Never lose hope

     I haven't written here in a long time. Life tends to get overwhelming and busy, but I felt a pull to come back. If you follow me on Tik Tok or Facebook you know all the things. We had our twins via a surrogate in 2019. Exactly two months and one day later I lost my daddy. Wait a minute, let me back up..

    We prepared to start our first round of IVF in 2018. We were ready! We had our spot reserved, money paid, signed the contract, and then our intended surrogate got pregnant. We decided to keep going and freeze the embryos until we found someone else to carry our baby. This sounds simple, but was insanely complicated and scary. Surrogacy is very expensive and we had no way to pay for it. Thankfully the first surrogate didn't want to be paid. I didn't think there was anyway possible to find another like that, but the Lord is full of surprises. We had a very special person reach out and offer to do it. We were back on schedule. Toward the end of stims they realized my ovaries were very high, they were under my ribs, and sitting on top of my liver. My doctor was scared he would hit an organ going in blindly, so we moved the retrieval to a surgery center a few miles down the road. Everything was going smoothly until I woke up from the surgery. I looked at the doctor and said "what's wrong?" He patted my arm, told me I did great, and everything would be ok. I argued. If you know me you know that's normal. I knew as soon as my eyes opened it was wrong. It was all wrong. My family came in and I repeatedly asked them what happened and what was wrong. They couldn't understand why I was asking and assumed it was the medication. We left the surgery center and went home. That evening the doctor called to tell me they didn't get as many as they thought. My ovaries had flipped. He couldn't see where he was going and did the best he could, but he was never able to retrieve from my left ovary, only my right. On the way back to the clinic they were exposed to carbon dioxide and started to deteriorate. He asked permission to immediately start fertilizing to try to freeze them quicker and save them. He did his best, but we can't control life. I knew when my phone rang the next day from his personal number it was over. But..

    He had a plan. It had never been done before and they weren't sure it would be possible. I told him I would do anything. Just lay me on the table and get it done. Less than a week after my egg retrieval I was sitting in an oncologists office. They have a procedure for cancer patients where you move their ovaries up under the ribs to protect them from radiation and chemo. Both doctors wanted to open me up and see if they could reverse the way I was born, but there were many things that needed to work for it to be possible. The arteries attached to my ovaries had to be long enough and they weren't sure of the length. It was 8 pm, we were the last three people in the office. He looked at me and said "when do you want to try this?'' I said "you can do it right here, right now." Low and behold he'd had a cancellation for the following day. I could take the appointment with no preauthorization from my insurance company or wait for it then do it in a few months. It was going to be an insanely expensive experiment that needed to be planned out well. He was worried about the insurance not paying and we were to, but I said "I'll see you in the morning." Everything went perfect. My arteries were long enough, the robot could reach my ovaries, so they stretched them out and sowed them down to my pelvis. Less than two weeks after one surgery I did another, a couple of weeks later I went straight back into another round of IVF. This time he got twenty two eggs, seventeen fertilized, and three made it to the freezing stage. They prepared our surrogate and in another month we implanted two embryos. We were on strict orders to not try a pregnancy test. Did we listen? Duh, no. Blood tests went great and at six weeks we did the first ultrasound. We had two sweet little heartbeats. The pregnancy went well, but she was forced to deliver at 33 weeks. They spent a little shy of a month in the NICU and came home right before Thanksgiving.  They are the best parts of myself and my husband. It's pure joy to love them and a joy to be loved by them.  I'll never forger after my high school graduation someone said to my daddy "she's grown up and headed off to college and life now. That's going to be real hard for you and her mama." I looked at my daddy and said "but I'm not going anywhere, I'll still be right here with y'all." With the most love and a little sadness in his eyes he said "I know and that makes it ok." I never understood why mama and daddy were sad when I graduated high school and college, but I do now. It's amazement, sadness, excitement, joy, pride, and a little sadness to see your babies grow.

