Category Archives: The Ins and Outs of Us

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus

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For the 8 nights before our appointment I didn’t sleep more than 3 hours. I was exhausted. My depression was escalating and I was getting these anxious panicky feelings. Especially about work! Our OB walked in and asked how things were going and we were honest from the get-go. I wasn’t feeling well. She immediately voiced her concerns with the prednisone being the culprit. Our hope, of course was that when we saw our sweet babe on the ultrasound that maybe some of this would even out for me.

We had absolutely no concerns or fears about our baby at this point. We both just knew that everything was different this time and I was just about 7 weeks so we would see a nice strong heart dancing on the ultrasound! We saw the baby right away, all tucked in! Our OB looked and looked. She was quiet.

There was no heartbeat. We were absolutely shocked.

I know our OB was speechless as all she said is “It’s not fair” before she left the room to allow me to change. We were still in disbelief and began questioning our dates. It couldn’t be! Our baby was fine. It just had to be! They did my IUI on day 12 as if you’ll remember my ovulation “smiley face” was on day 11. This is early for most people. Our concern was that perhaps we didn’t conceive form the IUI, itself….perhaps we conceived on our own several days later and therefore, our dates were off and that was why we weren’t seeing our babe’s heartbeat. It simply was too early. They drew my HCG levels (pregnancy hormone) and it was pretty appropriate. They said we could redraw my levels in 48 hours to see if they were rising appropriately and that we really couldn’t know anything for sure until we did a repeat ultrasound……A WEEK LATER! I think it would normally have only been 3-5 days but this was Thanksgiving week and of course their office was closed for a four-day weekend! My HCG levels 48 hours later rose. We had hope.

We both took that entire week off and most of the next. We basically shut-down. Adam responded to texts for the first day or two but then we just couldn’t. It was Thanksgiving week and we chose to not go celebrate with family. The first time in 18 years that it was just the two of us. We (pathetically) were one of those couples at Walmart at 1pm the afternoon of Thanksgiving trying to find something remotely resembling a Thanksgiving dinner. In hindsight, I realize that our behavior in that ten days was so normal. I think it is natural to go within yourself when faced with something tragic to you. As a coping mechanism, we basically withdrew from life to protect ourselves from anything else that could happen to come along. 

I know during these times we need to turn to God to help us through. He is our strength. We need to pray to him. That week was so awful I couldn’t even find the words to pray most of the time. I remember reading once in my Jesus Calling devotional that even if we don’t know the words to pray, He knows our thoughts and to still just call out to him. Many times this week I founds myself crying, simply saying “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus”.

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expecting not just a baby, expecting the rest of our lives

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Our biggest concern was that with our next pregnancy, paranoia would rule our lives until we saw our baby’s heart flickering on the screen-really until the second trimester to be honest! We were worried that our anxieties would be so significant that they could hurt our babe. Because of these fears we had already decided that if when we were pregnant again we would share our news with our families right away so we could have their prayers. Their prayers to give us strength and peace each and every day.

With all three of our other babies my breasts were tender right away so I knew days before any test would show. I had nothing with this cycle. Nada. Still, I started the progesterone three times daily as the specialist instructed (and let me tell you, it feels like you have wet yourself all 24 hours of the day….every. day.-YUCK!). But, I did it. We truly felt we were not pregnant-so much so that we didn’t even do a pregnancy test 14 days after the IUI as they recommended. Day 15 was a Monday morning and while at the office I thought, “heck, my period is late after all”.

Holy crap. I was so shocked that I almost ran up and down the clinic halls screaming with a pee stick in my hand for all to see….almost. Instead, I showed it to three of our nurses and all agreed, we were pregnant! I took a picture and sent it to Adam and he didn’t believe me! He was working an hour away that day and his disbelief was so great that he drove home right then to see the test himself. He came into my office, I showed him, we shut my office door and hugged one another while crying. We were absolutely amazed. Adam was still so baffled that he made me do another test that simply said yes/no instead of the old fashioned line tests. FINALLY, he really believed.

Incidentally, I happened to open these two cans the week prior at work!

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James 1:17 says “Every good and perfect gift comes from above”. We sent this text to several family members announcing our news! We were elated. We asked for them to begin praying for us, praying for the peace that we so desperately needed. And, I know that they did because we felt it. I know that I at least, was more at ease with this pregnancy than any of the others. I felt that from the get-go it was different. We were actually surprised (well, as much as you can be surprised after an IUI!!!!) so I just knew that everything else would also be different. I felt great-no symptoms at all other than some slight breast tenderness that did eventually develop.

