Sometimes Life Bites You in the Backside

     I teach at a nursing school. I love being a nurse educator. It is very time consuming, hence the slow start on the blog. Today, I do not love it. I got assigned a 12 hour shift watching students in OB clinicals. I can't do anything in these clinicals because I am not an OB nurse. However, I am here. I am listening to babies cry, mom's console, and dads wonder if the baby is hungry. I am helping students field questions about why babies won't latch on to a breast, when should we feed him, or how long until my baby arrives. I am helping students care for laboring moms, teaching them to swaddle babies, and generally act like I am enjoying my day. This is how they know me, I love being a nurse.
     I am doing all these things, knowing that God may be saying no to me. That I will never have one of my own. I may never swaddle my own baby, I may never hold a child to my breast and pray we can figure this eating thing out. I may never see the tears that come to my husband's eyes because he is finally a father. My father may never hold a baby of mine with pride, my mother never have the joy of a third grandchild. I may never shop with my family for my own baby furniture. I may never hear the contented sigh of a baby when I snuggle him close. This rotation sucks!! My estimated due date with the twins was less than a month ago, I should be on maternity leave. I shouldn't be here, trying to make nurses happy and like me when I want so much to be anywhere else!!!
     I keep thinking about something I read, "When life is hard and you can't hear God, remember, the teacher is always silent during the test." Somehow, in this moment that isn't all really comforting. Three years of trying to conceive and all I have to show is possible scar tissue from my miscarriage.
     So while everyone complains about the cold weather and the rain moving in and the chances of snow in May, I say bring it on. It matches my mood.


                                                                                         -her-

Be Still and Know.....

I suck at the waiting. I want a plan, a next step. I want to know if I am having babies or not. Are we going to adopt? What are we doing?   I jumped the gun, started contacting adoption agencies and embryo adoption places. I became very stressed and scared.As we started to pray, God spoke to me and my heart in so many ways. The bible study I am completing, the things my mentor says to me, the messages at our church. So, apparently we are to "Be still and know the I am God." Psalm 46:10.

We have been very disheartened. My sister is expecting. That is a difficult situation for so many reasons. She is having a boy, the thing I have always wished for. It was a huge blow to my husband and I. So I began thinking of adoption. The problem is that I didn't wait for God to say yes. He has had to teach me this slowly. There was a deep bitterness and anger creeping up. I am finally feeling like seeking him again. This road if infertility is so long and so hard! Prayers are appreciated, I will be praying for all of us walking this path.

I also hope to be posting more here. I will be seeing a doctor Monday about a referral to a reproductive Endocrinologist. It is a scary thought, but time to take that step.

Just venting on a rough few days.

     UGH. Infertility sucks!! Some times it comes right up and slaps you in the face and then refuses to get out of your face for quite a while. This has been one of those weeks. My sister is pregnant, I have known for quite a while. A girl in my community group is pregnant, again I have known quite a while. But another person in my community group announced their pregnancy. My pregnancy test was negative just a few hours later. ( I took it at 3 am, what else is an infertile girl to do when the insomnia kicks in?)  I was an emotional mess, crying at work, lying to my adult students about having a cold. Started my Femara day three as scheduled, which of course wreaks havoc on my emotions. Today, I got to schedule a place to have my sister's baby shower. All the while, thinking, I may very likely never get a turn. The only babies I may ever get to carry died in the womb and I never got to see them, hear a laugh, a cry, or see a smile. Today, I am sad. Tomorrow will be a different day, and with that hopefully a day with more stable emotions. But today, infertility sucks!!

