Woowhooo! You made it – Part 2 (or 5 if you read all the other ones since I first mentioned “Self Advocacy” if so – you get 5 gold stars – Congrats!)
So here was Part 1 and it got lengthy (surprise surprise, right?) so now here is Part 2 (it’s also lengthy, but I promise it is WORTH the read – hint hint)
Part 1 brought us to the late summer/early fall of 2015 when we didn’t renew our adoption homestudy and planned to take the next year (or what turned into 3) to focus on “what’s next” for our business/work life as well as our marriage.
In those three years we did a LOT of growing and changing. We read at least a half-dozen “self-help books” together, and even more separately. We started a new business and we just starting TALKING more.
The difference between that cute couple there and the one from the Part 1 post with the scuba gear is vast…
Change is as hard, as great, as painful and as impactful as you choose to let is be. This is something I actively wanted to deny as someone who believed that there were few options for how I could feel, do or react about life.
“It’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.”
―
Then came the summer of 2018 – I hit a point of spiraling, took a week off of life, drove to Knoxville for, well, therapy (via friends, a professional and lots of books) and self-care. After processing all that, we knew that “this year” (our “year” always came around/changed over in September) we would focus on what was going on with my body and fertility.
We knew Dan was good to go, we knew all my tests were clear and good, so what could it be? I started seeing a naturopath in June (literally the morning I drove to Knoxville) and those tests showed that yes, everything was still fine and in wonderfully in range.
Fall came, I ran the TC Marathon, I had been using an Ava bracelet for a month and I was taking some new supplements.
We.were.ready.
Of course when you “start trying” whether it’s for the first time or the 116th (almost the actual number of month w/o birth control at that point for us) you always hope it will happen right then, that month, right away you’ll get that BFP.
But then it doesn’t come… or the next month, or the one after that…
That is when we knew that we needed to try something different.
We had seen a variety of MDs, DOs, DCs, NDs and still we felt like we hadn’t been heard. Like our story wasn’t fully looked at from front to back, just a chapter at a time.
That’s when I finally bought and read Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler and realized that, even though I thought I knew all the important stuff about my body, hormones and reproductive system…
FRIEND WAS I WRONG.
The awareness and knowledge I gained lead us to believe that my progesterone just wasn’t high enough… Like, hardly at all.
You see, it had been tested I don’t know how many times, but EVERY doctor that tested it did it the same way.
Blood draw on Day 21.
Guess what? I always passed, right? Well after Dan found these handy at-home progesterone test strips we figured out it actually isn’t. It’s high enough on Day 21, but not any.other.day.
In order to have a fertilized embryo implant in your uterine lining you at least need 5 days where your progesterone is high enough. I had ONE. So – then Dan found this progesterone cream that has some pretty crazy reviews (seriously, read them) So we bought a container and more test strips… the next month came to test and apply and guess what?
I had 5 days of actually high enough progesterone!
AMAZING RIGHT?
But then I had 6 high days… and then 7… and then 8 and then eventually… then something happened that hadn’t happened since the summer of 2011.
I didn’t get a period.
10 years. 120 months. 3,652 days. (give or take)
But I wouldn’t trade a minute, a heartache, a challenge or change one bit.
I don’t say that lightly. I don’t share this lightly.
I’m in tears as I write but not because of overwhelming joy for our exciting news that we’re pregnant but because of the heartache I very much know this news brings for so many.
I see you.
You, counting the days. You crying through each celebrated pregnancy announcement. You getting shots and taking pills and waiting the dreaded days between trying and getting answers.
I see you.
I can’t tell you when your time will come or how, but I can urge you to please, do what you can to make the most of these horrid days. Let them not be wasted days, let them in, let the pain count. Let the moments or days or months hurt and choose to let that change you and your marriage for the better.
And, let’s talk. Because honestly, I’d love to.
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