Our Miscarriage Story...

The title of this post says it all. We miscarried.

We are heartbroken at this loss, but, just as I did with our conception story, I wanted to share this with you. I've read so many miscarriage stories that helped me, and I hope this one helps you.


On Monday, October 19th, I woke up to spotting. Nothing serious at all. The toilet paper was slightly pink when I wiped and so I wasn't too worried. Spotting in pregnancy, especially early pregnancy, is normal, so they say. I heard that if I was in pain I needed to get to a doctor, but there was no pain at all.

That week was shaping up to be a busy one. Aaron and I were scheduled to leave on vacation the following Sunday. If you follow "The Simple Life" you know that I am not the type of person that can just leave my house any old way when I'm out of town. It needs to be clean, and ready for me to come home to before I leave. So I had a lot of cleaning to do, lots of laundry to catch up on, packing, a shopping trip for snacks, my sister in law and her husband were putting on a haunted woods on Friday night and on top of it all, my car was in the shop. So i did what I could, when I could. I would do 30 minutes of a task, and rest for 30 minutes. I wasn't working through my list as quickly as I'd anticipated, so my Mom offered to come and help me that Saturday (the 24th).

On the 23rd, she and I made a trip into town where I did my shopping. The spotting was still present, it had been very off and on the entire week, but it was so light that it really didn't make me worry. That night was the Haunted Woods at my sister in law's house. Originally I had planned to be in it, but after discovering I was pregnant I decided I'd rather skip it. I went over to their house anyway and helped them get their makeup done and just hung out with the girls before the shin-dig started. During a potty break, I noticed that now I was bleeding. It was light, but it was bleeding, definitely more than spotting. I would consider it day 5 of a period (and my periods run 5 days, fyi.) But it freaked me out. So I got my things and told two of my sister in law (one of whom is a nurse) that I was going home. Aaron was already somewhere out in the woods ready for the show, so I told them to let him know but to not rush home. If I needed him I would call my niece and have her go find him for me. I came home, showered, and rested. And the bleeding stopped. Ok.

The next morning, I woke up to a phone call from Aaron, who had taken my car to get worked on. He said it would not be ready for us to take on the trip the next day, and I started to freak out. My hormones were out of this world and I cried nearly the entire day. My mom finally got to our house, helped me get calmed down and helped me clean the house. She took Tabby home with her to keep her for the week, and we packed and went to bed.

The next morning, still spotting. It was heavy spotting, but still, according to my doctors office, whom I had been in contact with every day during this time, it was normal and it was perfectly fine for me to go on this trip if I felt up to it. And I did. I wanted that vacation so badly.


We arrived in Pigeon Forge around 1pm and got settled into our cabin. I felt so pregnant. So bloated, so tired. I was having to pee every five minutes, my breasts were hurting and all I could think about was a nap. After a few hours of rest, we went out to get some groceries at the Kroger just down the road. While we were there, I started feeling horrible. I was cramping and by now the bleeding had picked up to where I needed to wear a pad. We got what we needed and went back to the cabin.

During The Walking Dead, which we cannot ever miss an episode of, I felt fine, until it got toward the end. I was cramping so bad, so frequently that I couldn't even finish the show. Aaron, who was truly amazing during this time, ran me a tub of warm water for me to soak in, It was a heart shaped tub - slightly tacky, but whatever, it was a godsend - and it sat to the side of the bedroom. So he put a movie on for me to watch while I was in there. The tub trick worked so well that I fell asleep. He let me sleep for a good hour, and then woke me up, and got me ready for bed.

It was about 2 in the morning when I woke up with the cramps. I'll never forget it as long as I live. I'll never forget that I was wearing my pale pink nightgown and that we slept with the TV on because the power button on the remote didn't work. I'll never forget that the only light for a while was the pale blue/gray flicker of the television. I went into the bathroom where I discovered I was bleeding much more heavily. Like day 2 of a regular period. I've always had really rough periods, ever since I first started having them. And I've had worse cramps and bled more on a period, and that's what made it so hard for me to believe that we miscarried. But I knew that bleeding like this while pregnant was not a good idea. I also found that when I would wipe that I was passing small clots. About the size of the home button on an iPhone, maybe a little smaller at times. And that's when I started crying. It woke Aaron up and he came running, flipping on the tiny bathroom's light. He sat with me for hours while I cried. I was crying because of the pain, I was crying because I knew that I was losing the baby.

Finally, the pain subsided and I was able to go back to bed. In fact, I dozed off sitting on the toilet leaning on Aaron's shoulder first. I called my Doctor the next morning and she suggested I take another pregnancy test and see if it was still positive and dark. If it was negative or lighter than the last test I took (which had been the previous Saturday and it was dark) to go to the ER. The test came back positive, dark positive, immediately. And because I was feeling better, but still bleeding, we went about our day.

I'm glad we did it. I'm glad we went out to eat, I'm glad that we went to the Hollywood Wax Museum. At least we have some good memories to look back on from this hard time.

Monday night, I was aching again. Aaron gave me two Tylenol - the dr said to take them if I needed them not to tough it out and be a hero - and put me back in the tub. I watched Dancing With The Stars from there, and finally went to bed well after midnight.

Tuesday we didn't have the best day. We'd been somehow roped into a time share presentation, but at the end of it all we ended up with tickets to some of the shows down there for a third of the price. A 90 minute presentation turned into nearly 2 and a half hours, and every minute of it had been walking. I wanted to take Aaron to see the Ripley's Aquarium so badly, but I was feeling so so horrible that we decided to go home and rest.

That night, we went to the Comedy Barn. It was the most fun we had during that trip. I felt pregnant still. My belly was so bloated that not only was I wearing maternity leggings but the chambray shirt I was wearing I had to leave the bottom unbuttoned to accommodate it. I laughed so hard, and was so proud and tickled when Aaron got to go on stage during the last skit with Eric Lambert - it was a dream come true for him. So check that one off the bucket list for him.


Wednesday morning, I woke up with a leg cramp. The leg cramps had been so horrible during the early days of the pregnancy that i was dreading having to spend the day fighting another one. So I got up, paddled into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet.


If you don't want to read the full description of what happened and what it looked like (we did not take photos, so no fear of that) feel free to skip ahead, you won't hurt my feelings.

