My journey into mommy-hood Part II

The next few months actually were pretty smooth. My body had a chance to get a little more normal and my emotions were much easier to deal with. I was able to survive the end of grad school, get through my internships and land my dream job as a pediatric physical therapist right out of school. In November of 2002, a few months into my career, things were not going so well again with my body. Symptoms were no longer being controlled by the second drug. Back to the doctor we went, who sat us down in his personal office and told us that if we were serious about having a child of our own (apparently that was not clear all along???), NOW was our chance...no more postponing, no other treatments...have a baby...NOW. He felt like our window of conceiving without significant intervention was dwindling by the month. We left there feeling like someone had knocked the wind out of us. Rather than leaving there having been given another shot to suppress my endometriosis, we had much different marching orders!

I must admit, at this point, I was feeling rather self-righteous and had the attitude that I had already been through so much preserving my likelihood of conceiving a baby that surely the Lord would have mercy and let us get pregnant easily, right? WRONG! Not even close. The first major roadblock we encountered was that my body seemed to have forgotten how to have cycles on its own after all these years. Hence started the months of NOTHING. Well, nothing but crazy hormones, wicked mood swings but NOTHING productive!

In April of 2003, after having yet another fit of rage for no good reason, I decided for my and my husbands sake, we should probably go talk to the doctor again. Back we went to Dr. P's big office surrounded by diagrams, figures of mothers and their babies, doctors and newborns, all those things I so wanted to insert myself into! This time the diagnosis was not at all what we expected and almost comical: I was suffering the longest and most ridiculous case of PMS known to woman! He seemed to think that my body was on the brink of getting going but needed a little nudge. So, we started Clomid (a drug to make me ovulate which would in turn trigger a cycle) and this beautifully packaged drug called "Seraphim". Isn't that just a pretty name? It's code for PROZAC! Apparently, the known (and nearly immediate) side effects of SSRI's include lessening the effects of PMS. Who knew? I tried mightily to convince my doctor I wasn't crazy (don't think I succeeded though) and he assured me that if my problem wasn't truly hormonal, the pills wouldn't help. So, I took one on my way out of the office and went off to get my Clomid and go back to work. About 4 hours later at work, I had the strangest moment. I suddenly felt like a black cloud had been lifted. I literally stopped in my tracks, took a deep breath and fought back tears of joy. I felt like myself for the first time in MONTHS!!!

I took my five days of Clomid (which, incidentally felt a lot more like a sucker punch than the "nudge" the doctor said it was), followed all the other "instructions" and waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing. Then I started feeling a little bloated, nauseous, just weird. I was now 2 weeks late...could it be? I went to the doctor before work one morning thinking I surely must be pregnant...even he thought so based on my symptoms. I thought for sure I'd be going to work guarding the most amazing secret. So, let's take a look, he says and does an ultrasound. "Hmmmm, this doesn't look right" Not what I wanted to hear. Then, we were dealt the first of many painful blows....there was no baby, instead there was a cyst the size of a grapefruit on one of my ovaries. Hence, the bloating, nausea, general malaise. The regular dose of Clomid had overstimulated my ovaries. Dr. P proceeded to explain that it is the kind of cyst he would normally recommend surgically removing, but this particular one had "excessive amounts of blood vessels going into it" which would make surgery risky. If we weren't trying to get pregnant, he would proceed, but since we were, the safest option was to just wait it out and see if my body would get rid of it.

Needless to say, I didn't make it to work that day. That was the first time I felt completely brokenhearted. I cried, wailed, sobbed, and then cried some more. One of my dear friends, who had been fervently praying for us when we went into our appointment that day appeared at my house with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and sat with me and cried. She had no words for me but her very presence and willingness to sit and cry with me was a sweet comfort. There was supposed to be a little bitty baby inside of me....not a ginormous cyst!!! I was angry. Sad. Angry. Frustrated. There was absolutely NOTHING we could do for months. Just wait. Anyone who knows me at all knows that patience is truly NOT one of my virtues!!!

It took almost 6 months for that lovely cyst to go away. When my doctor suggested trying Clomid, I about came unglued....poor guy....I didn't even let him finish before I jumped down his throat. He only wanted us to do a 1/2 dose this time. Ok, pull yourself together, Julie. Time to put your big girl panties on and get on with it! (My words, not the doctor's). And, this time he wanted to add another step. After the five days of Clomid, we'd check to see if there were eggs ready to go and when they were, I'd give myself an injection that would ensure that they'd actually drop. Ok, I'll try it. But, not without doing some reading and finding out that this shot increases your odds of multiples to 5-6 times the normal odds. Yikes....we really wanted one baby but not a whole bunch!

It was now Christmas time of 2003 and we decided to dive in and do a cycle before we headed to Chicago for the holidays. I was on pins and needles the whole time we were there....did it work? Was I pregnant? Would we finally be having a baby? I took a couple tests....negative...but I didn't lose hope until I had my confirmation that it had indeed not worked. I laid on my bed at my parents house and sobbed. Cried. Wailed. Again. I hurt. I was angry. No one in my family had dealt with infertility issues so as much as they loved on me and tried to help me keep going, I felt very alone. We came home from that trip to find out that one of our closest friends was pregnant. That was the first time I experienced the terrible feeling of wanting to be truly happy for a friend yet feeling outrageously jealous and sorry for myself. Not a fun time.

We repeated the above described cycle over and over in the spring of 2004. Different minor details, time lines, locations, etc, but same end result: no baby and an increasingly angry red head. Somewhere in there, on a particularly bad cycle, I remember trying to clean the living room and hearing the song "Enough" by Chris Tomlin. I literally laid down in the middle of the floor with my arms wide open begging the Lord to be more than enough for me. Music has always spoken to my soul but that day was a pivotal moment for me. I had to choose to be ok with the Lord truly being enough for me. All my needs, all my wants. He was more than enough to take care of them. He also continually brought my favorite verse to mind over and over again..."Delight yourself in the Lord and He will grant you the desires of your heart". Psalm 37:4. I came to the realization as I learned to delight myself in Him, He would grant me the desires of my heart...if they were His as well. I believed with all my heart that He desired for me to be a mommy, but was realizing that the way I got there or who I got to be a mommy to may not look at all the way I had planned things out.

By late spring of '04, we were financially and emotionally drained. Fertility drugs are expensive and the ups and downs of the cycles were exhausting. My brother (in Chicago) was graduating from high school that year and John's brother was getting married (in Charlottesville). We had already decided we couldn't afford for both of us to go to both events so I went to my family and he went to the wedding. Since we were going to be apart during critical times of several months that summer in addition to the sheer exhaustion, we decided to take a break from trying to get pregnant. We decided that we'd re-assess in the fall and decide where to go from there.

Ok, I promise part III will be the end to my very long story!! Stay tuned!