Sitting down to finally write this latest chapter has been really
hard. I’m trying to figure out why. The last two posts were pretty easy,
although they took a hefty time commitment due to their length, but my fingers
flew across the keyboard with fury. The words came easy. They just aren’t this
time. I’ve spent the last few weeks praying intently for God to show me why
so, together, we could fix it. I know God wants me to share the rest of my
story. It’s kind of the most important part.
You see, I’m very much so still processing the shock waves of the
last couple of years. I still have relationships that are rocky because of my
selfish, flesh-filled tendencies. Also, I’m scared to ramble on, giving details that
don’t matter. I’m scared to leave something out that truly matters. I’m
really going out on a limb here and I want to do it justice. I’m scared that I
won’t.
Late last night, I stayed up past my bedtime, praying and
journaling, copying down scripture after scripture, and just asking God for
more strength. I feel I’ve heard Him deliberately speaking to me lately and I
really felt his strength and goodness today. I’m feeling this overwhelming
sense that I am needing to face some ugliness that resided in my soul when the
storm hit. This post will, inevitably, be lengthy. I sincerely hope those of
you attempting to read it will see some importance in seeing it through to the
end. There will be moments that will read like an academic journal on the
female reproductive system and others that will read like a deeply intimate
memoir. I’ll try for smooth transitions.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that I like learning and
understanding new things. It’s true. In my opinion, this is one of my defining
characteristics. When I take interest in a topic, I’m like a bulldog, jaws
locked in place on reading, researching, and understanding. I’m proud of this
character trait. It has taken me pretty far in life, and I usually get what I’m
after. In the past, a few of the topics have been: how to be a skilled cook,
how to be a healthy long-distance runner, and how to put food into my body that
will fight disease and not feed it. These are all areas I’ve considered myself
a “ micro-expert” in at one point or another due to my willingness to learn.
I’m proud that I have run multiple half-marathons without injuring myself. In
addition, I am fairly proficient in the kitchen and can put just about any meal
on the table. People will actually eat it and enjoy it, too! One of my passions
is feeding people I love delicious food. I also have a great grasp on how to
treat my body with the respect it deserves, and am proud to live a lifestyle
that makes me feel strong and healthy. I’m so proud to be this way, but I can
admit I’m no actual expert. There are tons of people more knowledgable than I
in each and every area. But I’m proud of my growth mindset..
Summer 2014
Just over two years ago, my latest topic of intrinsic interest
became how to make a baby. David and I were finally feeling “ready” by our
(entirely too strict) standards. David can claim to winning the high standards
competition because he actually tried convincing me to wait another year so his
business could have a chance to flourish and grow for a bit with the support of
my new income. His expectations were way higher than mine. I didn’t want to
wait. We’d waited long enough, and I’d always believed in him like crazy and
knew he would create a prospering business- with or without another
income. With or without a child. I can admit now that waiting another year
would have definitely been the best choice, but my stubborn self won the debate
anyway. We decided to pull the goalie. The first step? Stop taking birth
control pills (see ya, goalie). That one required zero research and was easy
enough. Okay, what next? Have lots of intercourse. Again, easy. I limited my
research at this point, because I have to admit, I was pretty confident that we
would experience immediate success. We’d been practicing for this moment for
more than eight years! I did download an app or two. One was an ovulation
tracking app, and I think I may have also downloaded the What to Expect When
You’re Expecting app. I felt pretty confident we would be finding out in a few
weeks that we’d be parents very soon.
I think the next thing I learned throughout the process of
learning how to make a baby is that a woman, very quickly, begins to think in
terms of her monthly cycle. It’s like my life began to be defined by and
chunked into these thirty(ish)-day periods of time. “Cycle day one” through
“cycle day one.” That is just fancy fertility talk for the period of time between
one menstrual period and the next. The day you start your period is “day one.”
This “period” of time (pun intended) is usually about 30 days, give or take a
few. That first month felt like an actual eternity. When the 30-day marker
finally rolled around, I eagerly began taking my very first pregnancy tests.
The first few 347 were negative. Like clockwork, my research-driven
brain dove straight into the complicated and miraculous world of Trying to
Conceive (or TTC, for all you fellow pros). Between Google and the message
boards on my trusty new app, I was completely inundated with so much
information and acronyms like TTC, AF, POAS, LMP, BFP, BFN, DH, DD, DS, DPO, CD
and HEDD. It was overwhelming, but also kind of exciting for someone who loves
information as much as I do. I have this weird belief that the more I can show
mastery of a topic, the higher my own locus of control is in accomplishing the
task. (Boy was I DEAD WRONG with this particular task.) Anyway, the above
mentioned acronyms are just the tip of the TTC information iceberg. I won’t
teach you what each one of them means, but one of my favorites, and one that we
all know the meaning of, is TMI. The world of TTC involves so many stories that
are TMI. It can be so gross and well, NOT SEXY. It was like I was in an
undignified human anatomy class, and the only area of emphasis was the
reproductive system. No, more selective than that. MY OWN reproductive system.
Complete with a whole lot of wonderful, hands-on learning labs.
After reading a ton of neat stuff, I came to the realization that
30 days into your cycle may be too early to get a positive pregnancy test, and
that unless I knew the exact day I ovulated, I couldn’t really know exactly
when a pregnancy test would show positive or even when my period was due.
Everyone’s answer on the message boards was, “it’s not over until AF shows her
ugly face.” (For those of you who don’t know, AF stands for “Aunt Flo.” Cute
name for a menstrual period, right? She’s highly despised in the world of TTC due
to the fact that she sails in, in all her irritable, crampy glory and yells in
your face, “HAHA! YOU AREN’T PREGNANT, SUCKER!”) Well, AF still hadn’t shown
her ugly face, so I kept waiting and peeing on sticks. (If you were to have told
me a few years ago that peeing on sticks would become the most exciting thing
in the world to me, I would have LAUGHED IN YOUR FACE. But it happened.) Thirty
days turned into forty. Then fifty. Still no AF and by that point, I was quite
literally obsessed with my little information superhighway- AKA: my smartphone.