I did my business, just a little tinkle. I sat there for a second, like you do when you first wake up, trying to get my bearings, wake up a little bit more. The feeling started deep inside, and I could feel whatever it was sliding downwards. I knew it wasn't good. I just knew it. Suddenly... plop. Into the commode it went. I opened my mouth to scream for Aaron, but decided not to, until I saw how badly I was bleeding. So I wadded up some toilet paper (that felt like cardboard, btw) and wiped. When I looked I saw a strip of tissue... it looked a little bit like boiled meat, had sort of a gray/beige look to it. It was probably a little over an inch long, and surrounded with mucus and blood. Not. Good.

I called for Aaron and he jumped up out of the bed. I handed him the toilet paper, and reached into the toilet to get whatever I had passed. When I pulled my hand up and saw it, while it didn't look like a baby, it didn't look like much of anything, I knew that that's what it was. it was about the size of a marble, not perfectly round, sort of egg shaped. it was black, like a big blood clot. It wasn't perfectly smooth, it had a few lumps and bumps on it. We both looked at it under the lights for a few minutes and thought we saw what looked like a cord coming from the top. It was about the width of a strand of spaghetti. I remember saying "oh... that's it."

I put on a clean pad (still wasn't filling pads or bleeding a whole ton) and called my doctor and explained everything to them. The nurse advised us that the safest thing to do would be come home. She said come to the ER to get checked out. So in record time, like 10 minutes, we packed everything up, including whatever I had passed, called the rental place, got a refund and headed home.

Our 5 hour car ride was very somber. Neither of us said much of anything. Aaron was a man on a mission, his eyes focused on the road while I sat in the passenger seat with my feet up and a pillow wrapped around my middle. I wasn't in any pain anymore. The bleeding was coming and going by this time. We called our family and told them what was going on. We held hands the whole trip and silently prayed for a miracle and for the strength we needed to endure whatever waited up the road for us.

We didn't even go home to drop off our bags. We drove straight to the ER. Thankfully they weren't very busy and I got in right away. 4 hours, a really uncomfortable blood draw, a painful catheter insertion, and an internal ultrasound later, all they could tell us was "we don't know." The ultrasound showed nothing. An enlarged endometrium was the best they could offer us there. My urine test showed there was blood in my urine, and why they were surprised I don't know, and my blood worked showed that my hCG level was 122. They said I was either 5 weeks pregnant, or I had miscarried. They kept the plastic bag of what I'd passed. Go home and rest was the verdict. So we went home, and kept the secret close to us for a few days, aside from telling family.

The following Friday they wanted me to come in for more blood work. So Aaron and I got up and got dressed and went down there together. Then it was a wait all weekend sort of thing. Over the weekend we decided to share what was happening on Facebook so that our friends could pray for us, but we knew we weren't fooling anyone. We knew that the pregnancy was over.

Aaron had to go back to work on Monday the 2nd. So I was home alone when the call came that morning. My hCG level had dropped to 60 from Wednesday to Friday. I had miscarried. We wish that we had never left the bag with the ER. At least we would have had something to bury.


Thank the Lord for good friends. The outpouring of love has been really overwhelming. That Monday night Aaron's cousin came by with a cake and a warm hug. One of Aaron's cousin's wives dropped off ice cream and Reese's cups for me on Tuesday. Today a friend is bringing by lasagna for our supper. The same ones that were beating down our door with car loads of baby things are beating down the door with things to comfort us in our time of trial. It really is like that song says: "you find out who your friends are." I am overwhelmed at the kind things people have been saying to us on Facebook, our friends and our family are offering us such inspiring things, saying how they believe that we are meant to be parents and that one day it will happen.

Monday, after I heard the news, all I could think about was the Beatles' song "Let it Be." When I find myself in times of trouble.... there will be an answer. Let it be. I will not pretend that I understand the mind of God. I will not even begin to try. I don't know why God does what he does, when he does it. I don't know why, after nearly 3 years, we finally got pregnant, only to lose it 7 weeks later. I don't know. It's not for me to know. You can't change what God determines, because He knows best. God's plan is perfect. His will is perfect and nothing else in this universe is. I believe that we will have a child. We will have our rainbow baby. God put a rainbow in the clouds after the flood, he can put a rainbow in our lives too. God's plan is not for me to know or understand. If we knew what was coming in our lives, why would we even get out of bed. If the people that walked onto the Titanic that day in April 1912 knew that in a few days they would be drowning and freezing to death after a shipwreck, would they have gotten on board? No way. I've always believed that life is an adventure, and not all adventures turn out to be good. I sometimes joke with my friends and family that I'm a bit of a professional when it comes to grief and loss because I've had to deal with it so much in my lifetime. Maybe now it's not so much of a joke.


So now we are on the path to recovery. Physically I feel pretty much like my old self. I'm very tired, and the bleeding stopped by Friday. I'm fighting internally and emotionally about 99% of the time. I'm the type of person that needs to "keep busy" during really stressful times. I'm a cleaner, so I clean. I'll lose myself in a project, perhaps I'll finally get my living room painted. Might even repaint my kitchen too. I'll fall into movies and books and my writing and maybe even make a little headway on my novel. I'm going to be over affectionate to my dog, and I'll stick to Aaron closer than I ever have.  I'm going to keep losing weight, I'm down 15 so far, and I will try to take better care of myself. It looks like it will be in January when we get the OK to try again so for the rest of this year, my plan is to focus on my marriage, myself and my home. Today hasn't been a very good day, and that's why I decided to sit down and write it all out.

Please pray for us during this hard time, and pray that one day we may be able to have a successful pregnancy.




There will be an answer.... let it be.

We're Pregnant!!

Yep, you read that right! We're pregnant! We're pregnant. It seems like such a strange and wild thing to say and for it to actually be real, and not pre-rehearsed. But it is official, WE. ARE. PREGNANT. There is a baby in my belly!

So, let me give you a really quick run down, from the beginning of this cycle TTC.

It all started with a false positive pregnancy test on August 1st. We were heartbroken and it spurred me to call my doctor and ask that our fertility be taken in a more advanced direction. This was the first glimmer of hope we'd had in trying on our own (without medical intervention aside from advice) in 3 years. And then it was completely dashed away in almost the same breath when a second test came up negative.

