Hubby got me roses for our two-year anniversary.

Audio Version of Blog Post

So this past week has been pretty eventful. We had our two-year anniversary and April Fools Day. I decided to skip Easter this year, mostly because I wanted a break from cooking and feeling obligated to go to church (invited by multiple friends/family) when I was feeling quite a chasm between God and myself. Honestly it was a good decision, sometimes a break is exactly what you need. But before I get into all of that I wanted to talk about my appointment I had with my fertility specialist. I had read through all of my medical documents they sent me recently and the way the geneticist worded her letter sounded like I did not have testing done yet to look for a balanced translocation. It was worded something to the effect of “The possibility of a balanced translocation was discussed and testing is available for this.” To me, that seemed like I had not been tested yet for that. So I spent way too much time researching what a balanced translocation was, the odds of still having a healthy live birth, learning the odds of success were less for the mother as opposed to the father having this, and the different types of balanced translocations. I felt I had a decent amount of knowledge on the subject, even including research on Youtube. I left a voicemail and played phone tag for about a week with my fertility specialist asking about a balanced translocation test. She was out of town at a conference and would call me when I was sleeping (I work the overnight shift). But when I finally had my appointment with her she said she double checked with the geneticist (who I also could not get a hold of) and said not to worry because I already had that testing done and I did not have a balanced translocation. All that time spent researching and preparing myself mentally to hear “you do have a balanced translocation” come from my doc’s mouth were all for naught.

Waiting in doc’s office for news about our next step.

Amusing magnets in my fertility doc’s office.

This has to be my favorite magnet in her office. lol.

But that’s good news though. I felt a little silly about spending all that time researching, but that’s what happens when you don’t keep yourself busy with other projects. You’ll fall down the rabbit hole of research and rumination. Tomorrow I am getting my eggs counted with a “follicular study.” For some reason every time I say follicular I’m certain I am saying it wrong. FAL-LICK-YOU-LAR…is that right? She also dropped some major news on me that I was expecting but did not want to hear. She said, “I need to stop trying to conceive naturally, because the likelihood of having another miscarriage is high” and for me and it is hard on my body each time I do. Surprisingly, I was only briefly disappointed hearing this news, and I quickly accepted the fact and absorbed as much info as I possibly could in that meeting, which was A LOT. So my best option is IVF with PGS. She wants me to do another SIS to make sure my D&C cleared everything. I think she even said the IVF clinic requires an SIS prior to treatment.

My Mom offered to pay for part of my IVF and to not worry about paying her back, but I definitely plan on paying her back. But I’ll be applying for IVF grants to try to save money. I know the odds of winning one are really low though, but it’s worth a shot. Speaking of shots my Mom seems to have full confidence in me for the whole IVF process and the shots I’ll need to take. She said, “You’ve been through so many harder things in your life I know you can handle this.” She gave me a confidence boost I didn’t  know I needed, but it really helped.

I am pretty close with my coworkers and with this last miscarriage (my fourth one) I was open about my pregnancy and my loss. They have all been really supportive. I had a good conversation with one of them the other day. She helped me to have an epiphany. I had always felt like natural conception was aligned with following God’s plan, whereas IVF was aligned with the science side. She believes that it is important to follow the doctor’s advice because they have been “blessed with the medical knowledge and ability to help others heal.” For the first time ever, the idea of science, God, and fertility treatments all aligned for me. Especially since my doc just told me IVF is the best option for me now. Although I was very depressed with this last loss, I felt relief when my doctor told me my baby would have suffered and been in so much pain had it survived, due to the physical and development disabilities it would have had. In a way, I felt better knowing that God had prevented that pain and suffering of my baby. Although I still don’t understand why he allows me to get pregnant with babies that have a Trisomy in the first place. But knowing that my body is able to recognize that something isn’t right, makes me feel a little better. With my third loss my faith was really shook to its core, and it was hanging by a thread, but this fourth one has helped me to shift my perspective and be more open to trusting God a little more.

Anyway, back to what I was saying when I first started writing. My husband and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary. We’ve been together five years total and married for two, I can’t believe how quickly time flies. We had a nice dinner and went to a movie. We went to Texas Roadhouse (yeehaw for steak!). I noticed in the booth behind my husband was a woman with her three children, two young boys and a baby girl. I heard her say to her oldest boy, who looked about five-years old, “stay here, okay?” He said okay sat quietly at the table while she took the other boy and her baby girl probably to the bathroom. I was surprised she left her little boy by himself for a good ten minutes.

I leaned in and whispered to my husband, “She left her son alone.”

He couldn’t hear me at first. “Huh?”

I said a little louder but quietly again, “That woman behind you left her son alone. He looks about four or five years old.”

He looked over his shoulder at the boy behind him and turned back to me.

He gave me a weird look and said, “You want to kidnap him or something?”

I laughed so loud I’m sure the whole restaurant heard me. “No! Oh my god! I was saying it because I think it’s scary she left him by himself since he’s so young.” I was doing a full belly laugh at this point. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time.

He started laughing too and said, “Well the way you said it…sounded like you wanted to kidnap him.”

“Noooo! Although it would save us a ton a money. What do you say Babe? How does a five-year old little boy who is potty trained and seems well behaved sound to you?” I laughed.

I know kidnapping is no laughing matter, but come on now, that’s funny stuff. Two years of infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss and dwindling finances will make you enjoy dark humor like this. At least we had a good laugh. We got married the day before April Fools Day. I am usually not very creative when it comes to doing practical jokes. But this year I got my husband good! Now, he recently got a brand new truck. He is always checking for dents and scratches each time we go out and park in a public place. He will even park far away from other cars every chance he gets. So I decided a good joke would be to come home from work (remember I work overnight shift) and tell my husband someone broke into his truck. Last year someone did smash out the back window of our van, but weirdly didn’t take anything. We live in the city and it’s highly likely it could happen again with where we live. So I got home, hit record on my phone, and stealthily recorded my feet as I walked to the bedroom to break the bad news to him. “Babe, someone broke into your truck.” He launched himself off the bed from his deep sleep and was at the front door in his boxers within seconds. “You see it? In the back window?” He peered hard at his truck. “No…” he said. “Right there!” I pointed. I waited a few seconds then put my phone up to capture his reaction when I yelled, “April Fools!” He quickly pivoted around and went back to bed, and locked me out of the bedroom for a few seconds. He laughed about it and said, “Just you wait.” Man I got him good!

He tried scaring me later but it didn’t work. My husband usually wakes me up when I don’t get up from my own alarms, so he came back and woke me up. I lied in bed, I used my phone to check my personal email, my work email, looked at Facebook, and was on my phone a good 15 minutes before I finally dragged my butt out of bed to get ready for work. Mind you this is still April Fools Day. I walked into the living room and I noticed he positioned the blanket and pillows on the couch to make him look like he had pulled the blanket over his head to nap. I pulled the blanket and saw he wasn’t there. I noticed his truck parked outside so I knew he was home, hiding somewhere. I walked into the bathroom, knowing he was probably hiding in the shower. And sure enough he went “baaaaah” as he popped the curtain back. “Nice try babe” I said calmly. Then I realized that he must have been standing in the shower for those 15 minutes. I asked him if that was true and he just laughed, so I knew it was true. That made me laugh even harder knowing he was standing there, in the dark, for 15 minutes and his prank didn’t even work. Good times…haha.