Also, I became obsessed with taking what felt like 10-15 pregnancy tests a day
(but was more like 3 or 4). I grew slightly depressed in that very first cycle.
I believed a lie that if I researched a little more, I could will a certain
outcome to happen. Some days I thought I was going to effect a positive
pregnancy test, and some days all I wanted was to start my period so we could
move on to the next month. Afterall, “trying” was pretty fun. But
waiting around like this? Totally miserable. On the 54th day of that first
cycle, I gave up a little. Not even two months in, and I didn’t know if I could
do this. Even in this early moment, I was already experiencing my first doses
of shame from satan. Looking back, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise given
the shame I’d brushed shoulders with during the whole job search thing. I was
so completely and totally down and out. Nothing could cheer me up. I already
felt like a big, fat failure.
I’m a fighter though…
… and I finally resolved that the cause of this long and drawn-out
cycle, and my perpetual moodiness, was just a simple hormonal imbalance. (Which
I attributed to the birth control pills.) My area of research changed slightly
to “how to naturally balance hormones.” After a bit of reading, I got in my
car, drove to my local organic market and bought some herbal capsules that were
alleged to do just that. I went home and swallowed what felt like a handful and
curled up in a ball on my sofa. It was a Sunday in June. Father’s Day to be
exact. I felt so low on that day that I didn’t even want to call my father,
whom I love dearly. I allowed that day to slowly dissolve into Monday, then
Tuesday. I did zero chores around my house. I was on summer break and I think
the only thing I must have gotten up for was to swallow more herbal capsules,
hoping they would make me feel better. Tuesday morning, I did feel a little
better. I think I at least changed out of my pajamas. (Probably into workout
pants, but still.) I still hadn’t gotten my period, and I had all but given up
hope of being pregnant that month. Well, maybe not all hope. I think it was the
tiniest shred of hope left that prompted me to take another test.
At home pregnancy tests are really kind of mindblowing. There’s a
chemical that shows up in your urine just days after an egg is fertilized
called hCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin. This little stick that can
be purchased at any drugstore or mega mart (I order mine in bulk from Amazon)
can detect the smallest trace amounts of this hormone which signals the second
line to appear. After the urine comes in contact with the stick, you only have
to wait about 5 minutes for the results. Amazing! Sounds so immediate and it is
really, but I am here to tell you it is the longest five minutes of your life.
I always stared so hard at that little white window where the lines were
supposed to appear that I half expected it to burst into flames. That little
white window would always, always remain stark white, even after all the
control line dye had completely settled. The message boards described this
process so accurately. The TTC community uses an expression called “line eyes,”
where they will post a picture, sometimes inverted, of their test, because they
are fully convinced they can see something. Apparently wanting so desperately
to see a line can cause you to see mirages of that line, giving you “line
eyes.” This is when you know you are either pregnant or crazy, and you need
another set of eyes to confirm which one is true. This particular Tuesday,
after all the control line dye had settled, I saw something else. The faintest
second line was actually there! Faint but there! I didn’t need to post a
picture on the message board. It was clearly there and visible enough that I could
actually take a picture of it. My depression and hopelessness vanished in an
instant and they were replaced with incomparable joy! My confidence returned
and I immediately began caring for this little life growing inside me. David
was at work and due home later that afternoon. I can still remember so vividly
the giddy excitement I was feeling as I made a quick plan for sharing the news
with him as soon as he got home.
I decided to run to Target and get a digital pregnancy test, a
cute baby onesie, and a sweet card to place the pregnancy test in. When David
got home, I set up my phone to video secret footage from the mantel while he
changed out of his work clothes. I tried to casually explain to him that I had
gotten him a “gift” and that I would be waiting in the living room to give it
to him. I’m not sure how casual I sounded. I videoed the whole thing. We both
cried. I still have the video.
In the blink of an eye, I was eating healthier than I had ever
eaten before and let’s not forget, I already considered myself a health nut.
When a woman discovers she is with child, she immediately begins making
sacrifices for the benefit of her child. She gives up her beloved red wine,
cuts out some of her favorite foods and anything else that could be, in any
way, harmful for her developing baby. I was no different. I researched the best
prenatal vitamins and ordered a bulk bottle on Amazon. (Total Amazon junkie
right here.) During my frenzied, excited clicking, I also ordered David a short
book entitled “My Boys Can Swim!” We read the first chapter together in bed the
night before I would leave without him to go to the beach with my family. While
summer is a break for me, it’s David’s busy season, so he can rarely get away
with me during this time. And by rarely, I mean never. Even as I type this, two
summers later, he still hasn’t been able to sneak away with me even for a few
days, and I go back to work in a couple of weeks. It’s a bit of a bummer for
us, especially when I’m presented with the choice to go somewhere without him,
but this particular trip was going to be one filled with complete and total
joy. We were so excited.
I would go to the beach with my family, have a wonderful time, but
come home a few days later in the throes of my first miscarriage. My doctor
called it a “chemical pregnancy.” He said it was nothing to worry about and
super common. Many women don’t even realize they’ve had one, since the only
symptom experienced is a late period. I was one of the women who knew what was
going on. What a downright cruel thing to have to experience. There are no
words. The grief hit me like a sack of rocks.
The positive pregnancy test occurred on June 17, 2014. The
bleeding started on June 28. My doctor confirmed the baby was gone on July 1st.
