Tag: infertility

Moment 3 | Infertility Uncovered

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“Chasnie, none of your embryos are going to make it.”

We got around this morning and the hotel room was pure silence. We were both anxious and cautiously excited about that day. Today was the day for transfer. Last we heard 4 days ago we had 13 healthy embryos! 13!!!! Then we got the call. See they told us at our last appointment they wouldn’t call unless they had bad news. Instantly my anxious, excited mood changed and I started to break before the call came through.

(Paraphrasing bc I don’t remember the exact words due to my mind set) “Chasnie, none of your embryos are going to make it.” WHY was this happening to us again? I get it, it doesn’t happen the first time for most people but I had 13 embryos, I knew it was going to work. She continued, “There are a few that are currently here, but they are rating so poor that we can’t rate them but you can put them in if they survive. Do you want to move forward?”

So many thoughts racing through my head, but I didn’t hesitate to say, “Uh ya… I mean, we’ve gotten this far, if they’re still alive when we get there, we are doing this.”

I text my family and a handful of close friends and just asked for prayers. Prayers for strength for those sweet babies and prayers for peace for us. We needed them, we needed the prayers. We felt alone. We were in an empty hotel (construction was going on and literally we didn’t see anyone besides the front desk when we were there). And we felt like He had been given up on us. Once again, we felt like God was telling us, your time isn’t now. But how could this be? Hasn’t it been long enough? Haven’t we lost enough? Haven’t we fought enough? What we’re we doing wrong? We literally followed every instruction to a T. We made sure I rested and didn’t get stressed out. I gave up working out like I was instructed when that’s all I wanted to do. I gave up fun events and get togethers bc the timing didn’t mesh with injections or I was tired. This may all seem like measly things we gave up (and they are) but we started to feel like ALL of this and ALL the hormones were for no reason.

So we prayed alot, cried some and got our minds right. Then we went into the doctor a couple of hours later and transferred 2 embryos. The doctor told me she wasn’t going to talk to me about the ones that didn’t survive nor would we talk about how poor these 2 were, because stressing about it that day was not what we needed. Grateful for this, we agreed.

We transferred those two poor little embryo that day and God (yet again) showed us just how powerful He is. Below is a reminder.

I could sit here and tell you how I mourned that 2nd embryo and how I still mourn not having my two tubes to have just a surprise pregnancy, but the truth is we received a miracle. Not all stories end on a positive note like ours did. IVF doesn’t work for so many families and it’s important to remember it never happens like we plan or think or pray for. There’s a bigger plan that we may not see now or even in 10 years but there is a plan. Be thankful for what yo have been given, but also don’t give up faith while waiting to see what He has in store for you! ❤️ My heart goes out to all the families struggling and will pray for you all!

Moment 2 | Infertility Uncovered

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This week is National Infertility Awareness Week!  If you’ve been following along the past couple of days, I’ve been sharing 4 moments in our infertility journey that have opened my eyes to the bigger picture.  These moments are a little more personal than I care to share, but I think it’s important in sharing our story, not just to mend ourselves, but to help others on their journey.  I know sharing their stories isn’t for everyone, but I feel like God placed certain situations and certain people in our lives to help us grow and to help others grow.  So…I’m sharing, no matter how difficult the stories can be at times, I just remind myself, there’s a bigger reason for our infertility journey.  I’ve come to understand it more over the past 9 years, and leads me to Moment #2.

Moment #2:

I heard a heartbeat.  Surprised, I looked over my shoulder at the nurse and she said oh, that’s not a heartbeat, that’s just your blood pumping and she quickly turned the sound of the machine off.  She was lying to save my sanity.  

Ughhhhhhhhhhh. Where do I even start here?

This day was one of the scariest days of my life, literally.  Probably for Jason as well and we’ve both done some crazy scary things in the past but this day took the cake.  I woke up about 4:15 and was headed to hot yoga. I felt fine and ready to start the day, sat in my car and I felt a little sick to my stomach.  I thought to myself – you’re fine, just indigestion or something – keep moving along.  I made it about 3 miles down the interstate before I turned around and came back home.  I layed on the couch from 4:30-8:00 waiting for this “indigestion” to go away.  I debated going to the doctor but figure nah, you’re fine.  Looking back now, I was just being stubborn and a little stupid.  I was in the most pain I’d ever felt as I layed there curled up in a ball on the couch, this was not a stomach bug. Jason finally asked me what my gut was telling me, do I need to take you to the ER.  Yes. That was it, yes my gut (or the pain in my gut) was telling me something was wrong.  I needed help.

