Wednesday, April 23, 2014

I was asked to be a guest blogger for National Infertility Awareness Week and jumped on the opportunity. I love to share our story that is still being written by God Himself and I love to give people hope in the midst of something that seems so hopeless. Hope you enjoy!

Thank you Sarah for sharing our story!!










Never in a million years did I think that Jayson and I would travel on this journey of infertility. Never in a million years did I think that this journey would have so many mountain tops and yet so many valleys. Never in a million years did I think God would love us so much and allow us to live OUR STORY to better the both of us, and to touch the lives of so many others. God is good, God is faithful and God is forever present in all of our circumstances on our journey. If you do not know Him, I am highly recommending Him with 100% guarantee!

 This is OUR STORY that will one day lead us to our dream, our gift, our baby! As long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a mother. I have always had a very nurturing spirit toward others; it is just who I am.

I begin to plan “my” big dream of motherhood as I got older and began to think about marriage and family. My big dream was to have kids by a certain time in my life, to be the best mother possible and to live life to its fullest….but I (we) would soon learn that God had other plans and they were not “my” big dream plans!

Jayson and I were married April 19, 2008 and on that day I married the man I knew God had set aside for me. I truly believe he is my soul mate and that I will spend the rest of my life with him. On April 19th, I got two gifts, the gift of a husband and the gift of my stepson, Lil J. Lil J. was a blessing and all we needed at that time, but we already knew that we wanted to grow our family in the future. In 2009, we began to focus on “growing” our family. However, months went by and no baby … mum, but we never thought or imagined that there may be underlying physical problems, but just to be sure, I went to see my physician. After a few medicated cycles (using clomind & fermara- a drug that stimulates ovaries to produce extra eggs for a better chance) that ended up with no pregnancy, I decided to change doctors. God knew exactly who that doctor should be because this doctor was able to immediately reveal the problems that were prohibiting us from conceiving.

After a few test we learned that my fallopian tubes were obstructed and surgery was necessary to correct the problem. No big deal, right…? Surgery was scheduled for April of 2010 and we were advised with good news, news that we had a very good chance of conceiving and our child would soon be with us. Well, eight long months passed and still no positive pregnancy test. To be honest, somewhat discouraged, we decided it was time to see our doctor again. After he ordered more tests we found out I had developed what is called Hydrosalpinx, which is fluid that settles in the tubes. The fluid was a definite sign that my tubes had reversed and were blocked once again. This was definitely not what we were hoping to hear, but we still kept our faith and our hope in the only ONE that could help us. That faith and hope was in Christ Jesus. Through this whole journey, we have tried our best to let the Lord lead us on the right path and lead us in making the right decisions that will always bring honor and glory to Him.

 We were told about IVF, and it sounded very exciting, but financially IVF just seemed so BIG and completely out of “our” reach. We continued trying to conceive in hopes of our miracle. More months passed and even another year went by with no baby. I knew that through God all things are possible and that even through blocked tubes, we could conceive, so we just kept trusting in Him and trusting in His master plan. Was this always easy? Definitely not!

 Well, 2012 was upon us and the earnest desire of my heart was to be a mother. We decided it was time to take the next big step and that was consult with an IVF physician in Raleigh, NC. The date for this consult was on February 14th, none other than Valentine’s Day. I knew this would be a turning point in our journey since this very day was known as A DAY OF LOVE. At that doctor’s visit, we found out that if we wanted to proceed with IVF, I would need to have yet another surgery to remove both damaged tubes. Removing the tubes would increase our success rate and give our embryos the best chance possible to survive. Moving forward with that information, as scary as it was, we prayed desperately and surgery was scheduled for August of 2012.

 Of course, I was very hesitant to have this surgery. Removing my tubes would forever take away our chances of conceiving our baby the natural way. None-the-less, we knew that God had a plan and His hand was guiding us every step of the way. It was nerve racking to know that for us to have a chance at having our baby, we would have to spend $15,000-$17,000 out of pocket for every IVF cycle. Unfortunately our insurance does not cover the expenses of infertility or anything related to infertility.

 By faith, in need of a financial miracle, we moved forward and with a very strong support team behind us, it came to be! For us to even have the opportunity of the awesome gift of IVF was more than amazing! Thanks to my amazing awesome family and friends we were able to have several fundraisers to help support our financial needs and there were many, even strangers, that gave us gifts of $love$. Without ALL of them we would have never been able to continue on this journey. We were so moved by the love and support that we were blessed with by so many giving of their time, their money but most importantly their prayers. All of that made our walk through IVF a lot easier.