I was pregnant for just eleven days. Plus pregnant with hope for three more as
I prayed frantically for the bleeding to be nothing. It might seem
insignificant to you, but it was long enough to fall in love with somebody I
had never met. I’ve dealt with the loss of other loved ones. People who lived
years on this earth and spent time with me. I’m here to tell you that the grief
is the same. It was to me. This marked the beginning of a long season of
unimaginable grief for me. If you’ve endured losing someone you love, then you
know what I mean. I grieved that little life for the longest time and still do
in many ways. It was two years ago. But I can still tell you, at any given
moment, precisely how old he or she would be, had God decided to let us keep
it. He or she would be 16 months old as I write this. Just like all grief, it
came in waves that were towering and so close together at first, knocking me
off my feet for a bit. I was unable to do much but float in this ocean of
sadness. After a while, the storm calmed and the waves grew smaller and further
apart, but the impact of them changed who I was. Looking back, I’ll never know
what caused that first miscarriage. I’ll never know if it was something I did,
if God caused it to happen, or if it was just bad luck. I do know this. God is
using it and the rest of my story of brokenness to build something beautiful
and new. Now, I’m feeling like that first pregnancy loss was God’s first
whispering of “not yet.” I think He wanted me to see that my body could do
this, it just wasn’t quite the right time. It wasn’t HIS time. He wanted me to
settle down my compulsive researching and trust Him. Sadly, I wasn’t listening. I was
completely wrapped up in my grief but still so eager for us to become parents, and we
began trying again a couple of months later.
When you first find out you’re pregnant, you might call a family
member or two, but the next phone call you make is to your OBGYN to
schedule your first ultrasound. That’s what I had done before I left for the
beach. I was still fairly new to Athens and needed a recommendation or two for
a trusted baby-deliverer. The doctor I called had come highly recommended by
several trusted friends and even performed his own ultrasounds. Perfect. My
first opportunity to meet this baby-delivering genius in person was the day he
was confirming my miscarriage. He was so kind and sensitive and I liked him
instantly. The only problem was, he only sees pregnant women. I felt like we
had to break-up for a while. David and I kept trying the all-natural way for a
few more months. Fall came around, and that brought with it my first days at my
new job and a new house! We were blissfully distracted as I moved into my new
classroom and David and I purchased and moved into our first home. These two
things happened the exact same week, creating a wake that took many weeks to
recover from. It was hectic and awesome. Timed intercourse was complicated, but
we did our very best. That November, I was due for my yearly gynecological
exam. I wanted to keep going to the pregnant-lady doctor, because I would be
preggers soon enough, right? I called his office and made an appointment with his
PA. I had been told she worked closely with women who are TTC. During my
appointment, we hammered out a little plan of sorts. After the holidays, I
would begin seeing them for monthly follicle studies and blood draws to track
my hormone levels. This would paint a decent picture of how my body was
reacting to being off the pill.. In the meantime, I would purchase a basal body
thermometer and begin charting my temperature with the hopes of pinpointing my
exact day of ovulation. I learned a TON of useful and very cool things about
what my body does every single month to prepare for baby-making. It all seems
miraculous. God really is the engineer of all engineers!
The female cycle is broken into two phases- the proliferative
phase and the luteal phase. The proliferative phase is cycle day one through
ovulation and can vary in length each month, but is usually between 14-16 days.
During this phase, the ovaries produce egg-filled follicles, usually a few, but
only one or two will actually mature enough to release an egg. At the moment
ovulation occurs, the luteal phase begins and the follicular structures morph
into a new thing called a corpus luteum. This new structure produces a hormone
called progesterone that begins the neat process of preparing for a baby. The
progesterone is pretty cool because it causes your basal body temperature to
spike a degree. (That term basal just refers to your resting, lowest body
temperature which can only be taken first thing in the morning before you get
out of bed. It’s also a super precise temperature reading, reading to the
hundredth degree.) Anyway, when you see a noticeable whole(ish) degree spike in
your body temperature, you can pretty much bank on the fact that you ovulated
24-36 hours beforehand. I also learned that while the proliferative phase can
vary in length, the luteal phase does not. It can vary by a few days from one
woman to the next, but each woman has a consistent length from month to month.
I loved this bit of info because that meant that as long as I tracked
ovulation, I could easily predict when to expect my period! I felt so
smart and powerful. Every morning I would take my temperature and enter the reading into my fertility app on my phone. The app automatically feeds the data into a line graph that we call our "chart." I got real familiar with this process that holiday season.
It dominated my very existence. If I wasn’t staring at my chart (which was on
my phone), I was reading all I could to help me learn how to interpret the dang
thing (again, on my phone). I became a neurotic, OCD HOT MESS who was always
staring at her phone. You can begin to see how this isn't the best recipe for a happy marriage with lots of intercourse. But I kept doing it. We started the follicle studies
after the new year, which are just abdominal ultrasounds where they look at
your ovaries and not your uterus. It’s pretty cool that they can even see the
ovaries, especially the tiny follicles developing on their surface! They can
even measure them! Technology is just crazy. They could pretty much tell me
which ovary was going to produce an egg and how many. That spring, I began
feeling like a fertile Myrtle. Each month, Dr. Baby-Delivering Genius would
tell me I had two, sometimes three mature follicles. He told me I was a likely
candidate for having non-identical twins. He got my hopes all kinds of up.
The luteal phase is not-so-fondly referred to by ladies TTC as the
ever-so-dreaded “two week wait” or TWW. After a few months of experiencing no
success with my newfound “knowledge is power” attitude, I fell into a frantic,
anxiety-ridden pattern. The two week wait became a very ugly time for me. David
would grow so weary of dealing with my moodiness. I couldn’t blame him. I
didn’t know how to control my moods, or maybe I just didn’t want to. I kept blaming
it on the hormones, making excuse after excuse for acting like a moron. This
went on month-after-month, tension slowly building back up in our marriage. We
both began doing everything we could to find even just a few answers to our
many questions. David decided to have his swimmers tested. Everything came back
completely normal, and while this should have been encouraging news (and was
for David), I took it as another excuse to keep acting like a crazy lady. If
there was a problem, it was now evident that it was mine and I needed to know
what it was and how to fix it, stat. Before I drive myself and everyone around
me completely insane.