Off to the doctor I went. She (my dr) agreed it was time for some action, and after a thorough check up she decided my insulin levels were too high and it was keeping me from ovulating. And, let's face it, you gotta do that if you wanna get pregnant. She put me on Metformin to control the insulin, Provera to start my period (it just decided it wanted to go on vacation that month) and then Clomid to help me ovulate AFTER my period.

I went home, and promptly caught a cold. 

So I started my meds (all but the Metformin) a week later than she had requested. Not only did I have a cold, but I was SO SICK on Metformin that I could barely raise my head off the pillow in the mornings. 

I took the two medications like I should, and waited for a positive ovulation test. I distinctly remember texting my best friend (she lives in Alabama) and telling her I didn't think the Clomid had worked. I went days and days later than I thought I should and still no sign of a positive test. I was super bummed. The next day it showed up positive. I called her again, and she reminded me that she wasn't the person I needed to call. Her exact words were "call your husband, you goof."

We did what we needed to do.... self explainitory. I stuck my legs up in the air after each time, watched a few episodes of "I Love Lucy" upside down, and then readjusted and got on with my day. 

On October the 1st, two days before we found out for ourselves, I had my annual OB/GYN appointment. I had several questions about things that were going on. She was so unusually giddy that I left thinking she knows I'm pregnant. She has to know, otherwise why would she act that way? And why wouldn't she tell me?

My mother explained it best the night we told our families. If I hadn't been so sick on the Metofrmin, the symptoms I was clearly having would have been a huge giveaway. 

*I was super exhausted. Some days it was a stretch to get out of the bed.

*My breasts - actually it was just one breast - was super sensitive and uncomfortable to the touch.

* I was having headaches.

* This one could be a little TMI, but I'd never heard of it being a symptom until it happened to me and I started looking it up. So be warned.... I was dealing with INTENSE Vaginal Itchiness. When I asked my doctor she said she would test for a yeast infection but didn't elaborate anymore. Slick thing. And all the tests came back negative.

*I would wake up in the mornings hungry like I hadn't eaten in days, and then the thought of food was revolting.

* While I  couldn't eat most things, a trip to the Minit Mart for pizza rolls one night resulted in me eating two for myself plus half of one of Aaron's. He said he began to get suspicious then.

* Super short of breath. All the time. And not being able to string a sentence together without getting all murkey and forgetting where my comment was headed.

* I was congested late at night.

* Bloating, constipation, diarrhea, gas, some mild "period-style" cramping and the teensiest bit of bleeding where also present. And when I say teeny, I mean I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been looking for it.

Let me pause here and state, for the record, that you can find ANYTHING on line if you are willing to look. I googled "Implantation Bleeding," and got hundreds of thousands of pictures of women's bloody toilet paper. Some could have filled a bathtub with their bleeding and were asking if it was implantation. I'm still not sure if it was officially implantation bleeding or if my doctor doing my pap smear caused a little bleeding. Either way, I'm almost sure that she knew when I left her office that I would be back with a positive test in my hand.

So, the night of the 2nd, I felt terrible. I was aching so badly that I finally gave up and ran a warm bath. I was absolutely positive that my period was coming. I just knew it. While in the bath I decided, after texting my old faithful best friend, that I would test the next morning.

I barely slept that night, tossing and turning and flipping and flopping. But when I woke up that next morning, I snuck off to the bathroom and took a Wondfo (which is an internet cheapie brand) test. I peed in the cup, dipped the test, went about finishing up my toilet business and when I turned around I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. I looked three or four times, held it up in different light, but I SAW a faint faint second line. I mean, FAINT. And then slowly it started getting darker until it was a fact that there was a second line. 

"AARON!" I shouted, a bit more aggressively than I planned. I giggled at myself silently for how stern I sounded.

"What?!" He replied, alarmed.

"Come here!" I said. "NOW!"

"Are you alright?" He said, as I heard him popping up out of bed.

"GET IN HERE!" I screamed again.

When he finally came into the bathroom, he saw me standing there, in my Murray State t-shirt and black leggings, with my morning face and wild hair, holding that positive pregnancy test. His eyes got as big as saucers. He saw the second line too. Before we did anything, we tested again, with a Rexall brand test we got from Dollar General. This was the same brand we used when we got our false positive. It showed up POSITIVE right away, too! Another Wondfo later, we were convinced I was pregnant. "You can't have 3 positives and them be wrong!" was what my husband said.

Here was the fun part. We decided not to tell anyone until after the doctor confirmed I was pregnant. I was a little terrified because of how crappy I was feeling, and I didn't want to tell and then something happen. But it was Aaron's mom's birthday party. And, oh, we were torn. It would be the best birthday present we could ever give her, and it would be so amazing.....to tell or not to tell? We ultimately decided NOT to tell that day. 

So we bit our tongues all day. Except we told our oldest nephew. He is a teenage brick wall, wouldn't say anything even under pain of death. We were even asked how things were going, and I just said "still waiting." What I didn't say was "to tell you we're pregnant!"

My sister in law and her husband put on a haunted woods every year and we are all taking part in it this year and what goes along with that is lots of fake cuts. You know, the kind you make out of latex and tissue paper.... So we practiced on each other for hours..... the night kept wearing on and the more and more we talked about the haunted woods the more I was like "they're gonna have to know I'm pregnant before we go out there and do that. For sure." It's in the woods, and I'm going to be a character who's eyes have been plucked out, so I'll basically be blind....

So we told our nephew we were going to tell, and he filmed it for us. Aaron asked his mother, who is called "Mimi" by her grandkids, if she still liked "Mimi" or if she wanted to be called something else the next time around, and he showed her the picture he'd taken of our three positive tests. Her response was "WHAT? FOR REAL?"

My sister in law screamed so loud, I think she woke the dead. My 18 year old niece, whom we had all been practicing our halloween makeup on, complete with a green glow-in-the-dark face, dark circles, a sliced and bloody cheek and wild teased hair, tackled me like she was a fullback on the football team. She is the only girl grandchild and immediately said "IT BETTER BE A GIRL!" My brother in law (Aaron's baby brother) said "I KNEW IT!" My mother in law called me a liar. because of earlier when she'd asked what the doctor had told me and how things were going.

