Infertility

I need to write!  I don't know what else to do.  I've hashed it out with Kent and my Mom, now I need to just get it all off my chest.  I have so many thoughts and emotions right now and the only way I know how to handle it is to just get it out. 

Let me start out by saying that I LOVE BABIES!  I have always been a baby lover.  As a child I loved babies, you will often catch me holding and kissing someone elses baby.   I Love Love Love my babies.  All I've ever wanted to be is a Mom. I've always wondered how I will ever be done having babies because I just love them.  I do know that they grow up, but still I LOVE being a Mom.  I'm living my dream and I want more babies.

When I got married, I said I wanted 8 kids.  I've always wanted a big family.  When I had Maleah I ended up having a C-section after 13 hours of labor, 3 1/2 hours of pushing, trying the vacuum and still to no avail her head wasn't even close to coming out.  I have since delivered all my babies by C-section.  When you have C-sections, most Dr's. will tell you the maximum # of children you can have is 6.  I know some have more and some can't even have 6, but ever since then I've always said I wanted 6 kids.

I'm well aware that this may sound so stupid.  I know I have 4 wonderful, healthy, happy children.  I'm truly grateful for them.  I love and cherish them.  But never have I thought I would be done having children after 4.  I have gotten pregnant fairly easily with each one of my kids.  Carson took the longest and that was 6 months.  When I had Carson they found a cyst the size of an egg on my right ovary.  It was a dermoid cyst and had to be removed.  They also had to remove my right ovary. 

After having Carson I knew right away that I wanted another baby soon after.  I was hoping to time it so that Carson and the next baby were about 18 months apart.  I have my 3 girls, and then there is a 4 year gap and then we have Carson.  I wanted to give him a buddy.  I didn't want a tail-ender and I wanted him to have someone to grow up with. 

So in January 2012, when Carson was about 9 months old we started to try to conceive.  I was ok with getting pregnant right away, but I also was ok with it taking a few months.  Well a few months passed and few more months and here we are 19 months later and I'm still not pregnant. 

In January 2013, I went to my OBGYN to see if I could get some answers.  All the blood work came back normal, and he ordered an ultrasound where they send dye through your tubes to see if they are open.  I only have one working tube and ovary so he thought maybe it could be clogged or blocked from scar tissue from my C-sections.  The ultrasound came back normal and my tube was not blocked.  My Dad had always told me that it's harder to conceive being overweight.  I decided that I needed to get to a healthy weight so that I knew I was doing everything in my power to conceive.  Over the next 4 months I lost 30 pounds and reached a healthy weight for me.  I was really hoping this would help me get pregnant.

Meanwhile, everyone around me is either pregnant or has had a baby.  It's really hard.  A few close friends of mine started trying to conceive around the same time as me and they all have cute little babies now. 

After my ultrasound in January, I gave it a few more months and finally last month in June 2013, I decided to go see a fertility Doctor.  We talked about all our options, but first she wanted to do an ultrasound and some blood tests. Because my monthly cycle has been getting a bit shorter (23-26 days usually) she suspected that maybe my Egg supply was diminishing.  She did the ultrasound and first she found a HUGE cyst on my ovary.  The size a baseball to be exact.  Then she checked my eggs.  She said usually you can see about 10 eggs.  Out of those 10 eggs only 1 egg releases each month and the others die off.  Each month you produce another handful of eggs. Instead of having 10 eggs, I only had 1.  Her suspicion was looking more and more right on. She said there was a small chance that the cyst was shadowing the other eggs, so she decided to do a blood test that would either confirm or deny this.  It's called an AMH test.  This test determines your egg count.

That brings me to today.  This morning I went in for a follow up ultrasound on my cyst.  She said once they get that big they often have to be surgically removed, so she wanted to see what it was doing.  The good news is that the cyst had shrunk to about half the size and she thinks that over time it will go away.  The tech also was able to see 3 eggs.  I thought that was all great news.

Then later in the day my Dr. called me with the blood test results from a few weeks ago.  The results of the AMH test came back undetectable.  That means my egg supply is so low that it is undetectable.  Lower than .016.    So basically she said I was pre-menopausal.  She said about 1% of women go through menopause early and she suspects I will go through menopause by the time I am 37 or 38  (I'm 32 now).   I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach.  This is where some may think this sounds so stupid.  I do realize I have 4 children.  I'm truly grateful for the 4 I do have.  I'm so grateful that I had kids when I did and that I didn't wait until I was older because then I wouldn't have the 4 kids I do.

I just cannot believe that my child bearing years are over.  I wish I would have known.  I never ever ever ever thought I would be done at 4.  I never thought I would have a hard time getting pregnant.  I NEVER thought at 32 years old I would be done having kids and would be pre-menopausal. It's just ridiculous.   It's really hard to accept.  It's hard to take it all in.  I'm just not ok with not having more children.  I'm worried that I'm going to become bitter towards everyone having babies.  I WANT ANOTHER BABY!

I had a good long conversation with the Doctor.  She told me that IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) will most likely not work for me.  In most people IVF works the 1st or 2nd time.  For me, it probably wouldn't work until the 6th or 7th time and that's if I'm lucky because it probably wouldn't work at all. Not to mention it would cost a fortune and is very invasive.  She also said Clomid is not likely to work.  She said the few eggs that I do have are not likely strong enough anyways to become an embryo.  It's just so much to take in. 

The hardest part for me is accepting this as God's will.  We have been praying and praying for another baby.  I feel like I have more children that are supposed to come to our family.  I've been so torn with the question of how far do I go to try and have another one, or is this Heavenly Father telling me I am done?  I just don't want to give up too easily.  I want to do everything I can and know that I have exhausted all my options.  I'm not ready to give up. 

So here I am.  That's it.  I don't know what else to say.  I'm just incredibly sad and in disbelief.  I won't give up, but somehow I need to be able to come to terms with this.  I need to not be so so sad each month when I start my period.  I need to accept that I will be a mother of 4.  I need to cherish the 4 kids I have.  I need to learn to not resent people who have babies.  I want to feel happy and content with my family but it just doesn't feel complete to me.  It's going to be hard accepting this as God's will. I want more babies :(