Hysterosalpingogram

   I would like to describe my experience having an HSG. This is a retro - post as I had the HSG many months ago. I had this procedure because I had been unable to get pregnant for over a year. I had no diagnosed medical conditions at that time other than dysmenorrhea.a
   The decision was an easy one to make. I wanted answers. This might provide them and might lead to pregnancy.
   An appointment was made at the hospitals radiology department. It was an early morning appointment because that best allowed my husband to be present. I was very thankful he was there. I was quite nervous and his presence was very helpful. I checked in and was taken back to the room very quickly. Once in the room, I was asked to change into a hospital gown and given a blanket to cover up with. It was quite chilly and the blanket was not quite enough. The nurse present saw me shivering and gave me a blanket from the warmer. The table was a bit hard but not terrible for the short amount of time I was on it. There was a bit of a problem with insertion of the speculum. This is a problem pretty unusual, my husband and I have believed that I have a condition called vaginismus for a long time. This condition makes penetration very difficult as the muscles tighten involuntarily. When a long narrow speculum is used I normally have fewer issues but the only speculum the radiology department had was the standard one. My doctor tried for a long time to insert this speculum before conceding that it wasn't going to work. It was very painful and he could not see what he needed to. He asked the nurse to get the correct speculum from the OR.So I waited, the correct speculum arrived and we continued with the test. After the speculum was in place, my cervix was washed with a betadine solution and then a long slender catheter was placed through the vagina, through the cervix, and into the uterus. Fluoroscopy was used to visualize the structures. The catheter caused some cramping, but the next step was injection of the dye. this caused some pretty painful cramps. My fallopian tubes were flushed and my deemed clear. The catheter was removed, the speculum was removed. I was sent home very soon after with only some discharge and cramping in the afternoon. It was not terrible, not too painful, and worth the information it provided.

We Were Going to Have Twins

I have been off this blog for a few months. I took a break when I found out I was pregnant. I conceived on my second cycle of Femara following the Diagnostic Laparoscopy. I was feeling excited but extremely anxious. We were told at six weeks we would have twins and were able to hear the heart beats at this time. Statistically, when you hear the heartbeat, your miscarriage risk drops. Statistics were not on our side as they haven't been since we decided we wanted children. On our ten week appointment, when we should have listened to the heart beat and then announced to the world that we were expecting two little babies, our MD callously informed us there was no heartbeat. The issue with this MD is for another post. We had another ultrasound in the hospital, were sent back to the office to be told definitively that our babies were gone. I scheduled a D&C for later that day. With broken confused hearts we went home to wait for the time to come back for the procedure. I will later post more specifics on the procedure and recovery for any who are looking for information.  I am simply ready to start blogging again. For a while, I couldn't even process the anger, grief, and shattering of our dreams. It is time to dive back into every day life and use these experiences to help others if possible. We are still very sad and at times very confused about where we go from here and why our Heavenly Father brought us down this road. But we are choosing faith and growing over bitterness and misery. We have a long road ahead but the journey to healing and our next steps starts with just a few little steps.

                                                           -Her-

I was going to be a daddy

Today was the wifey's 10 week ob appointment. It was supposed to be routine just to get all of the paperwork sorted out.

Oh, by the way we were pregnant with twins.

When we got to the doctor's office this morning they could find a heartbeat for either of the twins. Oh yeah, they were identical. When they sent us to the hospital to get a second ultrasound there was still no heartbeat that could be found and the measurements the tech took showed the twins to be only nine weeks, not ten.

So, now we're sitting at the hospital again waiting to go back for her to have a D&C. I don't know how to spell it but you can google it if you've never heard the term.

I'm very upset. I feel really bad for my wife. We've been trying for so long to have babies and we had two, but now they're gone.

At this point, I need to know where to go from here. Sometimes God's plan is completely different from what we think it's going to be and that's ok. It's just really hard to change gears when you get to cruising.

I know God has the answers, I just have to wait on Him to let me in on them.

-Him

Sticky Note #2

People Are Stupid

Do not fret, you will understand when people start telling you that "you'll get pregnant when you just stop thinking about it". Or "you'll probably get pregnant as soon as you adopt."
Do not let these stupid people get you down. They are unteachable.