Yup, that's a positive pregnancy test, my positive pregnancy test. Seems that I am about 6 1/2 weeks pregnant with baby #3. Unlike my other two babies which were very much planned, this baby is a miracle of sorts considering I am now a statistic of birth control failure. This here test is about the 11th one I have taken, and even with all those BFP (big fat positives, as they say) lying around my bathroom, it doesn't seem to be sinking in. This may be the 11th test I have taken in the last 3 weeks, but it is one of HUNDREDS I have taken over the course of the last four years. This kind of obessive compulsiveness has a name, and even an acronym- POSA, or "pee on a stick addiction." Any of you who have suffered with infertility know what I am taking about. Infertility? Me the now soon to be mother of 3 kids under 4 years old suffered from infertility? Yes.
Our Childbearing Odyssey- Staring with Infertility and Ending with a Surprise Third Pregnancy!
Try, Try Again
It all started in May of 2007. My husband and I had waited for several years into our marriage to try to have a baby. I just had this gut feeling that although I come from a Mother who claimed to get pregnant just by looking at my Dad, I wouldn't have it so easy. I expressed this to a co-worker and she said, "No, it will happen fast for you, you just look like you are meant to be a Mom." But it didn't happen fast, three months went by and nothing. I quit my high stress job to up the odds, and still nothing. Then I quit my low stress job by voice mail one morning because the ONLY job in this world I wanted was to be a stay-at-home Mom, as we had always planned, and been preparing for for years. I went back to school, still nothing. I started doing ovulation kits, temping, charting, bought e-books that claimed they had the cure, took various vitamins, used creams illegal in California, read infertility blogs and forums to excess and them some more- it consumed me. Of course during this time friend after friend was announcing their effortless, or even accidental pregnancies- although I was happy for them, it was painful.
I was counting down the days until I could go to a OBGYN and declare the required year of trying had passed and to hand over the Clomid. That day came. I remember sitting on the table with so much hope, this was finally it, our real chance at having a baby. From my charting I realized I had a luteal phase defect, I was ovulating too late in my cycle for my body to realize I was pregnant before my period started. I brought that up to doctor, and she readily dismissed it. That was the first blow. Next by exam came back normal, also slightly irritating being that I wanted some answers for our infertility. Finally I just came out and said it, "Can I just get some Clomid, please?" The doctor's response was," Clomid can really increase your chance of having twins." "Great!" I said. "No, you don't understand," she replied, "women thinks twins are two for one but they are really two for two. Twice the effect on your body and their's." Then came the most dreaded phrase of all..."Don't worry. You are both young and healthy. If you are still not pregnant in six months, you can come in for a surgical examination. I will also make an appointment for your husband to get his semen examined" I made my appoint for six months later for me and a week later for my husband and left the office very frustrated and let down. I couldn't take another six months of this! You have to realize I had already waited 3 years for my husband to finish school, I wanted to be pregnant today!
Bad News
A week later we went to give a semen sample for testing- this testing took two weeks! This whole process was excruciating at this point. I had gotten another job at a school, and worked there part time while I was finishing my Associates degree at a University. During all this testing I was depressed and just couldn't enroll in the next semester, so I had an extra four hours a day on my hands. I decided to work out for two hours and meditate (something entirely new to me) for 20 minutes a day. I sat in my backyard and thought of nothing. I just looked around, absorbed, breathed. I started feeling better about the whole process, until I got the semen analysis. They called and told me they would be calling me at noon with the results and to be sure to be available. I told my co-workers and when the call came, I ran into the private bathroom to hear the results with all my friends outside the door. Being that little can be done to fix a man's sperm, I had been praying all day for two outcomes- one, that everything looked perfect or the other that he was sterile and we would have to adopt. I was just hoping not to hear this, "Well, there are some problems, and it may take longer than you would like, maybe years, but just to keep trying." The phone call came, and the nurse stated my fears almost word for word, "Your husband's below average on all the criteria and has only 12 healthy normal sperm out of 100. It may take longer than you would like to get pregnant, it may take years, but you will just have to keep trying."
I walked out of the bathroom with tears streaming down my face. We both had fertility issues. Even if by some chance one of those healthy sperm fertilized my egg, my body would start my period before it would have a chance to implant. Just the thought of those precious fertilized eggs being discarded by my body was too much to bear.