Next we knew we had to tell my father in law. He was home sick. So we made up some excuse about him needing to see Lauren, my niece, all dressed up for the haunted woods. So we all trampsed in. He said from the second I walked in his back door he knew. I'm like the cat that ate the canary. I'm a smiler when I have a secret. I'm like Snow White on Once Upon a Time. Can't keep a secret. Oh the soon to be Queen Regina is actually in love with the stable boy? Let's tell her evil mother who hates the stable boy! Yeah. That's me.

Next we went to tell my Mom. My sister in law, who had not gotten out of her pajamas all day, decided to go home. By my mother in law came with us. 

I had suspected that my Mom saw something in me the day of my doctors appointment that lead her to believe I was pregnant, because she practically demanded the doctor do a pregnancy test, and she wouldn't do it. So I figured she already knew. 

When I showed her the photo of the tests, she was quiet. As I knew she would be. A smile peeking its way across her face. She asked me to explain what she was looking at. I told her and the tears came. 

It was a whirlwind day that will go down in the history books of this family.

Now we are on to more doctors appointments, cleaning out the second bedroom to get it ready for baby, names, maternity clothes, birth plans and all that goes along with it and I can't even express how happy I am about it.

It took us 3 years, 34 months, 1003 (exactly) to get pregnant with this child, we tried on our own for two and a half years, but our first round of Clomid paid off. But at last, here we are. 

Where does this leave "The Impossible Dream?" A name change my be in the future... i kind of like "The Possible Impossible Dream." But it's up in the air. I plan on doing weekly updates here on the blog, if I can.... cause life is about to go bananas. My husband also suggested I make a YouTube video talking about our experience with TTC and Clomid. We watched a ton of those while we were TTC.... so perhaps that is on it's way. Not now.... maybe after we have our first ultrasound.... But this will be the place where I do all my baby updating, but The Simple Life will still be going strong, and all the posts here will be linked there. 

So thank you all so much for all of your prayers, and all your kind thoughts. We honestly didn't expect it to happen this cycle. We both said it wouldn't happen this cycle. But the best part of this all is God's timing is perfect. And he still answers prayers. Thank you Lord for this miracle baby!

TWW Musings

So you want to start a family, huh? You've been married a hot minute and it's time. Ok. Throw out all methods of birth control, and go at it like monkeys.

And nothing happens.


Welcome to world of TTC. A land where people speak in abbreviations, regularly pee on stick, wake up at ungodly hours of the morning to take their temperature. Where women log every single little physical reaction, feeling or impulse on either paper, or in a fancy iPhone app.

Where you window shop for baby things, and secretly cry when your friends announce that they're expecting. When every time your period arrives, you want to crawl in a hole and die.

The good news is, no matter how alone you feel, you aren't. I feel like I am on a teeny tiny blow up donut float out in the middle of the great big bad ocean with nothing but my little feet and hands to paddle me around. A long way from home, and all alone.


Let's start with the basics.

The Lingo. If you cruise the TTC boards at places like BabyCenter or theBump, you will see what looks like women speaking back and forth to each other in some kind of strange code. Let me break it down for you.

TTC - This one is simple. "Trying to Conceive."
BFN - Sadly, this is the "Big Fat Negative." We've ALL had (usually) more than one of these.
BFP - This one is a little happier. "Big Fat Positive." We ALL want one of these.
TWW - The dreaded "Two Week Wait." That space between ovulation and pregnancy or your period.
AF - Code for "Aunt Flow." That's code for your "period."
O - Ovulate/Ovulated/Ovulation.
OPK - Ovulation Predictor Kit, you will become very familiar with these lovely little things.
BBT - Stands for Basal Body Temperature, which is your body's temperature after 4 hours of sleep, it's basically your "core" temp, and when it spikes after being low for a certain amount of time, it usually means you have "O'd." If it stays up your BFP is usually right around the corner. Or you have the flu. In either case, calling a doctor is wise.
HPT - Home Pregnancy Test. The little pieces of plastic that we spend our life savings on every month only to have them keep coming up negative and therefore we chuck them out with the trash.
hCG- Basically this is that every illusive pregnancy hormone.
Clomid -  a drug that will cause you to lose your mind and make you ovulate all at the same time. 
DPO - "Days Past Ovulation."

Here's what a PCOS positive active TTCer's day looks like.

6am - wake up to the shrieking sounds of your alarm clock. But don't move. Slowly reach your hand over to your nightstand, find your thermometer and pop it in your mouth. Don't even blink. Seriously, you can't move before you take your BBT. Ok. So it's 97.6 this morning. Write it down or log it into your app. (I use OVIA fertility, fyi.)  Now, either go back to sleep, or get up.

Whilst eating breakfast you take your Metformin. And your Clomid. Lose your appetite. Spend the next 40 minutes in the bathroom losing 3 pounds. :) keeping.it.real.

Ok. Shower, please. Get dressed, go on with your day. Somewhere in the middle of the day, you need to take your OPK. Find a cup. (The little disposable paper cups are great for this, btw.) Pee in said cup. Dip your little paper stick down into it for 3 seconds and then pull it out. Wait. Do this every day until you get a positive. Positive OPK's are funny things. With an OPK the test line has to be as dark or darker than the control line for them to be positive. Once you get your positive, get your man home. PRONTO.

After that.... you wait. For two agonizing weeks, you wait. You read into every little symptom that you have, and even a few you don't have. "Oh my goodness, I have a headache." "Ooh, I tooted while I was grocery shopping before I could even stop it." "I feel a bit bloated." "Is that breast tenderness I have?" "Am I unusually tired, or is this regular tired?" Sometimes you flat out invent symptoms. They're not there, but your head says you are feeling them.

You will spend your days a nights combing through message boards online, reading posts where women who have gotten their "BFP's" give you a blow by blow of the whole two weeks. I'm guilty of this. A post I read had a woman listing a migraine at 4dpo, to which i exclaimed "SO DID I!!" It means nothing. It is coincidence. "At 7dpo, we got a positive test!" Said one woman. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom and used a Wondfo pregnancy test, which, of course, came out negative. Down in the dumps I go.


