I’m baaack! I know I’ve
been gone a while, and SO much has happened while I’ve been away. My husband and I were blessed with another
baby, a new little girl. It was quite a
journey, let me tell you! The decision
to try to get pregnant with our third child was not an easy one. Had I been ten years younger and in better
health, I wouldn’t have had to think twice.
But I was 40 with blood pressure issues and people in my situation (read
age bracket) don’t have babies!
In June
of 2012 we decided to try for a year and see what happened. If, after a year, we still had no child, we
would give it up. I immediately began
charting ovulation cycles and marking up my calendar. After a few months, I began to get
nervous. I wondered if my age was going
to be an issue. We began seeing a
fertility specialist who ran some tests on me and told me that I was actually
in pretty good shape for someone who had just turned 41. So we had my husband tested. His tests didn’t fare as well. Only about 1% of his little swimmers were
shaped correctly. It really made me
wonder how we were able to get pregnant with our daughter after just 6 weeks,
and that had only been 3 years earlier.
We began to call her our miracle child!
And I was hoping for just one more miracle.
After getting news like that, I decided I
needed to step it up a bit, especially since the months were flying by and our
year would be up before I knew it. So I
began taking medication to up my ovulation.
After a few months, though, we still had no positive test. We opted for an intrauterine insemination
(IUI). This is not quite as involved (or
expensive) as IVF so we could try it a few times if necessary. We did our first IUI in March of 2013 and it
did not work for us. While I was
disappointed, I really didn’t let it get me down. It was our first shot, after all. I had convinced myself that our second IUI,
scheduled for April, would be the one to seal the deal.
Now, for those of you who have never
experienced working with fertility clinics and inseminations, things are very
structured and regulated based on your cycle, your ovulation, etc. Things have to happen at a certain time, you
have a certain window of time in which to work and if you miss that window, you
must wait an entire month to try again (duh, but it’s more involved than just
saying, “Oh, I’m fertile during these days.
Often, it comes down to a certain hour!).
The process went like this: Around a certain
time of the month of April I began taking daily ovulation tests. When I got a positive reading, I had 12 hours
to call my doctor and go in for a follicle scan to see how many eggs I may
produce if any. Once I saw through
ultrasound that there were some possibilities, I then had 24 hours to give
myself a shot in the stomach, and get to the other clinic 40 minutes away for
the insemination. I had to leave work in
the middle of the day with very little explanation to my boss (I didn’t let
everyone at work in on what I was doing) and take off the next day as well for
the (hopeful) conception of my child. My
husband had to go through similar hoops at very short notice to make this
happen. That night I was so nervous but
so excited! Though I was not fond of having to give myself an injection in the
gut, I didn’t even squirm about it this time.
The next morning, first thing, we drove to the clinic with
anticipation. My husband was called back
to give his “deposit”. It usually takes
about an hour to “clean” the deposit, washing away all of the bad swimmers and
leaving us with that 1% of strong possible offspring. An hour had passed and I felt pretty sure
they were going to call me back any minute when out of the blue the fire alarm
begins sounding and they are rushing us out of the building. Doctors and nurses were scrambling everywhere
trying to move large containers of frozen embryos to safety. It was a madhouse. All I could think at the time was that I was
glad I wasn’t in some paper gown in a compromising position when that alarm
went off! After waiting outside for what
seemed like an eternity, the nurse finally informed us that we would not be
allowed back into the building today, and therefore this month’s window was now
closed. I was devastated. My husband and I went to lunch and I just
sobbed openly in the restaurant. It was
April, and my year was over in May. This
was my next to last shot at a baby and it was wasted. The nurse had told us to go home and try “often”
all weekend long since I had the injection in my system, but considering we
were only working with 1%, I was not getting my hopes up.
But our Lord works in mysterious ways. The Thursday before Mother’s Day, having not
even the slightest symptom of pregnancy, I decided to take a pregnancy
test. The faintest blue line
appeared. To be honest, I don’t even
know for sure if it did appear or if I imagined it to be there because I’ve
saved the test and the blue line is not there.
It was so faint, but I saw it. I
showed it to my husband and he couldn’t see it.
The next day I couldn’t stand the wait so I left work in the middle of
the day, went and bought another test and did it in the bathroom here at the
office. POSITIVE!!!! And now, we have our beautiful daughter,
Landry. The pregnancy and delivery, well
that is a story for a different day. She
is here now, 13 weeks old and the sunshine of my life!
So that’s what I’ve been doing! Motherhood at 42, it’s different! I’m loving every minute of it, but it’s
different. So I’m bringing you along for
the ride. A fortysomething working mom
of 3…this is going to be quite the adventure!
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