A Miracle!
This was all on a Friday. My friend at work was having some pregnancy symptoms and said she would take a test Sunday and call me with the results. Sunday morning came and at 3:00 in the morning I stumbled into the bathroom to pee. As I was walking in there, I realized I had been so caught up in the semen analysis and my friend's pregnancy symptoms I didn't realize my period was a day late. I took a test and laid it on the bathroom counter. Negative. I picked up the test ad hurled it into the sink in a fit of rage and yelled out loud, "Of course!"
Later that morning as I was getting ready for the day I pulled the test out of the sink and somewhere between 3:00 and 7:00 in the morning, it had turned positive! I sent my husband out to buy more test in all different brands and those all came back positive too! I was shaking all day with disbelief and fear of losing the baby. We should be celebrating, but we were terrified. Would this pregnancy stick? Weeks went by, and at 7 weeks I exaggerated some spotting I was having so I could get into the doctor and get an ultrasound. It showed my little baby in great detail for that early, I could see the little heart beating away. I didn't worry after that, and with all the morning sickness, you know if you can't even stand to look at salsa or touch the dirty dishes or go grocery shopping without gagging- you are still pregnant.
In January of 2009 my beautiful baby girl Annalise was born. She has been a absolute ray of sunshine in our lives everyday. I can't tell you exactly what got me get pregnant that time- here are some things that might have helped. I had switched to the more expensive but easier to read digital ovulation tests so I had perfect timing. We had also tried an "every other day" approach to trying to conceive based on the doctor's recommendations. I had also tried something I thought was silly, but just might had worked, where I put a pillow under my butt and propped myself up after for maximum fertilization effect. Maybe it was one of those things, maybe it was the meditation or exercise, maybe it was the prayers I started fervently praying to God for a baby. I don't know, but it was just meant to be for us that month.
What About Baby #2?
Against my doctor's advice, I didn't go on any birth control after Annalise was born. I didn't know if she was a miracle baby or if my body had fixed it's self, regardless, I was ready to be pregnant again as soon as possible. After a couple months, out came the ovulation tests again, and once again, I was ovulating too late. I was nursing Annalise, which I knew is kinda working like birth control, so I weaned her at 8 months to start trying again, knowing this process might take years.
About a week later I was sitting at the computer and felt that tell-tale aching in my chest area. I smiled and wrapped my arms about my myself- I knew we had done it again! Lo and behold, one week later I was staring at another positive pregnancy test. This time it was a boy- my Jonah is the sweetest little man you could imagine.
"Life Is What Happens to You While You're Busy Making Other Plans"
I had my beautiful daughter and my handsome little man and I was complete. Even on birth control I still took the occasional pregnancy test to feed my addiction- but one day I just looked at the box in the garbage and said, "That chapter is closed. I am ready to move on with my life. No more pregnancy test and wondering every month if this symptom or that symptoms means something." I asked my husband to get a form of permanent birth control and he said he would think about it, but I had made up my mind. My childbearing years were behind me and if God knew I was suppose to have another one, he would have to make it happen. Famous last words...
A couple weeks after this realization I woke up super nauseous. My husband was out of town I walked around our family room trying to walk it off. It passed, but I just felt off for the rest of the day. That night I watched this show "My 600 Pound Life" and was really inspired to lose some weight. I made a plan and a chart and taped it to my bathroom door, feeling really good about it all I feel asleep. The next day I went Old Navy and tried on some clothes for an upcoming vacation- but nothing fit right. That isn't so say it didn't fit, it just didn't fit right, almost like I was pregnant I thought to myself. On the way home I stopped by the Dollar Store and bought 3 pregnancy tests, really just more for fun than anything else. I came home and took one, negative, good, I went to bed. I woke up and weighed myself for my first real day of weight loss, wrote it on the chart and went about my day. During a lull, I took another test and there was a very faint, but very pink line.
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| Here is my first faint positive with Baby #3 |
Bryant and I are still in shock. Going from trying so hard to get pregnant where every month you aren't is such a let down, to a surprise pregnancy just leaves us in disbelief. We are excited about our new little one and I know that God wanted us to have just one more. We are so blessed!
