tell us that we needed to have a d&c as soon as possible to stop the pregnancy. All I could think about was "You look at one ultrasound and immediately tell us to end the pregnancy?". She claimed that my sac was so small that it wouldn't even measure to know how far along I was. She set us up for an appointment with my RE doctor.

When my husband and I left we came home and just cried! Then we started to talk about how we didn't feel comfortable just ending the pregnancy after ONE bad ultrasound. I immediately called my ob/gyn because I wanted a second opinion. I have been going to him for 4 years and I will trust his opinion more than a nurse that I have only met twice. I just could not believe that God would give us a little miracle and then just take it away. My sweet doctor knew how worried we were so he decided to see us the next day.

The next morning (Dec 22) we went to my OB and had another ultrasound done. Of course we saw the same thing (just a sac) but they were able to measure the sac with no problems. They measured me at 5 weeks and 5 days. The doctor said that we were way too early to even determine that there was not a baby. He said to give it two weeks and we will do another ultrasound. He said if we still see the same thing in two weeks then the prognosis would be confirmed, but not to worry about it until we know for sure. I love my ob/gyn. He is a christian and I love that about him. He told us that it is in GOD'S HANDS and we shouldn't worry about it. God knows what is best and we just need to trust in HIM!!!

Ultrasound #1

Of course you know I didn't sleep a wink that night. I was so excited and nurvous at the same time. Morning came and we were on cloud nine driving to the doctors office. I didn't know exactly how the ultrasound would go, but I have watched movies where women got ultrasounds done so I sat on the table and was getting ready to pull my shirt up so she could ultrasound my belly. Boy was I wrong. Apparently that is not how they do ultrasounds when you are so early in your pregnancy. She told me to remove my pants and cover up with the sheet. She was going to do a vaginal ultrasound. WHAT? I didn't even know they made vaginal ultrasounds and I sure didn't expect to be getting one done! That was a surprise but I didn't care. I was still too excited to worry about that. After she got everything set up we got to see our little baby! Of course at this point in a pregnancy all you could see was a black sac but that's all I needed to see. I really was pregnant! How amazing is that. I was glued to the screen just staring at our little baby.

Then, some not so good news came. It seemed that there was fluid/blood clot around the sac and it was a very large amount. She informed us that this was NOT good and it puts me at a very hight risk at miscarrying and that I needed to be on pelvic rest for the next week. I didn't need to lift anything heavy and I needed to try to stay off my feet as much as possible. She said only time will tell if this will improve by itself. My heart sank in my chest. I began to think, "How did this happen? Did I do something to cause this?". As soon as we left the doctors office we went straight home and began researching subchorionic hemerrhage, which is what the nurse called it. We learned that it just happens sometimes and nothing that I did really caused it. Sometimes the body will re-absorb the fluid and sometimes the body will release it and end in miscarriage. Being very scared all we knew to do was PRAY! We knew that it was in God's hands and we would do whatever we could to prevent anything bad from happening but in the end it was all in GOD'S HANDS!

The week went by so slow. My sweet husband didn't let me do ANYTHING. He treated me like I was on bedrest instead of just pelvic rest. He would pull the coffee table infront of the couch where I was laying so that the dogs wouldn't jump on my belly and hurt anything. Oh and I was NOT allowed to move the coffee table by myself. I had to call him everytime I wanted up so that he could come move it. He is so sweet and protective. I am so blessed to have such a great husband who cares so much! God has truly blessed me beyond measure!

Honey, I'm Pregnant!!!

After hanging up the phone with the nurse and pulling myself together I thought "How am I going to tell Dustin?". I have dreamed about how I would tell him the great news for months now. I came up with some of the cutest ideas but hadn't decided on the right one yet. But then I realized, I was driving to work, Dustin won't get off work until 3am, we are getting our ultrasound at 7:30am, When am I going to get the chance to even tell him????? Well, I always said that I would NEVER tell him the news over the phone, but I didn't have a choice. There wasn't any other time that I would be with him to tell him so I picked up the phone. I knew he was taking a nap but I had to get ahold of him before I went into work so I tried calling him not once, not twice, but FIVE times!!! WAKE UP AND ANSWER THE PHONE???? Then, I remembered that he was asleep on the couch in the livingroom and I thought if I let the answering machine pick up and SCREAM for him to answer the phone, then maybe he will wake up. Well, it worked. I left a very loud message telling him to wake up and answer the phone and I called back and he answered. He quickly answered, "What's wrong?". I sweetly said, "The doctor called me and said that I had to come in at 7:30am and I was wanting to know if you wanted to come with me?". He quickly said "No, I don't get home until 3am and I can't go with only 4 hours sleep! Don't you know I am trying to sleep?". He was so mad that I woke him up to ask him that. Then I responded, "Don't you want to go with me and see a picture of YOUR baby?". He was so confused that he thought he didn't hear me right. After I had to repeat myself a couple of times I just had to break it down for him and say "Honey, Im pregnant!!". He was SO excited. He couldn't believe it and wanted to know everything they told me. He quickly changed his mind about going with me to the ultrasound appointment, too. It was so sweet because when we were hanging up he said, "I don't think I can go back to sleep, I'm so excited!". He is going to be such a great daddy.