The deal is that TTC and Pregnancy are a very individual thing to the person. A little nausea may be all you have. My mother lost 17 pounds during her pregnancy with me because she was so sick. I wish I had photos to show you, it's OBVIOUS she was a sick sick lady. But just because she was so sick, doesn't mean I will be.

Who here is guilty of watching the tv show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant!"? It's ok, you can admit it, this is a judgment free zone. I watched 3 episodes this morning.  And we sit there and think "how can these women not know they're pregnant?" But from all the sources I've been hip deep in lately, not having many, or any, symptoms can happen. I've known women that only discovered they were pregnant because they missed their period. They never had a pain, never had had morning sickness, everything was a breeze. Some women only start experiencing symptoms after they find out they're pregnant.



It's hard to be hopeful. Hard to read all these websites where people are experiencing the same things you are and are turning up pregnant, and then here I am, twiddling my thumbs, waiting. Am I or aren't I? That's the question. It's the TWW and it's driving me crazy.


I had my annual with my OB/GYN today. She's wonderful. She came in and was anxious to hear about what had happened. After telling her about our super positive OPK, she got very excited with me. It's hard when your doctor gets so excited. I know there is basically a 50/50 shot that it worked and I got pregnant. I have a 50% reason to get excited and a 50% reason to be very realistic. But it is SO HARD not to look at nursery ideas online, or check out the baby shoes while you're cruising through the consignment store. I had to move my laptop out of the spare room to write this, because being in that room (which will be baby's room at some point) was too hard for me.  It was so hard for me to be in town today and literally see bellies everywhere I went. Naturally the doctors waiting room was filled with them, but then I went shopping, and out to eat, and they were there too. It's just plain hard.


 
So, the wait continues. I'm feeling pretty lousy after today, emotionally and physically. THOSE exams are evasive and never fun, not even when your doctor offers you super cute, pink and flowery gowns to wear. Wear isn't the right word. Cover yourself with. Cause we know how it goes, all modesty goes out the door during your annual with you OB/GYN. This is a sheet with a hole in the top for your head to go through. I'm tired, a bit cranky, and just anxious for this weekend to pass and my life to move on one way or another.

So many prayers, and so much effort has been put into this battle, I can only hope that our victory is just around the corner. Not a moment of these 34 months has been easy. I've probably reached the limit on the tears I am allowed to shed and am in debt to the tear bank for the rest of eternity. I've questioned all the reasons, I've questioned God - which my Daddy always told me never to do. But it's hard, I tell you. You have so much love to give, and such a good life to bring a child into, and no baby, month after month after month...

I've been praying lately for the Lord to help me endure whatever is to come. Help me to deal with and accept a negative result, or to take on the added responsibility of a pregnancy and child and all that goes along with it, should my result be positive. I'm longing for the day when I can tell you we're expecting, but, it's not today, for sure. :(


PLEASE remember me, and my Aaron, in your prayers as we wait on the Lord. We know all of this is in HIS hands. We just have to hold on. I keep remembering what Aaron's Mamaw told us. "Kids, hold on. It's coming. I believe it. Hold on." My knuckles are bloody and raw Mamaw, but I'm holding on.

The Latest - Infertility & TTC

Infertility is a rough thing. If you are going through it, I don't have to tell you. It plays all sorts of tricks with your mind. It makes you feel like you aren't even human.

Since my last post here on The Impossible Dream, I've dove head first into treatment, and today I would like to update you all, give you the latest, on what has been happening.


My 5 day round of Provera worked as expected. And just as my doctor had told me it would, my period was very, very light. So light that I really didn't even acknowledge it was even happening except when I was in the ladies room. I'm not gonna lie, as someone who's period's are usually heavy and angry, it was like a vacation, but at the same time it had me scared to death. I remember legit thinking "how could a period this light possibly work?" But, whatever.

During this time I was also, and still am, taking 1500mg of Metformin. I've talked with several people that have had a hard enough time taking it that they've had to stop. But I pushed through, and it hasn't been easy. My first week on it, I couldn't get out of bed. I was drained to the point of not even being able to roll over. One day I woke up at 9am, and didn't even roll over until 1pm, I just stared at the ceiling. Aside from that, I dealt with headaches and some major, I'm talking major, gastrointestinal issues. I've spent most of my time recently staying very close to the bathroom. Car trips longer than 30 minutes have to be scrapped because I just can't do it. And if I eat, I need to stay close to a bathroom. Everything runs straight through me. Also, it's sort of acted like an appetite suppressant for me, I'm not hungry hardly ever at all these days. And what I do eat, like I mentioned, it's on the express lane out as quickly as it went in. Emotions were at a peak a few weeks ago as well, thanks to Metformin. I have anxiety problems already, and I just knew that Metformin would increase those. Whenever I was awake, or not growing to the toilet seat (just keeping it real here, people) I was a bit more sensitive. The came to a head one night after Aaron and I had been out to eat. When we came home, I walked into my kitchen, started crying, fell onto the floor and ugly cried for a solid 45 minutes without stopping.

My doctor had mentioned to me that Metformin had proven to be effective with some women in helping them lose some weight. PCOS makes it so difficult to lose weight because your body is starved for certain nutrients and feeds on fats and so forth, so it causes a whole host of issues and losing the weight is nearly impossible. When I was a teenager I thought I was the fattest thing in the world at 150 pounds. (And you know I love you, cause I said a number....) And it is probably still a bit chunky for my height, but I was a size 10 and I was happy with that. In college I gained the Freshman 15, but I still liked how I looked and I didn't feel any different, except when I had to plunk down money for a bigger size pair of jeans at Maurices. (<--that is the only place this girl can find jeans) And I stayed at that weight until after Aaron and I were married. And then, all of a sudden I gained 35 pounds. Boom. There it was. Just overnight, I woke up and my size 12 jeans didn't fit anymore. Neither did my size 14s. I finally had to give in and buy a size 18 jeans because a size 16 was too constricting and hurt my stomach. I finally stopped wearing jeans and stuck with leggings and sweats. Defeat? A little, yes. I was over 200 pounds and not even knowing how, when or why it had happened. After my PCOS diagnosis in 2013, it all made sense, and so I started trying to diet, to watch my portion size and to work out, but my weight didn't fall by even an ounce. When I went on Metformin, I wasn't even thinking about weight loss. Not at all. I was just focusing on "this is step one in my three step program to ovulation and pregnancy."