Each month, I would go to the doctor and have an ultrasound to
look at my follicles around day 14 of my cycle. I would go back in on day 21 to
have a vial of blood drawn for lab work that would measure my progesterone
levels. Science has determined an “ideal level” for progesterone that not only
confirms ovulation occurred, but also whether or not your body will be able to
sustain a healthy pregnancy. There were months my progesterone would be really
ideal but then my period wouldn’t come, nor would I be pregnant. There would be
months the pregnant-lady doctor would see a corpus luteum (proof of ovulation)
but my progesterone levels would be nearly zero. According to science, neither
of these scenarios made any sense. We tried two rounds of Clomid (a fertility
drug designed to produce more eggs each cycle but comes with some pretty
serious side-effects) and still, nothing. I was so desperate for answers and
seemed to only be getting more and more questions. My prayers were constant,
pleading with God to deliver me off this horrendous rollercoaster ride.
Summer 2015
The baby-delivering genius finally broke up with me. We had a long
heart-to-heart after my final clomid cycle. He had seen a corpus luteum on the
ultrasound screen, which is pretty intense proof that I had ovulated, but my
progesterone levels had been 2 ng/mL. The minimal levels consistent with
ovulation are 6.5-7 ng/mL. He told me I had low progesterone and should go see
a Reproductive Endocrinologist, then proceeded to write me a referral. He
apologized for not having had any success with my case and said he was no
longer abreast to the latest fertility research, that an RE would be much more
helpful. Although I respected him tremendously for his candor, this news
crushed me. I was nowhere near ready to see a fertility specialist. I decided
to let this news sink in for a few weeks and tried to focus on a new school
year, not the fact that I seemed to be unable to conceive without the help of a
specialist.
I’m not proud to admit this part- Right around this time, I let
myself become too proud. I leaned too much on my own understanding. I’ve been a
Christian my entire life and I have always struggled with riding the fine line
between trusting God with all my heart and enthusiastically using and applying
the wonderful gift of learning He has given me. I think for topics like health
and fitness, leaning on your own understanding can be a great thing. But when
it comes to the creation of new life? That should definitely be left up to God,
and I was definitely not doing that.
I grew angry and bitter. Why was this happening to me? I’d been a
believer since I was a kid. Thankfully, I knew to cling to my faith during
trials such as these. I know to turn to prayer in order to draw nearer to God.
I knew enough to get me into trouble here. My misguided prayers consisted of
demands for an immediate pregnancy because I thought I had “earned” one, or at
the very least, I deserved to have clinical answers to all the fertility questions my
body was throwing at me at every turn of the month. I hate unanswered questions
so very much. Most days I leaned way too heavily on my own understandings, or
lack thereof. I wanted so badly to understand this.
That summer, David’s business began
experiencing unprecedented growth and success and I never celebrated with him.
He was so proud of himself and needed me to say something good and
congratulatory and I didn’t. Also, several close friends became pregnant and
were scared to tell me their happy news. I had never felt so upset with the
circumstances of my life more than I did during that time. All I could feel was
sadness, guilt, shame… How had I gotten to this place? Why were people I loved
scared of me? I wanted so desperately to be happy and celebratory for my
pregnant friends. I just didn’t have it in me. I couldn’t see past what I didn’t
have. I was too focused on what God had not done for me yet, or more
accurately at the time in my own mind, what I hadn’t been able to achieve on
my own. My current vantage point at that time was Never. Part. Of my Plan. My
plan had been carefully thought out and researched. The fact that I felt like
God didn’t agree with my plan felt like a slap in the face. Can you
actually believe that? I took it personally! How incredibly arrogant of me. Oh
boy. I allowed my pain to become all-encompassing. What I didn't realize at the time, but do now, is that I was experiencing two very different brands of pain. One brand is the pain we feel when we lose someone we love- a death or loss like a miscarriage. The second type is the pain we feel when we aren't getting what we want when we want it. I'll talk more about this later, but I now know that God wants us to react in two very different ways to each type of pain. I was experiencing both in this moment, and I allowed them to become a confusing and tangled up mess of emotions. I started to forget
what joy and peace felt like. The more I struggled to understand, the more I
struggled. I struggled to maintain my relationships. I struggled to see the
beautiful goodness of my work as a teacher. I struggled in feeling God’s
presence in my life at all. Some days I thought He had surely turned His back
on me. I still wasn’t quite ready to stop crying out in despair and start listening
to my teacher.
Fall 2015
A new school year was getting ready to start and I almost allowed
myself to forget how blessed I was to even have this job. I reminded myself
just in time for the first day of school and decided the only things I could do
were to keep praying for answers and to throw myself completely into my
wonderful career. I welcomed the excitement and busyness of a new school year
and saw it as a comfort, a safe landing spot in the middle of an otherwise
stormy season.
That’s exactly what this past school year was for me. Last August,
I welcomed an amazing new group of second graders into my classroom and into my
world. We spent one hundred eighty magical days together learning side-by-side
about the wonders of this world we live in. We explored together and we tested
our own theories. We wrote poetry that helped us process our soulful emotions.
We worked hard together and we laughed. We laughed so much. This particular
group of students set up shop permanently in my heart.
Spending my days with witty, caring young people is just one of
the many reasons I love my work. My career is a big part of the “how” and maybe
even the “why” of my story. God is using his calling for my life -my teaching
career- to paint a beautiful, larger-than-life picture. For example, there are
at least a handful of precious and strong women that I now work with who have
walked in my shoes in one way or another. I’m talking specifically about a
longer than expected journey to becoming a parent. When I accepted the job to
teach at my school, my path crossed in an important way with several women I
now see as sisters. This was no accident.