    Shortly after my successful retrieval and implant into the surrogate it became extremely painful to stand, sit, or walk. I did my best to push through it, but finally broke down and called my fertility doctor. He had a full day of patients, but he knew something was wrong and told me to come immediately. They checked for torsion and all to see if I still had eggs in me, but everything was normal. He called the surgeon and told him to see my right then. He offered to have an MRI done, back at home, and look at it. We went back home, set up the MRI, and then drove an hour and a half back in a couple weeks to get the results. I was standing in the waiting room when he called me and said "there's no need to come back, you're fine". I said "no. I'm in your waiting room and you will keep my appointment because something is wrong. It didn't go well from there. He didn't want to change anything, but finally agreed to doing an exploratory surgery. I asked him to just cut my ovaries loose and let them float back up. He refused because he was worried the arteries would get tangled. I pushed and he finally agreed to remove both or one if possible. I woke up from my surgery only to be told he had accidentally sown my ovaries to my hip ligaments. I said "oh, so he took them out?'' The nurse said "no. He put them back." I was livid. I went home and in a few days they called to schedule up my follow up. I told them I wouldn't be coming back. They demanded I return and I said "well, unless he drives up here to get me I'm not going. He didn't do anything we agreed on so neither am I".

    A few months later I was at my gynecologist, who's absolutely wonderful, and he asked what was wrong. I told him the story and he said "absolutely not. I'll remove them or do whatever I can to fix it, but there's a good chance I can only do so much. You'll probably have to be sent to a couple more specialist for the damage." Three days before the twins first birthday I went back into surgery. He was able to remove them. Surgical menopause is like walking through hell, but at least I can fight the devil and walk in less pain. 

    I destroyed my body and fought so hard physically, mentally, and emotionally. I'll never recover from some things, but we have the two sweetest babies you will ever meet. I saw God. I saw him move mountains for me. I watched him show me mercy and kindness. I saw his miracles, and I get to watch those miracles grow and see Him over and over again every time I look into their eyes. We have one embryo left. It seems even more impossible than the first time to make it work again, but if the Lord will do it once, He will do it again.  

    Never lose hope. When it's to dark, and it seems like all is lost, it will be there, quietly waiting for you. 

Inducing lactation and baby update

These next few posts will probably be shorter, because there’s not much detail in day to day inducing. 

Found out I can’t take allergy medicine because it dries up your milk. I was so happy to get off birth control and excited to start, but this is disappointing. I’m not going to lie, I really want to quit. It would be so easy to make a bottle and be done with it, but I’m not going to. I’ve wanted this for so long. Even as much as I wanted to carry a baby. Tonight I did a power pump and through a blanket over myself so I couldn’t analyze every minute. It was more relaxing. Hopefully i see a difference in a few days. 

Baby update: 

Only a few more weeks until the twins arrive! We’re at week 32 this week and go back to the doctor on Thursday. We’re hoping to get a induction date or narrow it down a little more. At 30 weeks they weighed close to 4 lbs give or take some. We will get a weight update Thursday too. We’re so excited for them to get here. Everything is finished all we have to do now is wait. Our last shower is Sunday. It’s been so much fun to celebrate with everyone. I just can’t wait to hold them. 

Inducing lactation

10-12-19

I should have been keeping a journal since we’re a year into this process, but I haven’t. First failure as a mom! I want to breast feed the babies, just like any mother that’s having a baby via a surrogate, to do that you need a medication not approved by the FDA. 

Fun fact: Reglan is used to induce lactation but it can penetrate brain matter, blood, and is detected in breast milk. Domperidone (what I’m taking) doesn’t penetrate either and only trace amounts are found in breast milk. 

After searching and more searching I found that you have a few options to buy domperidone. You can buy from an over seas pharmacy or buy it from eBay. I chose to try the eBay version since other people have used it and it’s helped. Tonight was the first dose which is ironic because a year ago today we took our first IVF shots. Every time we completed a step I thought ok I can breathe now. The hard part is over. I didn’t realize it then, but the hard part just started.

We all have battles to fight. Don't do it alone.

I don't exactly talk about feelings well, seriously there are several things my family and husband read about on here that I've never told. Normally I try to get through it silently or don't bring it up until it's to much. When we got ready to start IVF last year we decided to not tell anyone except immediate family and a few friends. After we ran into an issue with the person we thought was going to be our surrogate I felt drawn to mention it on Facebook and ask for prayers. By doing that it led us to our surrogate now and someone that has become our family. She has been a huge supporter of us and I'm eternally grateful for her. After that I posted a few things and received so much support I started telling everything. It's been very therapeutic and I hope that it might can help someone else going through this. That leads me to the last few days.

