The Background Story:
It was quite the busy and hectic month, not the ideal circumstances for trying to make a baby. Plus, it seemed that little things kept going awry. First, I started my period on a Friday. So I couldn't bee seen by a doctor until Monday, day 4 of my cycle. I'm supposed to start my injectible medication on day 3 or 4. Then there was a panic that I might have to pay for the $1,000 medication (yep, $1000!) out of pocket. But after 30 minutes of stressful phone calls to my insurance company (after being disconnected once and talking to various wrong people) I was assured that if I paid for the drug upfront, then they would reimburse me. I decided to believe them and go for it. (They ultimately did reimburse me. This helped boost my shaky confidence in insurance companies.) So I inject the drug into my thigh and/or stomach every day for 7 days. Then I get an ultrasound and the doctor assesses whether to do IUI the next day or wait one more day. I was needing to wait one more day. Well, the tricky part in all this is that I was in the middle of teaching a Study and Organizational skills class to Jr. High students at King's Academy all that week. Fortunately, I had only agreed to teach the class if I could co-teach it with someone else. So the guy in charge of finding teachers to teach the class ended up splitting the time with me. Bless his heart, he was super flexible about my doctor's appointments and filled in whenever needed. The deal was, however, that I was in charge of doing all the planning. I was pretty stressed and working my tail off that week. Again, not ideal circumstances for baby making. The day before my IUI, I give myself one more shot at 4:30 in the afternoon it make me ovulate. Well, I forgot about it and didn't take the shot until 7:30 that night- 3 hours late. I was thinking to myself, "This month was a waste of time and money!" On Wednesday and Thursday of that week I had my IUI. I made it through week, but I was pretty wiped out. However, I couldn't stop to rest because the next day, Saturday, we flew out early in the morning for a trip to Oregon for my cousin's wedding reception and a visit to the coast to see Bob's sister's family. While on our trip, Mattie was a horrible sleeper and we were pretty tired. However, I must say, the time at the coast was really nice and relaxing. There's not much to do, it is quiet, and it's very casual. Just what I needed.
Now fast forward 2 weeks. As one might understand, I did not have much confidence in this month working out. So I woke up at 4:00am Tuesday, August 3rd, and I prayed for God to have mercy on me. I have done this before and have not been pregnant, so it was a reluctant cry out. However, this time, I was also asking God to spare me from the IVF decision that was looming over my head. I knew if this month didn't work, I would start pursuing that route. I felt very conflicted about it. I believe that every fertilized egg is a baby at conception. And with IVF it is often a numbers game and you run the risk of having multiple fertilized eggs "left over" after going through it. For me, that would mean that I would need to be willing to have as many children as I had fertilized eggs. I would not allow them to be "dumped" and I didn't want to give them up for adoption to someone else to use. Anyway, those were all my internal conflicts going on. Side note: I am not completely against IVF because I have several friend whom if it weren't for IVF, they would not have children today. But it is definitely a serious and personal choice! I'm just against the "dumping" of fertilized eggs. So all that to say, I pleaded that God spare me from having to make the IVF decision. Well, as I was lying in bed praying, I literally started to feel my period coming on. I started to feel a little crampy. And sure enough, when I got up that morning to use the bathroom, I had some minimal spotting. "There it is," I thought. I was bummed. Why did God not answer my prayer again?
That day, I had scheduled to go visit my friend who was pregnant with twins via IVF. I figured this was good timing so I could ask her specific questions about her experience and learn more about it. It was very encouraging and informative. So that afternoon I decided to do a little research and pick two possible fertility clinics that do IVF and set up consultation appointments. Fortunately, our insurance covered it 90% with a $15,000 lifetime maximum (which would cover about 1 round of IVF.) When Bob got home from work that night, I spent some time talking to him about it. After Mattie went to bed, we worked out a game plan of what needed to be done. I also had Bob watch an IVF video online with me. As we were chatting further, I casually mentioned that my "period" had not really progressed and in fact it had died off a bit. He proceeded to ask me if it could be implantation spotting. When the baby attaches to the uterus, sometimes a woman can have spotting from that. I told him it probably wasn't but that it could be. He asked if I had any pregnancy tests. I did not. So he volunteered to run to Target and buy one. I
To be continued...
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