Life takes you on a rollercoaster

I think this picture adequately shows how life has been recently.  Sometimes I get complacent with life.  It's right around the time that I get comfortable with how things are going, and I think to myself, 

'I recognize this ride' when a new twist is thrown in and what I thought I knew is completely changed.  It's in those moments you gotta hold onto the crash bar and hope you survive without too much whiplash!  

While I think blogging has gone the way of the dodo bird--or maybe it’s just me, I find that it is helpful to have somewhere to journal because there are things going on in life that are worth documenting and while no one else may read this, I will read it again and it will adequately reflect how I feel about some of the things we have been through.  So with that, better late than never!  

I'm 26 weeks pregnant, and I'm officially on bed rest.  Let me back up to what led to this bed rest....After being married a few years, Scott and I decided that we would like to start a family, this happened shortly after we moved to New Mexico.  Up until that point, starting a family was something that I wanted, but hadn't 'yearned for' so I thought I would just let kids happen when they happened. I mean, how hard is it to get pregnant?  If I only knew!  

We ‘tried’ to get pregnant on our own for one year and started to get worried when nothing had happened.  After nothing happened, I finally went to an OBGYN doctor who diagnosed me with PCOS.  When I was first told I have PCOS, I was super angry.  It took me another year of feeling sorry for myself and being in denial before we sought additional help.  When I was first diagnosed with PCOS, I thought the doctor was being so critical and couldn't believe that possibly the reason we couldn't get pregnant was my fault.  I don't know if 'fault' is the correct way to describe it, because I didn't intentionally mess my hormones up, but I definitely had gotten to a point where I wasn't always taking care of myself and so there was some room for guilt.  For those who don't know about PCOS, it is a problem in which a woman's hormones are out of balance. It caused problems with my periods and made it extremely difficult to get pregnant.  The most common symptoms of PCOS (which I seemed to be affected a lot or a little by all of these symptoms:)

·         Acne

·         Weight gain and trouble losing weight due to increased difficulty in the body processing sugars, causing insulin resistance and possible diabetes.

·         Extra hair on the face and body. Often women get thicker and darker facial hair and more hair on the chest, belly, and back. (Luckily this didn't happen too much to me...I would find an occasional stray hair) 

·         Thinning hair on the scalp. (This didn't happen to me)

·         Irregular periods. Often women with PCOS have fewer than nine periods a year. Some women have no periods. Others have very heavy bleeding.

·         Fertility problems. Many women who have PCOS have trouble getting pregnant

·         Depression

The doctor put me on several medications to help 'jump start' my body (Metformin, a hormone medication, and blood pressure medication)  I worked hard for the next year which included a 'diabetic diet' which I was far from doing adequately, lost some weight (which was extremely hard), and took all the medications I was prescribed and still nothing happened.

At that time I asked my PCP what I should do as nothing had happened, so she referred us to a fertility doctor (Dr. Caperton) in Albuquerque.  I need to note that Albuquerque is about two hours away from where we lived (Elephant Butte) so getting time off of work to attend those appointments warranted a whole day off of work just for the commute (4 hours total-up/back) not to mention the appointment itself.  While it shouldn't have been embarrassing, asking for time off work was difficult as I couldn't plan weeks in advance and often had to ask for time off the day before my fertility appointment.  The other thing that needs to be noted here is that when working with a fertility doctor you can’t always PLAN when you are going to ovulate.  While they can guess the time (between days 12-15) sometimes it happens early in the cycle and sometimes it happens later. 

The first time we met with Dr. Caperton, I was encouraged.  He was semi-young and seemed to know what he was talking about.  He again told me I needed to lose weight and gain control of my diet.  I was annoyed that he talked about this so flippantly, referring to how he lost weight (so because he can do it—anybody can).  He referred to his body being like a car, i.e. you won’t put a bad gas in the car and hope that it works.  REALLY?  My body as a car?  While I appreciated the analogy, and it might be motivating for some people, it didn’t really work for me-he was neither motivating and it was crushing for him to disregard the progress I had already made-because I had lost 10 lbs at this point. 

While losing weight and dieting should seem like something that anyone can do—ITS HARD!!!  Regardless, we started IUI with him after 3 months of hard work to lose weight.  Unfortunately, despite my best efforts (which were really my best efforts) after 3 months, I hadn't lost any more weight. 

IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) is a type of artificial insemination.  IUI is when the sperm that have been captured are washed and concentrated, and are placed directly into the uterus around the time the ovary releases one or more eggs to be fertilized. The hoped- outcome of intrauterine insemination is for the sperm to swim into the fallopian tube and fertilize a waiting egg, resulting in a “normal pregnancy.”   

We did 4 rounds of IUI-with each round getting harder and harder emotionally.  I remember crying on my way to the appointments and after each negative pregnancy test.   Part of me was angry that I was ‘dumping’ money into something that wasn't working and the other part of me was so desperate at this point that when each round didn't happen I became depressed and more hopeless. 

Typically after 4-5 rounds if the woman has not gotten pregnant, IUI will likely not work for her and more aggressive efforts need to be done such as IVF, uterine scraping, etc.  We did our 5 rounds of IUI, which are not covered by insurance and require an ultrasound each time, resulting in fairly high bills (not as high as IVF—but still a financial stretch) with still no results.

We finally met with Dr. Caperton for the last time as of the beginning of October (2014) in which he told us the only other option we had for fertility was IVF.  He went over the prices, the procedures, etc.  Scott and I walked out of that appointment feeling defeated and very hopeless.  We knew we wouldn’t continue working with Dr. Caperton as we were moving at the beginning of the year (2015).  We were told we could do 'SUPERinsemination' for $7,000, which would get us the medication necessary for it and/or we could pay $25,000 for IVF.  We were told that $10,000 of that would just include the medication.  Who can afford that kind of money to start the procedures?  We would need time to save up.  At that time we decided we would ‘take a break’ from fertility treatments. 

It needs to be noted that I personally think fertility treatments are distressing.  Not only are you waiting/hoping for it to be successful each time you go through a procedure, walking away feeling depressed/hopeless, etc. when it doesn't work but being told to have sex is uncomfortable and for us-awkward.  Additionally all this talk about my weight really messed up my view of myself-as a woman, with body image and as a woman whose body wasn't doing what it was made for, i.e. having babies.  I couldn't understand why it was so ‘easy’ for other people, especially when some of those people complained so much about their pregnancies, seemed ambivalent towards their kids, etc.  I was so unhappy, and saw myself as broken.  I have never really thought I was that fat.  There have been times when I recognized I could stand to lose a few pounds, but until I was told repeatedly that I needed to lose weight I had been okay with myself—all of a sudden I was no longer okay.  This brought up a lot of insecurities, etc.  I believed that I was ugly, I believed that I was fat, I believed this was all my fault.  I was angry with my body for not working.  I ended up being angry with the children/families I was working with.  Church was a struggle as family is such a huge focus and I couldn't ‘multiply and replenish the earth.’

Luckily being a therapist, I realized how this was affecting my relationship with Scott and even in doing therapy.  My core beliefs were being questioned and I was struggling.  I had quit my job at this point as we were moving, but I also had realized that my personal struggles were interfering with my work-clouding my judgment, etc.  I started seeing a therapist who helped a great deal, to ‘normalize’ what I was feeling and to listen to my frustrations, etc.  Thankfully I started to ‘heal.’