My Mom and I were headed into town one day to do a little bit of shopping, so I went by her house to pick her up. When I walked in the door, her first question was "how much weight have you lost?" To which I replied, "probably none." But after she shoved me on the scale, we discovered I'd lost 7 pounds. At this point, I'm down 12 pounds. I don't feel any different and I don't think I look any different, but the weight loss has me hopeful that maybe we will be successful this go around. My doctor had told me a few stories of patients that had lost 10 pounds and got pregnant. I'm down 12, let's hope there's some truth behind that theory for me too! :)

I started my 4 day round of Clomid on my Cycle Day (CD) 5. I wasn't sure what to expect emotion wise with Clomid, but I'd heard it could be brutal, so I braced myself. But I really didn't notice anything too crazy. I was still super tired and super drained from the Metformin, and if there was any added emotions, I didn't notice them.


And then we waited. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited a little bit more. I just knew that the Clomid hadn't worked, and that I wasn't going to ovulate. OPK (Ovulation test) after OPK came up negative. I mean, glaringly negative. With an OPK you have to have two lines of the same opacity (or have one darker than the other) for it to be positive. And a lot of times my second line (which is the line to the left) would barely be visible. And that had proved to be normal in the past. I had had a positive OPK maybe once before in our marriage. And a lot of the time women tend to get a progression with their OPKs. Very faint, pale, light, light/medium, medium, medium/dark, POSITIVE.

Forgive the lighting situation in this picture. This is in our pretty pink bathroom, and these are my test strips.

I use the WONDFO brand test strips. I get them off of Amazon for super cheap. You can see that the bottom strip is super light, not a lot happening there, the next strip is a little darker, and the top strip is even darker still. ALMOST positive. And when you get the almost positives is when you should start taking action, I'm told. 

Now, this is the test result we got the very next day.

This, my friends, is a positive OPK. And it's the first one I've seen for myself in many many moons. Many. This test was so glaringly, in your face positive that the second line was dark the INSTANT I took the test. I mean, BAM, dark line! I'm not even going to pretend here, I cried. I hadn't seen a positive OPK in so long that I seriously wondered if it would ever happen to me again. Well, there it is. I texted my best friend, who's response was "why are you talking to me? Call your husband." 

So now, we are in the dreaded TWW, the Two Week Wait. After 10 days past ovulation (dpo) lots of women start testing, but I've made up my mind not to. I have an appointment with my doctor on October 1st for a regular check up and update on how things are going. My period wouldn't be due until the next week. Either she will tell me then, or I'll found out one way or another the next week. And after that.... I haven't thought that far ahead yet. Infertility makes you afraid of thinking and hoping for the future. A little glimmer of hope scares you to death. My BFP (Big Fat Positive) OPK was a huge boost in my hope supply, but it was also a kick in the seat. Don't get too excited, it might not happen this time. With your luck it didn't happen. Getting pregnant will take a miracle. That's all I hear in my head these days. 

Like I mentioned in my introductory post, my husband and I are very religious people. Our faith in the center of our universe. We believe in God, we believe that God sends his children signs and speaks to us in ways we can't understand. The Sunday before last we had a visiting preacher at our church who talked about his and his wife's 17 year battle with infertility and how the Lord had given them a miracle baby in the form of their healthy now 7 year old daughter sitting next to her mother, how all the doctors had said it was impossible, but that they kept praying and it just happened. It was very encouraging for me, and I know that many people sitting in the congregation that day were praying for our miracle.  3 years isn't 17 years. It isn't 13 years and it isn't the 10 years it took my parents to finally have me, but it is our battle that consumes pretty much every waking moment for us.

So we are here, waiting. Pacing, trying not to think about it. Waiting until something happens, or doesn't happen. In the meantime, the laundry needs to be done, my car needs to be worked on, the house needs cleaning and I just realized that I've gone half a day without a bite of food in my stomach. Time marches on ("and eventually you realize that it's marching across your face...." -Steel Magnolias) and so must we. 

All About Me, Us, and our Infertility.

Hello everyone! I'm assuming that you've found your way here from my other little blog, The Simple Life. If you have, hello friends! And if you have randomly stumbled across this, please go check out The Simple Life. I am all about home stuff and recipes and money saving and movie, tv and book reviews, hacks, all sorts of good stuff.



Let me just quit chit-chatting and get the the "meat and potatoes" of this post.






I'm Missy. Hello! I'm a 25 year old housewife living in south central Kentucky. And I'm so sad to say that all that bouncy curly hair has all been chopped off thanks to damage. Oh well. Hair grows back ;)









I met my husband, Aaron, in January of 2008 and married in him December of 2009. My Dad passed away in November of 2007 from a 6 month battle with lung cancer. I'd been in a really one sided relationship during that time, and because of that I decided I was done dating for a good long while. I was going to focus on family and schooling and some other things and just forget guys. A mutual acquaintance introduced us over the old relic called MySpace. We talked for about a month and finally he asked to meet me. We went on a double date with out mutual friends and from that night on, there was never anything else in this world but us. I tell him that he melted my icy heart on contact. Our wedding was a Christmas wonderland, designed to be exactly what we wanted. It wasn't a typical cookie cutter wedding, and to this day people still talk about it. It was the greatest day of my life.

By 2013 we had gotten to a point in our marriage where I could afford to stop working, as it was costing me more money to work than I was bringing home. We had to seriously tighten our belts for the first few months, and there was some talk about me going back to work, but I've always felt that my heart was in my home. My husband liked coming home to a spotless house and a hot meal every night after work. I liked doing it. So the choice was made for me to be a stay at home wife full time. I did go to and graduate college, in case you were wondering. I have an associate's degree in Commercial Digital Photography, and I will occasionally do family portraits and weddings and the like, but in this day and age when everyone had a camera on their phone, the studio photographer is obsolete. When I started the Simple Life blog I wanted to share my experiences at corner-cutting and making a household run on one income. It absolutely can be done. You can do it, if you want it badly enough.