A New Game Plan
On September 19, the Bulldogs were getting set to play South
Carolina at home and it was my birthday weekend. We had just finished a massive
renovation to our backyard and David had planned a tailgate at our home to
celebrate my birthday and to unveil our hard work. I felt special and excited,
yet somehow undeserving. David loves me better than any wife deserves. Anyway,
my school only has one real fundraiser, and that is providing volunteers to run
a parking lot in Athens at every home game. One of our local banks (the owner
of the lot) shares their proceeds with us and that is that. We are blessed not
to need our students to sell gift wrap or bed sheets. We send around a google
sheet and sign up to work a shift or two at the parking lot throughout the
season. When the google sheet was sent out that September, something told me to
go ahead and pick the very next one and get it over with even though we had
plans to entertain at our home. My reasoning was that it was a big SEC matchup
and our lot always fills up exceedingly faster on those days than on smaller
game days. Selfishly, I wanted to choose a shift with a lesser time commitment.
David almost killed me. I assured him it was only going to be for a couple of
hours and that I would be back before anyone showed up. It turned out great and
I made it back in time to help David make final preparations for our guests.
I’m so glad I went to that parking lot shift. Unknowingly but not
coincidentally, a coworker of mine who was currently trying to conceive through
IVF had signed up to work the same shift. She shared with me the details of her
experience and her very valuable wisdom about what to do next. She agreed that
she didn’t think I was quite ready to go see the endocrinologist and that it
sounded like there were still quite a few diagnostic tests that could be run.
She went on to explain that they could be done right here in Athens at a
regular OBGYN. She referred me to her midwife that practiced with a wonderfully
collaborative team of other midwives and doctors here in Athens. This gave me
so much peace and reignited my hope. I called the new practice and made an
appointment right away. At my first appointment, this midwife really listened
to me. She gave me great encouragement and support, put me on a new vitamin
regimen (CoQ10 and a daily low-dose aspirin), and scheduled a panel of labs to
check other hormone levels that would indicate how healthy my egg supply was.
All the labs came back completely normal, so my new, amazing midwife cut me
loose to try naturally for a couple of months while on these new supplements.
November 2015
At the beginning of November, I stumbled upon a bible study on
giving thanks. It was a scripture writing plan actually that involves
handwriting long portions of scripture to meditate on during the season of
Thanksgiving. This was the first moment I stood still long enough to allow God
to do real work on my heart. I was still fighting so many temptations to be
angry and bitter. For example, there were many people that I crossed paths with
during that time (friends, acquaintances, and family) who were getting pregnant
and having healthy children and from my warped perspective, they did not
deserve the miraculous and beautiful gift of a child as much as David and I
did. (Shameful, I know. I’m trying to stay transparent here.) They had not
worked and fought for financial stability and freedom like we had. They had not
pursued their callings with as much zeal and passion as we had. Before
beginning this study, I had begun comparing myself to others in a dangerous
way. I still wavered in my faith and believed a lie that I must be being punished
for something that I had done. I have very vivid memories of catching myself
glaring at pregnant women in Target. The more I resented them, the more of them
I would see! I remember one Saturday morning at the Athens Farmers Market where
I counted probably 20 pregnant women. I had become bitter towards them because
they got to receive the beautiful gift of a child and I did not. Jealousy.
Pride. Both were coming in hot. Before long, I felt completely weighed down by
shame.
On November 3, 2015, the scripture I wrote down in my journal was
2 Corinthians 4:15-18. The last three verses really dug themselves into my
heart and began to slowly grow into something beautiful. This is what they
say::
16 Therefore we do not
lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being
renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are
achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we
fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2
Corinthians 4: 16-18
Fix your eyes on what is unseen. I began praying for God to
renew my faith.
I stopped praying for a baby.
Of course we kept trying for a pregnancy, but the
feeling that I “deserved” a child right now just melted away. What
enveloped my life in that moment was a renewed faith that God’s timing is
perfect. Way better than my own. I felt peace knowing that my story wasn’t over
and that I could trust God with writing the ending. I felt this overwhelming
invitation to mourn what I had lost. I grieved the baby I lost. I mourned the
idea that this may never happen for us biologically. I gave myself
real permission for the first time to sit in my pain for a while and allow
myself to be cared for by my loved ones and found comfort leaning into God’s
mercy and goodness. I was no longer bitter or angry. I was just purely sad.
Day after day, I copied large sections of
scripture down into my prayer journal. I read and reread some of them numerous
times until they were like a sounding board directed straight to my heart.
There was a very prevalent theme that stretched itself over each and every
scripture.
God is good. Rejoice and give thanks for the gifts He has
given you. Trust God. Do not be afraid. Give thanks. Give thanks. Give thanks…
David’s business continued to grow, and with that
a new level of busyness overtook our life. When I wasn’t lesson planning for
work, I was assisting David with the many and varied administrative
responsibilities of owning and running a small, but quickly growing, business.
The holiday season was upon us and I wasn’t quite in the mood to be merry and
bright just yet. I loved this busy season of our life and I loved my husband,
but I just wanted to hibernate with him for the holidays and continue allowing
God to renew my mind.
Planning Our Escape
When you are broke and in school, you don’t go on
vacations. When life pulls you in a million different directions, you don’t go
on vacations. David and I had been married nine and a half years and hadn’t
gone on a single vacation together since our honeymoon. I don’t mean a weekend
road trip, I mean I real, hop-a-plane-together, week-long vacation. Traveling
together has always been at the top of our marital bucket list, but up until
this point, life had prevented it from being an option. It was time for a
real vacation. As a teacher, I have four windows of time that I can travel:
spring break, summer, Thanksgiving week, and winter break. Initially, we
considered the holidays off-limits since we are pretty devout about that being
time with family. So we tried to make a vacation to Guatemala happen during my
spring break. A dear friend of ours lived there at the time doing mission work
and playing soccer. We were so proud of him and wanted to visit him in his new
home. However, David was presented with a fancy new client that wanted their
facilities cleaned that exact week. Then we tried for summer. David became
a-whole-notha-level of busy over the summer. A summer vacation was definitely
not happening. For a brief few months, we gave up on a vacation, thinking we
would try again the following year. Then November rolled around. We both felt
tired, in seperate ways and in one very similar way, and like we needed
solitude and rest. David’s business slows way down during the holidays and of
course, I have some time off too. What would actually happen if we went away
for Christmas? Surely, our families would understand and support our decision
given what we’ve been through. The idea began to sound irresistible, more like
a need than a want. We busied ourselves with excitedly trying to decide where
we would go on our trip. We both wanted to go to Europe so badly, but I wasn’t
willing to be gone longer than five or six days. We then began looking at South
America. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil stole all our attention. (This was before we
knew about Zika!) It seemed low-key and gorgeous with a side of samba dancing
and Christ the Redeemer. Perfect. We felt pretty certain this is where we
wanted to go. We began looking at hotels and flights and all the stuff. It
didn’t take us long to realize that Brazil requires a Visa stamp in your
passport, and we didn’t have Visas. Getting one on such short notice would have
required me to take a day off work and I just couldn’t see that happening.
