I wanted to share a little bit about my story without going into too much personal detail. I wrote about all of my experience from the beginning and didn’t leave anything out. I realized after reading it, it was way too long and way too personal for me to just share with anyone. However, I made a promise to God in the midst of my struggle if he would provide for me I would share how I grew in faith for him. So I rewrote this post and this time prayed for Gods assistance while writing. I have found that until you share your struggles, you don’t often hear the struggles of others. When I shared the news about our pregnancy on the blog I was a little hesitant but I received so many people reaching out thanking me and telling me about their own battles with pregnancy/infertility. Some people I knew and others I didn't. Regardless, I had no clue these people were going through a similar struggle until sharing my own story. It always helped me to be able to talk with people who knew what it was like and went through the something similar. To know you aren't alone and your feelings aren't just craziness never hurts too. About the time I realized something might be wrong I wasn't convinced it actually would be. I went to my doctor after several months of no period for a checkup to look into what might be going on with my body. I was told there was a possibility I could have poly cystic ovarian syndrome (along with a hundred other things) but that chances were low since I didn't fit the "normal" criteria. After multiple blood tests and an internal ultrasound where they found cysts all over my ovaries, it was confirmed, PCOS. For months (prior to being diagnosed with this) I assumed nothing was wrong and it was just my body trying to regulate, so when I actually found out there was indeed a problem I freaked out. I remember the doctor telling me "you caught this early so with the help of fertility meds you should hopefully be able to have a successful pregnancy; it might just take longer than we anticipated to get you pregnant." I remember being so mad, angry, and confused at first- although I thought once going on the fertility meds it would happen right away with their help (still not fully convinced I couldn't outdo this road block on my own). I prayed here and there about it but was honestly pretty upset; I didn't know why God was putting me through this. The first couple months I didn’t even ovulate with the help of the meds. I was taking seven medications a day; I was using ovulation strips, and getting blood drawn every 21 days to check for ovulation and hormone levels. When I realized it wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought with the help of fertility meds I really panicked and wasn’t my normal self. I had a few things go on that didn’t help too. The fertility doctor I was referred to (which was the only one in our area) was a jerk. He had no sympathy and charged $200 for a ten minute session to tell me I had PCOS. I was beginning to get very stressed and overwhelmed. No joke when you feel like you are ready for a baby, want a baby, and then told by your doctor that you'll likely struggle getting pregnant... every month that you get a negative pregnancy test feels like 6 months (or it did for me anyway). I can't imagine the difficulty of those who went through several months/years trying to get pregnant. It tests your faith, your marriage, your sanity, your everything. By January I knew I wasn’t going to get through this by simply relying on myself and doctors. I started to change everything about what I had done/thought/relied on previously. Although I had always prayed about my situation I began to fully rely on God for support. Bryan and I refused to miss a single church service. We prayed every single day together. We asked the church to pray for us. Things that happened in my life started making so much more sense. I was meeting people randomly who would bring up a conversation about trusting God or a story similar to what I was going through. I realized these weren’t just out of a coincidence, this was 100% God talking to me through his people. I would pass a sign or read a daily devotion that was directly on point to what I was currently going through. Everything started to make sense and I realized in February after 6 months of being on fertility and a couple procedures to check on cysts and flush out my fallopian tubes, that after all this and still nothing.. God was putting us through this for a reason. The reason hit me; it was to get closer to him and closer to one another in our marriage. We needed that. I was closer to God more than I had ever been in my entire life. Bryan and I were closer in our marriage than we had ever been. Although we struggled through the process we were getting along better than ever. These are the two biggest things in my life and yet I wasn’t near where I needed to be with either of them. I told Bryan in February that we can’t force this any longer. I told him as much as I would have wished pregnancy would have just happened for us, I understood why it didn’t. God put us through this struggle to get to where we should have been all this time. I knew if it weren’t for our struggle, we would have never drawn closer to him and closer to one another in marriage. Although you never, ever, understand why you are going through a struggle during that moment of time, it is true what they say, once you reach the top of your mountain it will all make so much sense, and it did just that for us. The next month on March 30th I found out I was pregnant before starting my last and final rounds of fertility meds before being referred to Asheville for IUI treatments. I was in shock and overwhelmed with happiness. After months of negative pregnancy tests, I always wondered what it would be like to actually get a positive one and how I would react. I definitely did not expect it and collapsed to the floor when I happened to look down and see the “Pregnant” read on the digital test. It was a feeling I will never forget. I was laying there on the bathroom floor just praising God for his goodness and thanking all those who had been placed in my life and prayed for us. God doesn’t give you what you want, he gives you what you need and when you need it.
1 Comment
Haley
7/12/2017 07:26:39 am
Amen sister and God Bless you two! Sometimes you don't understand his purpose or your journey but it's all about Faith and relying on Him 100%! So beyond happy for you and keep sharing your experience! It's beautiful!
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