The ER was a typical ER & always so many people.  We waited for over an hour and finally they took us back.  In the same breath we found out I was pregnant, we found out it may be an ectopic pregnancy (again).  I’ve done research on this, the chances of someone having 2 ectopic pregnancies in 2 different tubes is pretty rare, but I  honestly wasn’t surprised.  We knew what was coming next.  I thought they’d take me back to surgery right away and the tube would erupt and we’d be no longer able to have kiddos the way we wanted to. However, they took me back to do some bloodwork and an ultrasound to confirm it was an ectopic.  I was sitting there waiting to hear the yup, it’s an ectopic, let’s go back to surgery.  Instead, I heard a heartbeat.  Surprised, I looked over my shoulder at the nurse and she said oh that’s not a heartbeat, that’s just your blood pumping and quickly turned the sound of the machine off.  She was lying.  I knew what she was doing, she was trying to save my sanity.  Shortly after, the doctor came in, told me it was unusual that an ectopic pregnancy would have a heartbeat but we needed to go into surgery to remove the tube right away.

“Wait.  Wait a second.  I need some time.  I want to keep my tube.  Wait…there’s a heartbeat?” – Me

“Sure. We have all the time here. No, we need to do this surgery now and you always have the option of invitro.” – Doctor 

So many thoughts were going through my head in that moment.  Can an embryo survive as an ectopic pregnancy?  I mean, I know it can’t because I’ve been told that, but can it really and they just don’t want to do it?  How does it have a heartbeat?  Wait, how am I even pregnant?  I want to celebrate and mourn all at the same time.  WHY AM I STILL SITTING HERE IN PAIN?  This is the second everything started to make sense.   I didn’t really know the extent, but I knew that little embroyo was gone and my tube had ruptured.  I had bled a little over a liter of blood into my abdomen. No, this was not indigestion, this was me fading fast.

I honestly don’t remember much else from that day or week or really that month for that matter.  I was mourning, pissed, annoyed, exhausted, basically all the negative adjectives I can think of, I was.  I was physically sick and weak. My entire stomach area was covered in bruising.  I questioned everything, I pushed Jason away, when all he wanted to do was support me.  I threw myself into whatever would keep me busy, and I “seemed” fine.  But…I was not.  I was broken.  And here I was at a point in my life (yet again) where I couldn’t understand why God was letting this happen to us.  Why was it necessary that I experience this. Hadn’t I gone through enough?  It’s GREAT that He thinks I’m strong enough to handle this, but news flash – I am not.  I was pretty mad for quite some time.  Eh, I may still be upset when I think about it from time to time.

What I didn’t know…. Our story wasn’t over.  It was just another step in this journey.

Ps. I’ll never forget that sweet heartbeat that I got to hear for a few seconds.  That was the little bit of miracle I needed to push through.

Moment 1 | Infertility Uncovered

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If you’ve read my post yesterday, you’ll know I’m going to share the 4 most memorable moments during our infertility journey. These specific moments I usually leave out of our story because they’re some of the darkest moments I would like shut out of my memory. However, they’re the memories I can’t seem to shut down. Let’s do this…

Moment #1:

During the first emergency surgery, I remember my doctor looking at me and asking if I was ok, and I yelled at him. I’m not kidding, I yelled at him with tears running down my face, “I’m done, just do the surgery, I don’t care anymore. I’m so damn tired of waiting for it to pass. JUST DO THE SURGERY. Get it out.” (There may have been a couple more cuss words in there… It wasn’t my finest moment).

Let me rewind and give you a little context about this statement. We found out we were pregnant (YAY!) Excitement overwhelmed us. Around 5 weeks, I started to have pain on my side. I was told, oh that’s normal, it happens when your uterus stretches and getting ready for your baby. Although that can be true, this wasn’t the case for me.

We found out that we were likely having an ectopic pregnancy and that baby wasn’t viable, but we needed to do some testing and wait and do some more in a couple of days and then we would see what was going on. We waited a couple of days, tested again, numbers didn’t confirm anything. So we waited 2 more days, tested again, numbers again didn’t confirm anything again. We tested again. FINALLY, we found out it was an ectopic pregnancy. We were given two options, surgery or to have an injection and see if it helped pass it through the tube. I chose the shot to see if that helped things pass. It didn’t. I went back in and was told I could have another injection and if that didn’t work, I would need surgery. Again, nothing happened.

At this point my patience was running thin, my composure had gone out the window. To say I woke up in a poor mood is an understatement. I was frustrated and didn’t feel like going into work, so I called in sick. Who knew God was preparing me for what was to come. As I moped around the house, something hit me. I was no longer just in emotional pain, but I had physical pain down my leg and side. It wasn’t unbearable, but it did hurt. So I layed down in the guest bedroom and cried because I was over it all. I was done waiting. I was done keeping my composure.

We called the doctor and he asked me to come in right away. Jason took me to the hospital and at that time, we weren’t entirely sure what was going on or what was happening but we were ready for this to be done. As the doctor took me back and had me lay on the table, he tapped my foot with his fist and pain shot up my leg and side and that’s when I yelled at him.

“I’m done, just do the surgery, I don’t care anymore. I’m so damn tired of waiting for it to pass. JUST DO THE SURGERY. Get it out.”