We met with out doctor the last few months for checkups, and the plan was to start us on our next round in February. We got our quote last Friday and it was way more than we expected. It was discounted but apparently our definition of "not much" and theirs is a lot different. The next Tuesday I got an email that said "we need you to pay for your round as soon as possible to secure your spot for the February IVF" our clinic only takes on so many patients each month so they can dedicate their self to each patient on a personal level and not over extend. They went on to say several people were rolled over from January to February and it only left 2 spots available. It was Wednesday before I could get a hold of anyone and I asked them to use our credit for the embryo transfer to hold our place for the retrieval. Long story short they couldn't do that. It was going to be at least 7 days before we would receive the money we pulled out of a 401k to pay for our spot. During the time of trying to figure out what to do they sold one spot and were in the process of selling the other one. To most people this wouldn't seem like a big deal. It was only a month's difference but it was the end of the world to me. After many phone calls, someone finally caught the doctor and he said "give them a spot". It was a miracle. I was panicking during all that but was able to get through it.

I don't think I've mentioned it in previous posts but when we started this I would worry so much I made myself sick. I was convinced I would go to the doctor and there wouldn't be any eggs. My husband and a friend that had been through IVF assured me that I would have eggs and they would be fine. They were right. The thing about stress and going through all this is you hear other stories and then convince yourself that thats happening to you. Lately my new fear is that after the ovarian transposition surgery my ovaries have died. When I went for my last check up they did have a little problem seeing them, but there are a few reasons why. One is I'm not ovulating so they've shrunk down some, the other is I don't I have all the parts so they're still not as easy to pin down. This would make sense to someone that's not under a tremendous amount of stress and panics over any little thing to do with her body and fertility. Today in the middle of church it all hit me. Out of the blue I went in to a full panic attack and couldn't breathe. I went outside and my family helped talk me through it and after a while I was ok. Throughout all of this I thought it would get better and I could work through it, but this time has been a lot more of a struggle. Please know if you are struggling its ok to ask for help. You don't always have to be the strongest and you don't have to get through it alone. There is a very big stigma attached to asking for help, being scared, not being able to get through something on your own, but there shouldn't be.  Even the strongest people have weak moments. I've said it in other posts and I said it above, but please please talk to someone if you are having a hard time. There's no sense in suffering alone. There's no one that gives out awards for being the strongest and there's not a soul alive that has room to criticize you. We all have battles to fight.

Do as I say not as I do.

I started to type this out as a Facebook status, but it might get a little long so I decided to go this route. If you don’t follow me on Facebook I’ll give you a quick update. We did a round of IVF and everything went well until we got to the retrieval, my ovaries were under my rib cage on both sides, and my right ovary flipped. He was barely able to reach my left and decided to not try my right considering everything. We had to do this in a surgery center due to the position of my ovaries, but they transported my eggs back to the office and fertilized them. The next day the doctor called to tell me, personally, that most of the eggs were breaking down due to to much exposure to carbon dioxide. The next phone call I got said only 2 fertilized out of 8, but it didn’t look good. On day 3 he called back to tell me we lost both of them. During the surgery he remembered a procedure called ovarian transposition that would basically move my ovaries back to where they should be. I agreed to do it, and they got us an appointment with Dr. Depasquale in Chattanooga, Tn. Within 3 weeks of the retrieval we met with the oncologist (this is a surgery for cancer patients typically), and he said “when do you want to do it”? Jokingly I said “tomorrow” he said “ok I have an opening”. I was in no way prepared for this surgery and everything that would go with it. I just knew I needed it and I have the best of the best for doctors. We had it done, everything went great, and I’m still recovering. With this surgery they removed my tubes, and placed my ovaries where they should be, then sewed them down to my pelvic wall. Total honestly here, I had no idea what they did until 2 weeks later, my family knew but I didn’t. I knew they moved them, but that was it. I stayed overnight in the hospital, and had to sleep in a recliner for 3 weeks.  We plan to go back in January, then start our next round in February.

Now to the point of this. I have always had terrible anxiety, before IVF I would almost work myself into a panic thinking about it, but when we started I was fine. I was focused solely on what I needed to do to make this work. Now I have to much time to worry. Tonight  a flood of anxiety hit me. No matter what I did or how much I prayed I couldn’t shake it. Everything that we have been through in the last 6 or 7 weeks hit me. I convinced myself that I should already be well. I’ve almost created a phobia in my mind of telling people it still hurts. I feel like I should be well, strong, and unbothered, but that’s not reality. This is reality.. still hurting, emotionally unstable, and terrible anxiety. Believe me if you’ve never suffered from anxiety going through IVF will give it to you. There are so many people that suffer in silence, I use to be one of them, but it’s ok to hurt. It’s ok to not be ok. We have to go at our own pace, and no one else’s pace will match your own. Even though I can’t convince myself this is all normal, it’s a lot for someone to take on, and I’ll get through it all, you can. Don’t ever hesitate to reach out to someone for help. We all have our own battles to fight, but we can still help each other. We have to help each other. Infertility will be a long hard road whether you make peace with it or you choose to fight it, but it’s your road and you can take it anyway you want.