Almost a year to the date of our Valentine’s Day consult in 2012, we were going through the IVF process, which was definitely a process! Lots of medicine, lots of shots, lots of uncertainty, but at the same time it blessed us in more ways than we have time to share. However, sadly the day came to have our pregnancy blood work done and unfortunately, we got the news that the cycle was not successful and we were not pregnant. As difficult as that was hear from our doctor, we knew that God was in control of exactly what He was doing on our behalf. -------------------------------> This was our Transfer day Feb 25th 2013 and those were the precious embryos that didn't make it. Thank God for the one we had left over!

 Thankfully we had one embryo that we were able to freeze in hopes of “THAT ONE” being our baby. We decided to take a break and to just let God continue to guide us into the right timing to use our frozen embryo & this is where we are in our journey as I write OUR STORY. Of course, to use our last embryo we had to have more finances involved. With the help of many friends and family we started a Go Fund me page where we asked for help from our family and friends and boy did we get HELP! I never thought the response would be so big but within month we had raised the $2000.00 we needed! Praise God. The support has been phenomenal this whole journey!

My plan this cycle was to keep it a secret the best I could from my family because I wanted to surprise them with a positive pregnancy test. Last cycle we were very open about our embryo transfer and everyone knew, but this time I just wanted to give myself time also to cope with the loss if it didn’t work out the way we had planned. I wanted my family to be able to relax…..We started our cycle of Frozen Embryo transfer in February of this year and it took about 6 weeks of preparation. Birth control pills, progesterone shots, baby aspirin and estrogen….Al l those things made everything perfect for our transfer date of March 21st. Our biggest prayer was for the thaw of the embryo to be successful because that would get us to the point of transferring that sweet thing!

That prayer was answered and our precious embryo was ready for take off…….What a beautiful emby he/she was. This little heart formed on the outside of the embryo where it was hatching and that was my little sign from God that everything was going to be just perfect!!! Everything was in place for transfer and we got to watch that beautiful miracle be placed in my uterus. After transfer our DOC went and got us some donuts and insisted we eat them so you didn’t have to tell me twice! Haha. They were so yummy. I knew everything was going to work out perfectly. Something inside me was so joyful when I left that place. God had been speaking and moving and I couldn’t wait to see how things unfolded.

As joyful as I was I knew what was upon us…The dreaded 2 week wait. In a infertile’s mind this 2 week wait is one of the hardest things they will ever go through…This was our last shot at a biological child because of the financial reasons. We had talked about adoption, but my husband was just not sure. So if this didn’t work I had no idea where we stood, but I did know that I would still SERVE my Savior because He knows best and wants what is best for us. Faith and Hope is all I had.

I called my family that day and told them our procedure was scheduled for April 4th so that I could continue on with my surprise…..They were super excited to know procedure was coming up and we were super excited that we had already had procedure! Haha. The next few days were going to be hard, but with Gods help I knew I could get through it. I also decided to keep a journal of every little thing that happened and what I was feeling. A few days after transfer I felt what I thought was implantation twinges and cramping and had that sensation for a few days & then 6 days after transfer I started feeling “weird” and my heart was racing which is a sign of pregnancy so I started to get super happy. I had a very strong urge to test before actual bloodtest and my mom confirmed that by sending me a random text that said “test” now remember she didn’t know we had had procedure and I knew that was a sign from the Lord. I asked her what that text meant and she said “oh I was trying to send a picture.” Didn’t make sense, but I knew it was confirmation on my urge to test. 2 days later I was brave enough to by some HPT (home preg test) and was praying and reading my bible and a song came on called “What Faith Can Do” and I immediately jumped up, ran to the bathroom , dropped my drawers and to my surprise there was a sweet beautiful positive looking back at me!!!!!

I think I went crazy after that. I just kept on thanking God for this gift and running around my bathroom like a crazy woman. Haha. I was in shock! I had to wait 7 long hours to tell my husband because he was working late, but as soon as he got home I got my video camera ready and whipped out the 4 preg test I had took….Yep I took 4!! I had to make sure. My husband didn’t believe it, but we just went with it and couldn’t wait for 2 days to past to where we could get our blood work done! It was so hard keeping it a secret, but I wanted to make the surprise a super awesome one for family and friends.

Monday came and first beta was 137….Wednesday repeat beta and number was 354. Everything was looking good….Friday repeat beta…884…..Sunday last beta 2,736….We are REALLY pregnant! Oh Mylanta. What a miracle from God. Only one more week to spill the beans!

The beans were spilled and our family is estactic! I am 7wk4d today and feeling pretty good. We heard the heartbeat of our precious little one on Monday and it was very strong beating at 155!

Infertility is a part of me, but it is not who I am. I got through the difficult part and now we can reap the JOY that is found in waiting in FAITH! Luke 1:37 “For with God nothing shall be impossible.”