Luckily, we have some very dear friends, Alex and Katy, who came to our rescue.
Alex grew up in South America. He came over one afternoon while David was busy
searching for a new destination on the computer and Alex suggested Aruba. He
told us how happy that little island was and how perfect it seemed for us
during this time. It didn’t take us long to be fully convinced and the week
before Thanksgiving, we booked our trip.
Thanksgiving 2015
The following week seems like such a blur. It
began with me wrapping up my last day of school before break and welcoming a
new nephew into our family the next day. It was a beautiful fall Saturday in
Athens. The bulldogs were set to play the Georgia Southern Eagles and David and
I had planned to tailgate with some dear friends of ours that had walked this
path of infertility with us and shared in our pain. Life had gotten very busy,
as it often does, and we hadn’t seen them a lot recently. They had just
announced to us at a Halloween party that they had unexpectedly and naturally
conceived just days before she was to begin her first round of IVF. So much
hope and joy and evidence of God’s hand in their story. I was excited to see
them for a fun day of tailgating, Georgia football, and celebrating their news.
We awoke Saturday morning to the news that my little sister, who was expecting
her first son, had gone into labor overnight, a couple of weeks early. So
instead of tailgating, we spent the day in the waiting room of St. Mary’s
hospital, anxiously awaiting the arrival of a new family member.
I love my sister very much and I am
head-over-heels in love with my nephew. He is seriously perfect. But the day of
his birth will always be a difficult one for me to recount. My little sister
was being given a pass into motherhood while I was being forced to wait. I’ll
spare you the details of why I thought at the time I deserved a child more than
she did. That would require me to tell you parts of her story and I’m not
authorized to do that. The very thought of me feeling this way is awful to me
now, and I know how disgusting it must seem. But that was my ugly truth at the
time. Our relationship is much more complicated than I can fully convey right
now. It’s clouded with years and years of hurt feelings on both our parts
trailing back to our childhood, and is one of the rocky relationships I was
referring to in my intro. Actually, due to our past, our relationship was rocky
heading into this season. One of my deepest hopes has always been, and still
is, for God to bring about complete healing with my sister and me so that I can
one day write about the details of our story. If I could summarize our 28 year
relationship in one sentence, I would say simply that I have always strived to
be a solid example of responsibility, strength, determination, and work ethic
for my sister, and I’m afraid I somehow got off track and allowed myself to set
expectations for her that were unrealistic for who she was as a person. Completely my fault. Her story is
not mine, and how foolish of me to expect her to live her life according to my
standards. Her decision to try and get pregnant immediately after getting
married was one I admittedly judged harshly. When she became pregnant so quickly and easily,
I couldn’t stand it. Afterall, we had “responsibly” and patiently chosen to
wait 8 years to even begin trying so that David and I could discover our true
purposes in life, claim financial independence, and build a strong marital
foundation, which we believed to be the ticket to being good parents. That, coupled with the fact that I had already been
painstakingly trying to conceive with no success for an entire year, and a
whole new level of complicated hog-tied our relationship. We are
still trying to cut our way out of the tangled up mess.
Anyway, unless you have been in this exact
situation, there are no words I can write on this page to adequately convey the
conflicting emotions I was feeling during her pregnancy and delivery. If you
could make a list of every single nuanced emotion that you can possibly feel
(joy, sadness, fear, excitement, grief, pain, you name it), I was feeling every
single one all at the same time. It makes you feel like your entire body is
going to explode. It’s a feeling that is unsustainable. Personal grief and
sadness (completely unrelated to her pregnancy or even our relationship
troubles) were still my dominant emotions. However, I felt so much guilt and
shame that my very own sister was welcoming her first child and I wasn’t
feeling happy about it. The worst part was this feeling of helplessness- that
there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I felt like my heart and mind
were just beginning to be renewed, but weakness still prevailed. I brought a
book with me to the hospital to help me get through it, but I was exceedingly
proud of myself for being there. I knew that was important from the moment I
found out she was expecting. For the six hours or so we waited in that hospital
waiting room, I clung to my faith, and God gave me strength. Just after noon on
Saturday, November 21st, we welcomed little Benjamin Maxwell to our
family. He is such a precious little boy, and I felt nothing but the joy of an
aunt the moment he was placed in my arms for the first time. Thank you Jesus
for that memory!
Busy work schedules and many miles to drive
delayed my other siblings from getting to the hospital for a bit. Shortly after
Max was born, David and I ran home to prepare dinner and our guest bedroom for
my brother, Nicholas and his family since they were to stay with us that night.
They arrived late Saturday evening to see our newest family member. He and his
wife, Loren Anne, have two amazing little humans themselves. My nephew, Colin,
was 6 at the time and my niece, Kinsley was 4. I love being their aunt. When
they arrived, Colin was very irritable and whiny and this was not like him. He
ended up coming down with a stomach virus that night and Nicholas and Loren
Anne were up all night comforting their sick boy. That was a whirlwind weekend
filled with family, very little sleep, and so many emotions. I was ready for my
Thanksgiving “break” to start.
