Have you ever seen someone and been so mad because they have something that you want? Probably when you were five years old and someone has the toy that you want, but they won't let you play with it. Try being grown up and married and seeing all of your friends with their adorable-beyond-belief children. Or walk through Target and want to go down the baby aisles, but know that there's really no point because who would you be shopping for? That would be me. I can tell you that the only person that this did not apply to was my best friend. It was weird because I watched her belly grow and know that she was going to be a mom, went to the hospital and sat with her when she was in labor and held her newborn daughter later that day. Never really felt that twitch in my stomach the way I did seeing other women who were pregnant or holding cute little babies. If you've been through something like this, you know what I am talking about. If you haven't, I urge you to read on. Know that someone in this situation needs someone to listen to them and not to say, "Oh that's okay, you get the best part, to be able to hold a baby and give it back to the mommy when he starts crying." Yeah....that's not a good idea. (It happened to me)
What's going on with me? Pretty much I'm too stinkin' skinny for my body to work properly. Some people say, EAT! and I do eat. I love food, but there must have been some times where I didn't eat properly. That and training 20 hours a week (gymnastics). I still have trouble eating, but I'm not anorexic or anything like that. I think I just ignore the fact that I'm hungry and just keep doing whatever it is that I'm doing.
I have an amazing fertility specialist. You'll have to contact me privately to tell you who he is. He never gave up. He wasn't mean or anything like that when I would go and talk to him. He tried everything that was in his power ( and that Josh and I could afford) to help us conceive a healthy child. After all the testing, including an MRI of my pituitary gland...woo hoo...we were given the go ahead to try. We tried Clomid first with no success. My doctor told me he wasn't sure if that would work, but wanted to try it anyway. Next stop, injectables. Wanna know what's fun about those? Not only do you give yourself a shot, then you get to go to the doctor for blood work almost every other day to see if everything is going the way it should.
Started that on Halloween, 2007. I did 50 units of Follistim for 3 days and then 75 units of Follistim for 2 days. The shots aren't that bad. It's a tiny needle that's about an inch long. Barely even hurt. So that was our first try...didn't work because I didn't ovulate. I don't ovulate...that's the whole problem, but we were eager to try again.
January 2008 injectables were tried again. This time I did 33.3 units of Follistim for 4 days and 50 units of Follistim for 5 days. Yet again, no ovulation... so nothing happened.
March 2008...the third go-round...50 units of Follistim for 3 days, 100 units for 2 days and 125 units of Follistim for 4 days. I was actually thinking it was going to work because the blood work showed that my levels were good and an ultrasound showed a few egg follicles. But...no ovulation, so nothing came out of that. Fertility stuff really takes a toll on your body emotionally. I don't see how people can do this every month or whatever for years and have no success. I stopped caring about what happened and didn't feel like going through any more shots or blood work for a while.
June 2009 after a lot of reading online I decided to ask my doctor about trying an IUI. This was after I had already started contacting places about foster care and adoption. I had pretty much given up. This was the last straw...it was this or nothing because IVF was OUT of the question. Too risky and expensive. Normally, the nurse told me at my doctor's office, they only do IUIs when the male has a fertility problem and not the female. I told her I wanted to try anyway. She said about 20% of their patients had a successful IUI that resulted in a baby. Follistim was started again. 75 units for 3 days, followed by 100 units for 5 days. Blood work, ultrasounds were done and everything looked good. July 24th, the procedure was done. I gave myself a shot to make myself ovulate the next day ( I think, I can't remember!) The doctor said I could take a pregnancy test on Thursday August 6th, but a few days before, I already knew something was different. That Wednesday I took one and BOOM! 2 big fat pink lines showed me that I was, in fact, pregnant.
You know what's funny? I can remember the shirt I was wearing that day, my gray Roxy shirt from South Beach. I remember the drive home with my Wal-Mart brand pregnancy tests - there were 3 in the box - I remember the CD I was listening to and how I was soooo nervous to take that test. Take it, wait, pink lines, run upstairs to tell Josh, call my mom, text my best friend. Ha! Good times :) So that's the past and this is now - our life with our new little boy. Riley Thompson Cates, born April 14, 2010. 10:02 a.m. 7 lbs, 12 oz, 21 inches long, absolutely perfect.
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