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Per the Tempfer protocol, I started the prednisone twice per day as soon as we found out and did fine with it to start with it. If you aren’t aware, some people do just fine on prednisone while others can have a myriad of side effects. It was tough having to take it twice daily as one of the biggest side effects is insomnia. I, personally, always try to prescribe it in the mornings for my patients to try to help avoid this but in my case that second dose separated from the morning dose was what had been researched and felt to be best for our situation.

I’ve had insomnia since my first year of nursing school (FOR.EVER.AGO!) so I am accustomed to having troubles anyway, but things did worsen. Anxiety, depression, confusion and even psychosis can also happen with prednisone. It is a necessary medication but can be an awful medication. We weren’t scheduled to be seen until we were about 7 weeks along-you know, to check for “viability” (there is that silly word again-GAH, I hate how it sounds!!!).

For eight days prior to that appointment things were definitely not good on the sleep front!

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ready for baby

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We were so ready. So ready to make this baby! It had been the perfect amount of time to heal from losing Noelle-9 months.

We both took our antibiotics and I started Letrozole for the first time. I felt great on it other than a bad migraine on the last two days but heck, that is nothing! I was on the Folgard also in addition to my regular prenatal vitamin and DHA that I have taken with all of my pregnancies (we want our baby to be smart, ya know!). For the first time we used the ovulation predictor kits that you can buy over-the-counter. It was so silly. You are supposedly getting ready to ovulate when the line is at its darkest. What does that even mean? For pete’s sake….every morning we are both staring at this stick to see if that day’s line was darker than the previous day or not. Crazy. The specialist had me go in when we thought we were ovulating for an ultrasound with our OB to look at our follicles-I had three big ones (meaning we should be likely to conceive!). When I was leaving the OB said, “I think you are setting up for twins” and smiled at me. I received an HCG trigger shot (which as a side-note had to order out of Omaha as regular OB clinics are having a difficult time getting it now that so many people are using it for weight-loss. The price of it has gone up exponentially!). The trigger shot was supposedly supposed to tell my body to ovulate and they told us to go home and make a baby! Who knows what happened to those gorgeous follicles because we didn’t get pregnant and were so bummed.

I had all of the blood work repeated and Adam (God love him!) was re-tested and you guessed it! All normal. We took antibiotics again and I started the Letrozole again and had a migraine on the last two days again. Feeling like you are watching that obnoxious movie Groundhog Day yet?!

They told us to do the ovulation testing at home again and to call them when it said I was ovulating. We were smart this time! We got the darn test that smiles at you when you are ovulating-it cost more, yeah but was worth it. We got our smile on a Saturday morning and called their office and was told to be there the next morning at 8 for our IUI! We were on the road by noon, off to Denver again. And with this said, let me just say that not only have we been financially and emotionally emptied but our infertility has completely wreaked havoc on our jobs, especially mine. Imagine patients with appointments having to be called-literally last minute- and what could my poor staff say? “er, Shana is ovulating so needs to reschedule your appointment….”. We are both so very thankful that our employers have been as kind and patient with us as they have been, even when we have far surpassed our vacation time, etc.

When we arrived the morning of our IUI, there were all sorts of couples in the waiting room….on a Sunday. This just goes to show how fertility treatments are not a Monday-Friday thing. As with us, these other people probably had to just drop their lives to be there within a certain amount of time, considering you only have a short-precious window of time each month to conceive. The nurse took us to a private room to…ahem (to our Mother’s you can close your eyes now!) produce a sample from Adam. I kid you not. We were quite weirded out. This was an entirely different experience for us. There was a black leather couch and a TV with all sorts of videos. We were afraid to touch ANYTHING!! And, couldn’t stop laughing of course! What an experience! We were happy about how official it was, though. They did an official chain of custody with our sample just like we do for drug tests in our office, meaning it was highly unlikely they would insert some other gentleman’s swimmers into me!

When it was time for the IUI the nurse took us to an exam room and commented to Adam “your sample is the best I’ve ever seen!” (yada yada, he later told me that all he wanted to say in return to her was, “I bet you say that to all the guys”). HA!

As far as procedures go, this was the easiest I had been through. Nothin’ to it! I cramped off and on for about 48 hours after but otherwise easy peasy! As we left their office we took this picture and made the mistake of posting it to facebook. Everyone (I mean EVERY.ONE.) thought we were announcing a pregnancy. We wished! We felt so bad that we took the picture down within an hour.

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