I was just in disbelief so after I got off work that night I bought a pregnancy test to see if it would be positive. I have seen SO many negative pregnancy test I just wondered how it would be to actually SEE a positive test! I took it as soon as I got home that the pregnancy line came up as soon as I sat it down. It came up even before the TEST line. Wow! They were right, I AM PREGNANT! Thank you God for making my dreams come true!!!!

"Are You Sitting Down???"

We had our appointment with a fertility specialist December 14, 2009 at 7:30 a.m. Both Dustin and I were required to go to the consult visit so that they could get blood work and paperwork from both of us at the same time. We were very excited and anxious that morning as we drove the hour to the doctors office. I had no clue where this place was, but of course my sweet husband reassured me that he KNEW. Well, lets just say that he DID get us to a doctors office, but it was the WRONG one. After searching and calling, we finally found it. We were worried that they wouldn't take us because at that point it was 8:00 and we were 30 minutes late. But they were extremely nice and took us straight back.

We spent 3 hours talking to the doctor and other staff about "the next steps" that we would take since the clomid didn't work, which were fertility injections. They are suppose to have a higher success rate which was very reassuring. Then, we spoke to a financial counselor which assured us that our insurance DID cover this specific protocol which was a huge relief to us. We knew that infertility treatments can be VERY expensive and the cost was a huge fear that we had. But God took care of us and blessed us with good insurance that paid very well. After all the talking and paperwork, I had to have a physical exam and then we both had to get bookwork drawn. I talked to the doctor about the fact that haven't had a period in over 6 weeks (which is normal for me) so she decided to give me a shot of progesterone to get that started. So just to be "SAFE" she suggested having a blood pregnancy test done before we begin the fertility meds. We agreed, but knew that there was no way that I could be pregnant seeing that my progesterone bloodwork a few weeks ago was extremely low, but since they were already drawing blood we said go ahead.

Well, the doc wanted me to take a fasting test the next morning at 7:30am at a branching office where I live and she could "video chat" with me at that office. I was very relieved to know that I didn't have to drive an hour away every time I had to get blood work done. With everything finished with our consult, Dustin and I left with a headache. You wouldn't believe at all the information they throw at you in 3 hours. Even my notes were confusing, but the staff was very nice and told us to call if we had any questions, which I thought about putting that number on speed dial because I knew I would be calling a lot.

When we got back home it was almost time for me to go to work. I had to be at work at 3 and Dustin was working night shift so he didn't have to go in until 6 but he was tired and decided to take a nap before he went in for work. As I was driving on my way to work I got a phone call from the fertility specialist's office. She said we got all your blood work back. I said "Ok?", waiting for her to just tell me what blood type I was because they kept stressing how they always need to know what blood type the patient is. But then she said, "Mrs.______, (not going to type my last name), are you sitting down?". I said "Ummm...yea.. Why?". Then she said something that I TOTALLY didn't expect. She said "YOUR PREGNANT!!!". My mind went spiraling into thousands of directions. Was I hearing her right? Did she say what I thought she said? I responded "What? Are you sure you've got the right person?". She said YES and that pregnancy levels (hcg) are confirmed pregnant when they reach 20 and mine was 1,525!!!! "I quickly told her that I was sitting down, but I was driving and I really think I needed to pull over now!". She just laughed and said "I think that would be a good idea." We talked for a few minutes and she said that they wanted to do an ultrasound at my appointment that next morning to see how far along I was and also still do my fasting test. I was so excited and speechless!!! God is so GOOD! He truly answered our prayers!

...........to be continued!