I had plans with my best friend Sarah two days
later, a Tuesday, and was excited to spend some time with her. We were going to
have lunch and shop some in Athens. We’ve been kindred spirits for ten years
now, except she has impeccable style and I do not. I trust her completely with
decisions regarding dressing myself and I love getting to shop with her. I
tried to rest from the weekend as best I could on Monday, but I awoke that
Monday morning to some pretty intense stomach pains. Thinking I was getting
Colin’s stomach virus, I didn’t think too much of it and just hoped it would be
gone by the next day. Bracing myself for that, I went on with my plan to rest,
although I never threw up or had any gastrointestinal issues of any kind. I had
a pretty great appetite all day, too, however the stomach pains actually
worsened. I can’t describe it other than this wrenching pain that felt
gastrointestinal one moment and like horrible menstrual cramps the next. I went
to bed Monday evening thinking it had been a weird stomach bug and the pain
would surely subside by morning in time for my plans with Sarah. I woke up
pretty early on Tuesday so I could enjoy my coffee and bake the biscuits and
cornbread for the Thanksgiving dressing I would make later in the week. As I
was drinking my coffee, I definitely still felt this dull aching inside my
abdomen and decided I’d better call my doctor.
I dialed the number and was put through to a nurse who
advised me to take a pregnancy test and then call her back, and that she would
contact the doctor who was on-call that Thanksgiving week. I told her I
definitely wasn’t pregnant. Afterall, I had just been in their office the
previous Thursday to have a follicle study and they had seen two great
follicles on my left ovary. I was definitely in the middle of ovulation, so
there was no way I could be pregnant. She told me to do it anyway and to call
her back. I did as she suggested and took the dang test. I did it just before
hopping in the shower to get ready for my day with Sarah. I didn’t wait around
anxiously like I usually did for the control line dye to settle and reveal the
results. I went ahead and hopped in a hot shower and took my time because the
heat of the water seemed to ease the pain I was in. When I stepped out to dry
off, I glanced over at the pregnancy test. I could see the second line on the
tiny little stick all the way from where I was standing. It was dark- meaning I
was very pregnant. Probably several weeks along. I knew this was not good news,
as the ultrasound tech would have been able to detect something Thursday when I
was in for my follicle study. I nervously picked up the phone and dialed the
doctor’s office. They put me through to the same nurse as before, and I told
her what I knew. She warned me not to get my hopes up and that my symptoms were
in line with an ectopic (or tubal) pregnancy.
Ectopic pregnancies are pretty rare (1 in 50) and
are never viable. It’s when the developing embryo attaches itself somewhere
other than the uterine wall, usually a fallopian tube. Nothing has ever been
shown to cause them. They are known as simply a geographical fluke. Bad luck.
The nurse told me to come in at noon for an ultrasound to figure out what we
were dealing with. I quickly dressed and began baking my biscuits and
cornbread, trying to distract myself from the pain until Sarah arrived around
10. The moment she showed, I told her what had transpired and that I hoped she
didn’t mind going with me to a quick doctor’s appointment between lunch and
shopping. I have a couple of friends who have been through an ectopic and they
described treatment as having to have an injection of medication that will
terminate the growth of the embryo. Sounds absolutely awful, but I didn’t
imagine it would take all day and thought the best choice was to continue on
with my day as planned. I’m so glad Sarah was able to be there with me. We had
time to grab a quick bite to eat before heading to the doctor. During the
ultrasound, (which just so happened to be with the same ultrasound technician
that looked at my ovaries a few days before) the tech kept saying things like
“wow, your uterus looks so different than it did Thursday” and “there sure is a
lot of fluid in there.” Afterwards, I was shuffled into an exam room where I
was to wait on the on-call doctor to arrive and explain what was going on and,
I assumed, also give me that injection. When she finally came into the room,
she had a look of empathy and concern in her eyes. I remember clinching my
teeth as she gently but firmly told me I needed to go straight to St. Mary’s
Hospital, that my admission orders would be there when I arrived. She explained
that my right fallopian tube had ruptured, that I was bleeding internally, and
I would need immediate laparoscopic surgery to stop the bleeding. She told me
to have someone drive me there, even though I had driven myself to that exam
table. Alarmed by this just a bit, I asked Sarah to drive us in my car straight
to the hospital while I called David, who was at work. He had no idea that any
of this was going on. He knew I had been in some pain but wasn’t too worried
about it because I hadn’t been. I was admitted pretty quickly and settled
myself into a hospital room shortly before a nurse anesthetist arrived to begin
preparing me for surgery. She asked me when I had last had anything to eat or
drink. I told her I had lunch around 11:30. I could tell that wasn’t the answer
she was looking for. She explained to me that the hospital’s policy was to
never administer anesthesia to anyone unless it had been a minimum of 6 or 8
hours or something from their last meal. OR Unless…they were coding. I wasn’t
coding, (thank goodness) so I sat there in that hospital bed in pain (that was
worsening) and waited from about 1:00 PM until about 10:00 PM, which is when I
was finally wheeled back to surgery. During those hours of waiting, nurses came
in and began taking vial after vial of blood from my arm to keep an eye on my
blood count. David arrived shortly after we did and together, he and Sarah
sat with me during that awful and scary time. I have never felt so grateful for
the love of two people.
I’ve learned God doesn’t want us to have to walk
through trials alone. We never have to stand in our fear by ourselves. Not only
is HE standing right there with us, but He gives us the beautiful gift of human
connection when we need it the most. When it was time for me to head to the operating room,
my assigned surgical nurse came into my room and introduced herself to me, David,
and my mom (who had arrived shortly beforehand). This nurse, whose name is also
Sarah, is about my age and pushed my heavy bed by herself all the way to the
OR. When we arrived, I would still need to wait for about 30-45 minutes before
being put under. Sarah the nurse sat right beside me the entire time. She asked
me sweet and caring questions like if I had a dog. When I told her I had a
golden retriever, she gasped and showed me a picture of her sweet golden
retriever. After connecting with each other in several ways, she opened up her heart
and admitted that she and her husband had been struggling to become pregnant
for years. At that moment, my nurse anesthetist showed up at the other side of
my bed to begin prepping me for surgery. I can’t recall her name at the moment,
but she wasted no time jumping right into our very intimate conversation. She,
too, had struggled to conceive but now had two precious little boys as a result of IVF.