There aren’t one set of footprints in the sand. There’s drag marks where God has drug me kicking and screaming to this point.

Before I start this, in case you didn’t know, I was born without a uterus. I have functioning ovaries that make eggs, and go through a cycle, but I don’t have a uterus to hold a baby. I’ve spent all of my adult life praying for a pregnancy, even when it wasn’t in a good situation. I don’t mean casually praying, or praying when you get depressed. I’m talking about hard core, on your knees, crying out to the Lord for help. I’ve prayed until my soul ached. I’ve prayed until I thought my heart would break in two. I’ve had so many people pray for me, but never got that answer. I always knew I could keep IVF on the back burner in case my prayer wasn’t answered, but why wouldn’t it be? I read the Bible every night, I go to church, I truly love the Lord, and try to serve him to the best of my ability. Why wouldn’t he answer this for me? It would be life changing, a true miracle, but it wouldn’t affect anyone else. He’s not answering it because this isn’t in his plan for me. That’s a hard pill to swallow. You see so many people get their miracle. Hannah and Sarah couldn’t have prayed any harder than I have. There’s no pain like the desire for a child and not being able to reach it. Sometimes it’s like you’re walking around in an alternate universe. It seems so strange for people to actually plan for a baby, to try for a pregnancy and get one. I’m not one of those people and you may not be either. Some people have to fight for it. They have to put their body through so many unnatural things. Infertility is tough and IVF is even tougher. Some people can’t handle the emotional and physical toll it takes on them and that’s completely understandable. Some people can’t afford it, and that’s even more heartbreaking. We are blessed to be given the option to to do IVF financially and due to the most precious surrogate I could ever meet. Sometimes God takes you down a road you don’t want to go down to teach you a lesson you didn’t know you needed. I’ve fought him and he’s drug me kicking and screaming to this point. You know that poem about the foot steps in the sand? Where the author says you only see one set of foot prints because God carried you when you couldn’t walk. Mine wouldn’t look like that. There would be a long, long line of drag marks because I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to take a detour and go another route. When I said “but God there’s no money.” He provided it in a way we could never repay. When I said “but God there’s no surrogate.” He provided the best there could ever be. He’s here and he’s with me. We just had to take the long way around. Tomorrow is the day we start shots. I can feel him here now. I can hear him saying “you’ve got this. I brought you here for a reason now let’s do it.” So let’s do it. 

When your bubble finally breaks

As a general rule I can handle infertility and all the baggage that comes with it, but here lately it's become harder and harder. I've had some pretty insensitive things said to me over the years of the why and how I can't have kids. The other night after I unintentionally ticked off an anti vaxxer and she made a low blow. I told God "wow you must have a protective bubble around me because that didn't sting like it should have''. The more I've thought about it over the last few days the more I've realized it's true. Some people will read this and think I've become immune to rude comments, but it doesn't work like that. I truly believe God has protected me and will continue to protect me, but the sobering reality that comes with that is the devil will try harder and harder to break through. Some people say things that hurt unintentionally, we all do, but others do it on purpose. When someone hurts you you have to remember two things, its a reflection on them not you and some times they just don't know better. Today the devil charged straight through my bubble, and I did not do well following my own advice. You know the saying "it's easier said than done"? I'm right smack dab in the middle of that. What people don't tell you is it's ok to be mad, cry, and have a pity party. Just don't stay there. After you get over it use that to drive you farther. Educate those that hurt you. When I started this blog it's intentions were to base it around farming, but that quickly changed. I'm generally a private person that doesn't want to talk about how I feel or what I'm going through, and I sure don't want to talk about IVF. But there's something about this thats cathartic. I haven't mentioned what was said, but I already feel better. What I want you to know is that it's going to be ok. People will always be hurtful and ignorant, they will always say things that leave you dumbfounded, but get it out. Get out all the pain and then step back in your bubble, in fact that's where I'm headed back to now.