And we know that in all things God works for the good of those that love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28

Monday, October 3, 2011

The Full Story!

Wow! Where to even start with this post?! First, our computer is back up and running and I plan on giving you all plenty of updates in the near future!!! Second, pardon any errors in this post, I'm writing at 4:00 in the morning. My "morning sickness" has turned into morning, noon, and night sickness, and I've been up all night with a very sick tummy! Also, if you haven't watched our video yet, you want to scroll down and watch it before reading on in this post!

If I had one word to sum up these last few weeks it would simply be "emotional". Pretty much every emotion you can think of, I've experienced in the past few weeks! I've been happy to the point of tears, sad to the point of tears, nervous to the point of tears, and joyous to the point of giggling! (Notice there are a lot of tears....thank you pregnancy hormones!)

So let me give you the rest of the story on finding out we were expecting. If you've been keeping up with my blog, you probably know that when we moved back to Indiana in early summer, we decided to give ourselves a few months off from seeing a fertility specialist. I just thought it was best to take a break financially and allow ourselves some time to get settled back in at home. We were looking for a house to buy and living in temporary housing and just seemed to have enough on our plates. Of course, to completely stop trying to get pregnant was completely out of the question!

I started seeing my regular OB here in Lafayette and asked him to put me on a different medication. It was a low-dose pill that works similar to Clomid. Right away, I seemed to respond better to the medication. By the way, I'm in no way crediting that to the medication itself, that was just purely God saying "It's time to get rolling here!" There is no medical reason why that pill would work better for me than anything else. Actually, my doctor and I were both shocked to see that I was producing 2-3 follicles on it when that's basically all I was getting with the high-dose injections!

In the first month of the medication, I miscarried. In the second month, I asked the doctor to check my progesterone level on day 21 AND day 24. Mine has always been great on day 21, which is the normal day for checking it, but I just had a hunch that something was happening with it. Dr. H said he fully expected it to be fine, but would check it to see. To his surprise, but not mine, my progesterone totally plummeted between days 21 and 24. That would explain my early miscarriages!

In month three, I took the medication and then also supplemented my cycle with progesterone. I also had an ultrasound to check my follicles and got a shot of HCG to force my body to ovulate on time. Because of that, I knew exactly when I could take a pregnancy test!

So on Thursday morning, September 8th, I woke up as Jacob was leaving for work and hurried in to take a test. I can't say I was shocked with the positive result, because I had been feeling different and was sort of expecting it. But, when you've been trying for so long, it's still hard to believe. I hurried to the garage to catch Jacob and showed him the test. We were cautiously excited, but because of my HCG shot I wanted to get blood work done ASAP!

On Thursday, my HCG level was 35. It was a positive pregnancy level, but still low and it was impossible to say if that was because it was so early (still 4 days before my period was even due!) or if it was left-over from the shot. On Saturday, my level had jumped up to 105 and confirmed that we were pregnant!!! A third level checked 4 days later had jumped even higher to 825!

We told our immediately family and my two closest friends on Saturday and decided to hold off until Kinley's birthday to share the news with the rest of our family and friends. Of course, a few of us slipped in the meantime and told some people!

Since then, we've had two ultrasounds and everything seems to be progressing well. We were able to see the slightest flicker of a heartbeat the day before Kinley's birthday, but couldn't hear the heartbeat yet. We're both anxiously awaiting that moment!!

We've all been a huge bundle of emotions over the past several weeks and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon! Although it's difficult not to analyze every little ache, pain, and twinge, God has really provided me with a sense of peace about this pregnancy. I appreciate your continued prayers for that peace and for our little miracle!!

(Oh, and stay tuned....I have a truly amazing story about how God used another man in our church to provide him with the reassurance that he needed at just the right time!!!)

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