They both understood exactly the pain I was in and how scared I was feeling.
There was something very spiritual about that small moment of time before my surgery in that cold and sterile operating room. I was already on some pretty strong tranquilizers so my memory is a
bit blurry, but I recall them either holding my hand, praying for me, or both.
At any rate, I know they were a gift from God during that short window of time I was scared and without my family. A couple of hours before Sarah the nurse took me to surgery, Sarah the friend had to leave. I
couldn’t imagine being David and having to sit in that hospital room alone
waiting for his wife to return from surgery. Thankfully, he didn’t have to.
Shortly before Sarah the friend left, my mom showed up and stayed with David
until after I was out of surgery. She also, selflessly, stayed the night at our
house and spent the entire next day cooking all the food I had committed to making
for our family’s Thanksgiving meal.
I spent about 24 hours recovering on my sofa from the surgery,
trying to decide if I was going to be able to ride with David to Marietta the
next day for my family’s Thanksgiving. I was in an awful lot of pain from the
incisions. They were small, but I had three of them. Now I know what it feels
like to have your abdominal wall cut through to the inside. It feels like you
are recovering from an ab-heavy gym day. The kind where your abs are so sore
you feel sick, and like a wrong move is going to rip something wide open. Then
there were the gas pains. (In all seriousness.) The moment the surgical sites
began to feel a little better, the gas pains set in. My doctor had warned me
about them, but I shrugged it off. We’ve all had gas pains before, and although
they are terrible, they weren’t anything I couldn’t handle. If you’ve had
abdominal surgery, you know what I’m about to say, because apparently it
happens in almost every instance. Imagine the worst ordinary gas pains you’ve
ever had. It’s that piercingly sharp pain targeted somewhere in your gut, that
I imagine can be likened to being stabbed. The worst ones are the ones that
seem to be in your chest, near your heart and lungs. People mistake them for a
heart attack all of the time and rush themselves to the ER. Now, imagine for a
second that stabbing pain intensified times one hundred, and that it is
happening EVERYWHERE INSIDE YOUR BODY. Every tiny intake of breath, even the
slightest movement, was excruciating in every way.
Despite the pain I was in and having a pretty
great excuse to lay low until time to return to work, I decided I needed to try
and go on to Thanksgiving. Our plan had been to have the main meal in Marietta
at my cousin’s house and then drive to Griffin to spend the rest of the weekend
with my immediate family. We decided to stick to the plan and not change
anything. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but David’s affectionate
nickname for me is Turtle. He finds my methodical and meticulous nature an entirely
“too slow” way of living. He is always trying to speed me up, and this has
become a sweet theme of the precious humor we share in our marriage. Taking me
on a road trip just 36 hours after surgery redefined my state of being a
“turtle” in his eyes. Bless all of his heart. He was so patient with me. I know
how hard that must have been for him!
When your body is severely injured, you may need
to engage in some physical therapy during your recovery. Going to our
Thanksgiving celebration was my physical therapy. Though I was slow, I was
encouraged to keep moving instead of staying still. Also, I remember laughing
more that weekend than I had in a long time. We stayed with my brother,
Nicholas and his family in Griffin. Nicholas, his wife Loren Anne, and David
are seriously three of the funniest people I know. When you get them all
together, the best kind of deep belly-laughter is inevitable. Each time, I
would grab my abdomen and cry out, “Stop making me laugh! It hurts!” I laughed
anyway and wasn’t mad about it. I am certain my recovery time was cut in half
because of the physical therapy of their love and humor. I think I will always
remember that Thanksgiving as being one in which I felt the MOST thankful. I
felt safe and loved and cared for.
Just six days after my surgery, I was back at
work. I was still pretty sore but completely able to make it through the day
with my twenty second graders. It was hard not to tell them about my surgery,
but they wouldn’t fully understand it and I didn’t want to worry their innocent
little hearts. At the end of each day, they’d line up at our door where I’d be
standing to hug each of them and say goodbye. Some days, a few of them would
dive their head into my abdomen and give sweet, gooey hugs. I felt sad I had to
bend slightly at the waist to avoid that much-needed contact. (Needed for them
and me, but super painful at the time for me.) I was, again, filled with
gratitude a few days later when that pain subsided enough to make the gooiest
hugs tolerable again. I didn’t realize until that week how much I relied on
those hugs as a source of energy after a long day of teaching.
After my physical recovery ended, space was
created for my emotional recovery to begin. Two weeks after my surgery, I had a
follow-up appointment with my doctor. The appointment did not go well for me.
She ordered us to wait three months before starting to try again so that I
could fully heal physically AND emotionally. She also showed me actual
photographs of my insides during the surgery. In those pictures, my uterus was
almost fully encompassed in a pool of blood, only the top visibly peaking out,
like an iceberg floating in a red ocean. I saw my right fallopian tube torn to
shreds. Even after a three month wait, getting pregnant would be a little trickier
for us now. I was a twin engine plane with one engine down. My emotional
recovery took the entire three months and then some. I felt defeated, broken,
and almost completely without hope. Our upcoming trip to Aruba was the tiniest
glimmer of light burning on my dangerously dark horizon, like a beckoning
lighthouse, a vital beacon of hope.
What I didn’t know at the time, was how God would
use that surgery, our trip to Aruba, and the months following to teach me a
very valuable and important lesson about faith. I’ll share this lesson with you in my next post as I wrap up my story of who God is.
