My journey into health

When we moved to our new home, I decided I needed to get healthy. I mean, was I really doing enough to ensure I could get pregnant? I knew I had trouble with my dizzy spells before and the stress. I needed to do something more to help myself. I mean, Wasn't I in control of everything? Wasn't it up to me to make sure our family grew?

I decided to meet with a trainer in my neighborhood. I went to her saying I wanted to drop my weight in order to get pregnant. Granted, I have never been really overweight. I am only 5 ft tall and I was at my largest at this time pushing a size 9 in my jeans. I had never been that size before in my life and I attributed it to stress of trying to get pregnant. So, I decided to change things.

This turned out to be a great decision. My trainer became my counselor and my friend. She had trouble conceiving also and was a real rock for me. She helped me get healthy as well as helped me deal with things I was feeling. The weight dropped and I felt better than I had in my entire life. I thought, wow, now I will get pregnant.

We went to a fertility specialist and she gave me some tests. One was a glucose test. She diagnosed me with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) and told me I needed to be on medication. I decided to take the medicine since I would do anything to get pregnant. (This was after taking Clomid for several rounds).  I began to take the medicine and began to experience all of the horrible side effects. I had already lost the weight, I had already changed my eating habits so I felt I was healthy. I began to battle with my mind and body. I was sick all of the time no matter what I ate. I began to go through a stage of anger. Why was it that I was eating healthy, exercising and doing my best to be thin and healthy when there were people all around me getting pregnant who weren't? There were people who were drinking and smoking getting pregnant, there were overweight people getting pregnant, there were teenagers getting pregnant. Why wasn't it ME? I could be a better parent than them, right? After all, my baby would be healthy. My baby would be born into a family with a dad and mom who loved them more than anything. We both had five college degrees between the two of us. Weren't we going to be perfect parents? I was so angry during this stage. I began to research PCOS and discovered all of the symptoms- being overweight was one of them. I began to disagree with the doctor's diagnosis. I fought it since it seemed to me to be the one diagnosis that the doctor fell back on because they couldn't find a real reason why we weren't getting pregnant. It was also harder to believe when I discovered that most of the women I knew were also on Metformin for PCOS. All of us with different symptoms.

I decided to get off of the medicine and go to a different doctor. I wanted again to control my own situation. My new doctor said PCOS didn't have any bearing on my ability to get pregnant any more than being thin did. Also, being on the medication was not going to have a bearing on the results. I liked this doctor. He said what I wanted to hear and he was willing to move forward with a real plan. We were going to do IUI and we were going to get pregnant. We went through IUI two times with all of the results being "normal", but we were not able to get pregnant. Our doctor suggested we do IVF. We were ready to stop spending money on things that weren't working. We decided to move forward. We took out a medical loan- enough to buy a new car. Still, the money was something we would pay off because we were going to get pregnant this time for sure. I took the medication and hormones and shots they gave me. I went through all of the side effects. I went to the doctor every day for two weeks for drawing blood and the ultrasounds to look at my developing eggs. Everything went well according to the doctor. I felt horrible, but it was all worth it. We were going to be parents. After two weeks, I began spotting and I knew before the blood test that we weren't successful once again. I couldn't stop crying. I cried all day. I didn't know what God was doing. Why when I had followed His path was He doing this to us? I had done everything He wanted me to do hadn't I? I had done everything except give Him control of the situation. We were still doing it on our own. We decided enough was enough and that we were going to stop the fertility treatments all together. I again went back to my journey into health. I was still angry at not getting pregnant. But, I didn't want to be overweight. I mean if I couldn't get pregnant, I might as well look as good as I could. We then began to consider adoption as a way to extend our family.