How i became a mother...

I don't have the typical story on becoming a parent and for those that don't know I thought it might be nice to give you a background. It all started 6 years ago in June of 2001, John and I were engaged and living together (yup we lived in sin LOL).

Let me preface all this with even more background. I have wanted a family from as long back as i can remember. As a child I often played "house" with my little cousins and friends and I was always the mommy with all the kids. A few weeks ago looking at pictures for the church scrapbook someone said to me, "i realized Sarah that in almost every picture of you, you are holding a baby or child." And it was true, all my life i've loved kids and been drawn to them. As soon as I was old enough I started babysitting. And once i was in the relationship that I knew would last a lifetime I didn't want to wait to start to try, somewhere in the back of my mind i knew i would have problems getting pregnant, i dont' know why i just had a feeling. Anyway we took the attitude that we just wouldn't prevent and if it happened it happened, and if it didn't then that was okay too. Well after 2 years of nothing happening on it's own and being married for a while now, we sought the help of a professional in early 2003.

After umpteen tests, I was found to have a disease called PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome) which has several factors that diminish your fertility including hormone imbalance that causes you to have a cyst on your ovary vs. releasing an egg each month. Also i had a luteal phase defect, meaning that even if i did release an egg my cycle was so short that there wasn't an adequate amount of time for conception and implantation to occur. SO......at first we didn't do a lot other than chart my cycle and try to time intercourse. Then we tried 3 cycles of clomid in late spring/summer of 2003 with no success. The doctor I was seeing was really pushing me to see a fertility specialist but i just wasn't ready. So we took a few months as a breather and in fall of 2003 i changed doctors and tried again with Clomid. In October of 2003 we were beyond thrilled to find out that I was pregnant. I remember driving to my SIL's house to ask her if she saw the "2nd line" too, i'd never ever had even a false positive pregnancy test so this was just beyond thrilling. We told anyone and everyone that we were pregnant, so excited. My due date was July 1st, 2004. On November 17th at 9 weeks i lost my pregnancy and was beyond devastated, i slumped into a depression. That December my husbands friend at work was killed in a freak tractor trailer accident, John slid into a depression after that too. That spring after a lot of therapy and healing time we decided to try again. We tried the Clomid several more times with no success. I was finally feeling ready to inlist the help of a reproductive endocrinologist (fertility doctor) and I was lucky to get a cancelation appt and see him in Sept. of 2004. Over the next several months we tried different combinations of drugs, monitoring the cycles closely with bloodwork and ultrasound, triggering the follicles at what was thought to be the "right time" and having inseminations to ensure the little guys were getting closer to their destination. I can't begin to tell you how draining fertility treatments are, especially when cycle after cycle you have that BFN (big fat negative) at the end. We took cycles off to rest. Once we moved to injectible drugs my cycles seemed to get better, more follicles etc, but still no pregnancy. It was wearing on us big time, both emotionally and financially. The injectible medications were 1000's of dollars per cycle, which most of the time i was able to get covered by insurance at about 80% or i did even get some "hand me down" drugs from two friends who also went through fertility treatments. On the 3rd round of injectibles I did get pregnant, but it didin't last, I started bleeding right from the start and my hormone levels went down very quickly, some call this a chemical pregnancy, to me it hurt just as bad as the other miscarriage, but since it was sooner and we hadn't told anyone yet, it was actually a little easier, there was none of that "untelling" people, ya know? After that loss, i begged the doctors to do some more testing to see if there was a reason i miscarried, i just couldn't keep having losses and if there was something we could do i wanted to do it. So even though the usual protocol is 3 losses, i got the bloodwork and found out i did indeed have a mild clotting disorder. It was treatable with extra folic acid, baby aspirin & once pregnant heparin shots.

So on the 4th round of injectibles in October of 2005 the doctor had me start the heparin right after the insemination. And we got another BFP and my numbers were good. At 6 weeks I had my first u/s and there on the screen was this little sac w/ a tiny little line in it, that was my baby girl Faith. For the following 34 weeks we had tons and tons of tests, lots of ultrasounds and thankfully on July 16, 2006 after 3 days of labor I gave birth to my beautiful little miracle girl Faith Elizabeth. Her name is a testament to everything we went through to have her in our life.

There is a saying that I keep close to my heart always "Without faith nothing is possible, with it nothing is impossible." And i do really feel it's true. I hope and pray that someday we might be blessed again, but i honestly feel in my heart that if it never happens i can be okay with it, because i was blessed with my Faith!