Orphan Sunday

November 8, 2009 is a day that will be remembered by my husband and I for the rest of our lives. God truly spoke to us about adoption.

Orphans and adoption is a topic that is part of our lives already. My husband's brother and his wife (my brother-in-law and sister-in-law) adopted our beautiful neice "K" from Guatemala in 2008 and are in the process of adopting a little boy "J" from Africa right now. I'm just going to use the initial "K" and "J" for their names just for privacy purposes. "K" is the sweetest, most beautiful little girl in the world and she has changed our families lives so much already. Sometimes I wonder what kind of life "K" would have had if she had never been adopted. Would she have felt loved? Would she have been well taken care of? and the questions could go on and on, but I'm glad that we don't have to worry about any of those questions. She is loved more than she could imagine and is well taken care of by her Mommy and Daddy. This little girl has already stolen the hearts of everyone in our family and I know little "J" will too. I've realized that adoption is not only a blessing to the child, but a blessing for the family that adopts that child also. We can't imagine our family without little "K" being a part of it.

But what about all those other children that are living in orphanages or living on the streets that don't even know where their next meal is going to come from? Don't they deserve a family that loves them?

Well, this is exactly what God was asking ME. As my husband and I sat in church that morning listening to an amazing sermon on God's love for orphans, God truely spoke to our hearts. Then on our car ride home my husband told me how God touched his heart about orphans and we talked about how we felt that God's plan for our lives would involve adoption. But then the questions began to flood in. When is the right time to adopt? Where would we adopt from? How will we ever be able to afford an adoption? After much prayer and discussion God led us to an answer. We knew we were not financially able to proceed with an adoption at the moment, but we knew that we were definentely going to adopt, but just not right now. We felt blessed that God decided to let us have a sneak peak at what our future holds. Although we now know that God's plan for us is to adopt a child, we also feel that God wants our family to be a BLENDED family with biological children and adopted children. We have no clue as to what exactly our future holds or when these things will happen, but we do know that our Heavenly Father knows each day that lies ahead of us and we trust in HIM with all our hearts!

Clomid, Bloodwork, Surgery and still ...........No Baby

During my 3rd month of clomid (August) my doc decided to do a laperoscopy and hysterosalpogram in order to rule out any internal problems (ex. cysts or blocked tubes). My results came back all clear. My doc even said that I had "beautiful" ovaries. Lol, I've never got that compliment before but that gave me some relief knowing that everything looked great. So after my levels came back VERY low again with my 5th month of clomid my doc suggested seeing a fertility specialist. Seeing that we do not have fertility specialists in my town, my doc suggested the ART Program which is in a town about 45 minutes from where we live. My husband and I prayed about it and discussed what we wanted to do. We decided we would call and see how much our insurance would cover and if it covered the consult then we would go and if it didn't then we wouldn't go. Well much to our surprise the receptionist said that our insurance covers ALL of our consult so we scheduled our appointment for Dec. 14, 2009 which was about 3 weeks away.

After A Year of Trying......

May of 2009 made one year since my husband and I started trying to have a baby. With a year behind us and no success, we decided to talk with my doctor about possible causes. After bloodwork and past medical history, my doctor decided that I had irregular ovulation or even possibly no ovulation. Of course you know you can't make a baby without an egg. So my doctor suggested that we try a fertility drug called clomid. This drug would help my body produce the correct amount of hormones to allow ovulation to occur. With this pill I had to take it for five days starting on CD 3-7. Month after month we didn't have any success. Each month I would have to go in for blood work to check my progesterone level. Progesterone levels over 15 is a good sign that you ovulated, but the majority of my tests came back lower. Two times we had high numbers (20 one time and 56 another). Of course our hopes were very high when we recieved such good news about my bloodwork but even with the great numbers, we still weren't pregnant.

A Short Intro....

My name is Karenda and my husband is Dustin. We have been married for nearly 3 years. I started this blog in order to document memories as my husband and I travel this journey to starting a family. We have been through a lot so far and I wanted to begin writing about it so that one day we can look back at all the struggles we have went through and see how God molded and shaped our lives with each day that we trusted in him. I have debated on whether I want to share this blog with family and friends, but for now I believe I just need to keep it to myself. But, I guess if you are reading this now I must have changed my mind, which is ok too.
Many things have happened with our "trying to concieve journey" so I am going to try my best in the next few weeks to catch the blog up to the present.