I am a very artistic person. My father in law calls me "thoroughly right-brained." I live for creating and entertaining. The photograph to the left is a shot of me performing on-stage in a play called Seeing Stars in Dixie. It was one of my favorites. I played a clumsy former beauty queen turned weather girl named Jo Beth. Poor Jo Beth was always walking into disasters. She had some hilarious lines and I got to wear fun costumes.  I also love to write. From the time I was a little girl I've written stories. I've decided I want to try my hand at writing a novel, and because I want to do it well, it occupies most, if not all, of my free time. I love movies and books, and when I'm not writing, I'm either watching a good movie or elbow deep in a book. I love music too. I once was a classically trained pianist, but over time I've lost a lot of the knowledge of classical music. Now I play mainly "church" music. My husband and I have that in common. He is a 3rd generation Southern Gospel singer, and he leads singing at our little country church. His voice is like buttah. ;)

One of the biggest things in our life is our faith. We are - if you want to be specific - old fashioned United Baptists. We believe in a salvation experience. We believe in conviction, and repentance. Our church practices "feetwashing," in a service that we hold once a year. We do not believe in accepting Christ, or talking to the preacher or shaking his hand or reading a pre-written prayer. We believe in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We believe that water baptism is simply an outward showing of your obedience to God's law, that it is not what "saves." I was saved at the age of 12 during a revival meeting on a Tuesday night in October. Since then I've trusted the Lord, prayed to him, and let him guide me in my path. I know the Lord in my soul, and he knows me. And I am thankful for that every day. If that isn't your thing, that's fine. I'm not trying to make you believe it. I'm just telling you what I believe. You believe something else, that's fine. I'm not going to condemn you for it. Don't condemn me for what I believe and practice.


When we married, we knew we wanted a family some day. But right away wasn't smart for us. My husband was a bank teller making very little and I worked part time in a bridal shop while still finishing up my degree. So we went on birth control.

In December of 2012, my husband's older sister gave birth to her second child, a sweet little boy that to this day you can't help but spoil silly. At the hospital that night, waiting on baby boy's arrival, my Aaron and I made a choice. "Let's do it." He said to me, holding my hand while standing in the hallway surrounded by our large family. "Let's throw away the birth control and let's have us a baby." So we did. We went home that night, and I threw away my last packet of birth control pills.

And that's where we were so naive.


Rewinding a bit. Fertility problems, reproductive issues run in my family. My mother was an exceptionally tough case. She'd been diagnosed with a very very rare and unusual blood disease, in addition to having endometriosis. She also only had 3 eggs.  3. My existence is a miracle. But it took her and my father 10 years to finally conceive me. It took my aunt 8 years. One of my cousins waited 13 years for her only child. Another cousin had to deal with cervical cancer and miscarriages before finally having her family. It was there, that history, staring at me. And I was dumb enough to think that "that won't happen to us."

But it did.

About 8 months later, my period still hadn't gotten back on track from being on birth control. In fact, it had disappeared completely. So I made an appointment with an OBGYN. She was new in town, but she was the only one accepting patients at the time. And from what I was hearing from my nurse friends (most of my girlfriends from school are labor and delivery nurses) she was wonderful.

I went in, she gave me a thorough exam, talked to me, and finally lowered a diagnosis.

PCOS. PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome. Ugh. Any woman wanting to have a child knows that without serious medical intervention PCOS is a death sentence to your desired motherhood. I was crushed. But she followed that up by saying that all things considered it was very mild, in fact I only had 3 cysts per ovary. What had tipped her off was other side effects, like sudden weight gain, which wasn't nearly as much as other people have gained, but it still shot up there quickly, too quickly, and a host of other things that are, frankly, too embarrassing for me to mention.  She said at that point she wouldn't say that the PCOS was stopping me from getting pregnant, because my ovaries were functioning normally from what she could tell - and this was after a month and a half of non-stop tests. All she could say was that I had unexplained infertility.

I have never felt such despair in my life. Losing my Dad to cancer at 18 hurt, and still hurts, but I can't even describe how helpless I felt leaving the doctors office that day. I felt like I wasn't even a woman. Here I am, built by God to grow tiny humans, and my body can't do it. I felt like a failure, and honestly I was ashamed of myself. I felt guilty that my husband, who wanted (and wants) children so badly, had wasted his chance on me. A barren woman.

We kept trying, but our hearts simply weren't in it. We were deflated, like a balloon that's met the sharp tip of a pin.



In early 2015, my husband became very interested in the foster care program. Let me pre-face this by saying that that is a wonderful, worth while program that is great... if you can do it.

After 9 weeks of classes, I knew that I could not finish out the remaining 2 classes. I could not become a foster parent. There are a ton of reasons why it wouldn't have worked out for us. Our home is older, and has lots of plumbing problems, and for that reason alone I felt that we probably wouldn't pass the home inspection. (I won't go into the other reasons why I felt like it wasn't right, and if you have anything nasty to say about it, perhaps you want to call me selfish, keep it to yourself. I don't tell you what's wrong with your life, don't tell me about mine.) In the beginning I said alright to going because my husband was so excited about it. I began to pray "Lord, if this is your will, change my heart. If this is what is right for us, change my desire, change my heart, and allow me to dive in, feet first." And over 9 weeks, the overwhelming feeling of "this isn't right for us," kept growing. It was a hard choice, to finally tell Aaron that I didn't think it was something I could do. It lead to a huge blowup between us, but after a little bit, things cooled down and we decided to start trying again, full force.

And the months kept ticking by. Sometimes I would have a normal period, sometimes I wouldn't. But we kept trying, and praying.


It was Easter Sunday, 2015. We gathered at my husband's oldest sisters house after church for our annual Easter meal. This year we were blessed to have my Mother and my husband's 92 year old grandmother with us. Never was a more Godly lady on this earth than "Mamaw." Her parents were killed in train accident when she was a small girl, she married very young and had 5 wonderful children and raised them all in church. If Mamaw says she's praying for you, she means it. Well, my sister-in-law called us all in to the dining room to eat, but Mamaw said she wanted to talk with me and Aaron first. So we gathered around her chair, and listened. She told us that she'd been praying for us to have a baby. That some nights she prayed all night long. And I'll never forget the peace that swept over me when she took my hand and said "The Lord told me to tell you to hold onto it, and keep praying for it." She said that in her heart she believed it wouldn't be too much longer, if we kept working towards it. She told us to get as close together as we could, to pray for it, to work for it, and she believed it would happen. By the end of that conversation I was a sobbing mess, Aaron was a sobbing mess, Mamaw was a sobbing mess, my mother and Aaron's sister who'd been listening from the doorway were a sobbing mess. I left that dinner feeling more encouraged than ever, feeling that all my prayers weren't in vain.


Fast forward to July 2015. One night, while Aaron and I were out on one of those rare married people dates, I suddenly realize that my period, which had been perfectly on track for months, was late. Combine that with house sick I'd been lately - even that night I could barely eat, the sight of food made me so sick - I just knew I was pregnant. We stopped at a drug store on the way home and I bought a pregnancy test. As soon as we got home, I took it.

And it was positive. At first glance, immediately after taking it, it looked negative, so I sat it down on the counter and walked away. When I went back in the room a few minutes later it was for sure positive. We were so excited.

We talked for hours about baby names, plans for the baby's room, my plan to stay frugal throughout the pregnancy and early years, and we were even discussing how to surprise our families with the news, especially since everyone was wanting us to have a child so badly.

The next morning I decided I wanted to take another test. It was a Saturday morning and Aaron had to work until noon that day, so I wanted to take it before he left for work. I was up at 5 am. I couldn't sleep. I was so anxious to see two more lines.

It was negative. Three more tests were negative. You want to talk about the highest high to the lowest low? We experienced that all within a matter of hours. Gone were those cute baby names we chose. Gone was the idea of a cute, frugal DIY nursery. Gone was the "oh by the way, we're pregnant" plan to tell the family. Gone was my hope. We had just experience the ultra-rare, heart breaking, trick on you playing FALSE POSITIVE.

So, I made another doctors appointment. It had been a few years since I'd seen my OBGYN and so when I called, I told the receptionist everything and told her I needed some infertility counseling.

My Mom is always so great to come with me to these types of things. After my Dad passed away I started developing a nasty anxiety and depression problem that I just can't shake. She knows that hospital/doctor/lots of people situations make me nervy, and since Aaron couldn't take off work to go with me, she came along.  Turns out it was a good thing. I saw three friends, two pregnant, one with her newborn, in the waiting room, and shamefully I tried to hide from them. I don't know how people who don't have fertility problems look at people that do. I don't want to be judged. I don't want people looking at me funny, so in my real, normal, non-internet life I don't tell people about our problems. Just family and a few close close friends. I don't ever talk about it. It's personal. It's difficult. It's shameful to me, sometimes. I said it before, being infertile makes me feel like less of a woman, and it's hard feeling like a failure every time you see your friends with their new babies or their proudly swollen bellies.

Google Images Search - memegenerator.net

When my doctor came in, my heart sank. She was pregnant. I tried to just throw that fact to the back of my mind and focus on myself getting pregnant. She explained that since we were 3 years into trying with no luck, we needed to take some serious action. She sent me downstairs for blood work and ultrasounds and then called me back in for another sit down. She had been afraid that perhaps one of my ovarian cysts had grown in size, or that perhaps my fallopian tubes were blocked for some reason or another. According to the ultrasound, all that was good. She could see from the blood work that my insulin levels were too high. Which is typical for women with PCOS.  When she said that, my diabetic mother sat straight up and asked "does that mean she's diabetic?" My doctor assured us that no, I wasn't a diabetic. However with this condition, it put me at a higher risk for diabetes in the future (even higher than my chances of inheriting it) and for gestational diabetes while pregnant. So, she put me on 1500mg  of the magical drug that all us PCOS sufferers take "Metformin." Oh my my my the Metformin.  I loved this meme of Oprah. Cause, yep, it's almost just like that apparently. "Have PCOS? Here's some Metformin." According to my doctor it should help with the insulin problem, as well as maybe help me lose a little weight. Some girls I've talked to said they didn't lose a pound. Oh well. Frankly I don't care. It made sense when she told me, because since my Mom has been a diabetic I've become hyper aware of blood sugar. I know when mine is high or low. It made sense. Since I've been on it, when the side effects weren't sequestering me to the bathroom or keeping me locked in stillness in my bed, I've felt good for the first time in years. Anyway, my doctor also put me on a 5 day round of Provera to start my period and then once that's over I have a round of magical Clomid to take. My sweet Aaron has heard so many success stories about people on Clomid that I was afraid if I didn't come home with some he might send me back! That's a joke people. But really, we've heard a lot of personal success stories from friends and neighbors about their time on Clomid, so we are hoping to add ourselves to that list. As of this writing I'm still taking my round of Provera, waiting on my little visitor to come hang out with me for a while. Can't say I'm looking forward to that at all.



So now you are all caught up. I've not even wanted to keep a diary of this whole experience because it's so hard for me to even wrap my head around. But you know what? I believe in miracles. I believe in the power of prayer. I wish on stars, wishbones, 11:11, birthday candles, and eyelashes. I get down in my prayer spot and beg for strength to endure what we are going through, I beg for a child if it is His will, and I beg for the safety and health of all my friends and acquaintances that are expecting. In the beginning it was "Lord, please bless us with children." Then it turned to "Lord,please bless us with just a couple of children." Now our prayer is "Lord, if it is your will, we only ask for one child." I find myself reading a lot in the Bible about Sarah, who laughed when she heard that she would have a child. About Hannah, about Rachel. I look at my mother's face and know that for ten long years, she went through this very same thing. I look at my cousins and their healthy children. I see my brother and his wife, who were told they could never have children, with their two perfect babies. I think about Mamaw's words, and the peace I've felt in prayer, and I believe that my Impossible Dream of Being a Mama isn't too far away. Whether I get pregnant this cycle, or whether it takes a few more, I hold onto that feeling and I look all around me for the evidence of God's love for me. I see it everywhere. I see it in my marriage, I see how the Lord brought Aaron to me, and I know that God loves me, and that when it is HIS TIME he will bless us with what we have longed for for so long.


If you pray, would you please pray for us? I know the power of prayer, I am the very evidence of it. Thank you for taking the time to read my little story today and I hope you will come back and keep up to speed with our journey toward parenthood and follow along whenever we finally have a for real positive test.

 "Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."