I was so emotionally drained that I didn’t want to wait any longer, I was over this. I had taken as much as I could take and I was done. When the doctor went in for the surgery, the tube ended up erupting and tube numero uno was gone. Forever. And that little embryo that was not alive in the first place, but it too was gone. Forever.

lNote, I did later apologize to my doctor & the nurse for yelling & cussing at them. 😬

Why I didn’t understand the pain I was experiencing in that moment, I would later get it all. I questioned God and His purpose for me and purpose for the pain, but I didn’t hear the answer. This was Moment #1 to understanding the bigger picture to our infertility journey.

National Infertility Awareness Week |Infertility Uncovered

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Infertility Uncovered

Today marks the second day of National Infertility Awareness Week, and if you follow our blog, you know that we’ve been on this path of infertility for quite a few years.  I was so afraid to share our story a few years ago because it was personal.  And let’s be honest, I was ashamed I couldn’t do the one thing I was made to do.  I was frustrated (and still am) that I never get the opportunity to surprise my husband with a pregnancy announcement or throw a gender reveal party and feel comfortable that I won’t lose the sweet baby shortly after. My heart still aches from time to time when I see that baby announcement from someone else, but I also celebrate because I know just how precious that gift of life is.  If you follow my posts this week, you’ll read about the 4 moments that truly brought me to where we are now.  Where I can celebrate precious life others get to celebrate…. But first, here’s a recap of our journey.

A little over 9 years ago we decided to start our family and were told we should have no issues because everything “looked good.” Fast forward to today, here’s what two healthy individuals with no signs of any potential issues went through: 

  • 2 miscarriages
  • 1 empty sac pregnancy (where there is a sac and your body thinks your pregnant but you really aren’t)
  • 2 ectopic pregnancies, which resulted in 2 emergency surgeries.  1 of which was life threatening.
  • 2 lost tubes, meaning never being able to have a natural pregnancy again.
  • Months and months of hormones
  • 5 heaven babies that I think about every single day.  
  • 2 new doctors (THANK THE LORD FOR THEM)
  • Countless injections, daily meds, and hormones
  • 1 round of IVF
  • Large medical bills that insurance doesn’t pay for, because ya know, infertility is not acknowledged always. (You should be able to hear my eyeroll from where you’re sitting reading this)
  • During IVF – 15 embryos, 13 fertilized (yay), 2 survived by Day 5 but they were rated so poor they didn’t receive a grade, 1 embryo that took.
  • 1 sweet baby boy that I get to hold every night

When I think about our journey, I don’t remember all of these little details and events unless I really think about it.  When someone asks me about our journey, my mind tends to focus in on 4 certain moments, life changing moments.  Do you know what I remember most? Follow me this week and I’ll share them.  Some moments may seem like I will always be broken, but even in the darkest moments, God prevails, as He always does.

If you know someone going through infertility – feel free to share my information with them.  Sometimes it just helps to talk to someone that understands what they’re going through.  Everyone’s journey is different, mine is very mild compared to others.  I don’t share my story for myself (although it does help get through the tough times) but I share for others.  I’ve had women literally all over the world reach out to me to ask me questions or advice and I’m here for them. So never hesitate to give them my # or tell them to message me.  #infertilityuncovered 

 

“Maybe that someone else is looking for us.” | Adoption things

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Let’s talk adoption. It’s literally been on my mind every day for the past 4+ years. I’ve gone back and forth sharing this but I just keep going through things in my head and if you know me, it’s a complete mess up there so sometimes it’s best for me to write out my thoughts. So let’s do this…

Adoption has always been a constant tug at our hearts. For me, this leads back all the way to my highschool days when I decided adoption was going to be apart of my path. Thankfully, I met this awesome guy and one of our first date questions was… How do you feel about adoption? His response was he hadn’t thought about it but he definitely would. So to say adoption has been on our hearts for awhile is an understatement.

We’ve been through adoption process once with a lousy agency that we ended up having to drop and started over with a new one. This was beyond frustrating and exhausting. You feel like you’re trying to change the world one life at a time and the odds are against you every step of the way. Paperwork upon paperwork, FBI fingerprint cards (that can only be done on Tuesday mornings from 8-10 am at a location 20 min away and every time you schedule to go something comes up) more paperwork, some dinero you’ve been saving, more paperwork, physicals, drug tests, home studies, collecting references, making emergency plans, and more paperwork is what the process consists of basically, and alot of patience and prayers.

We decided it was best to move forward with another agency and start over. This agency we felt much more confident in, but of courss there was a little hesitation in trusting the process again. About a year go, we started wondering if we were going down the right path, we knew adoption was apart of our path but was this agency right for us? Maybe we were supposed to look into another? Maybe? What was God telling us? So we decided to take a break from the process and decided to just listen and see what He laid out for us. We explored different agencies and fell in love with a smaller one, but then hit a wall. We were actually turned down for the time being, because we had a child under the age of one. Besides this being completely baffling to me, this was God telling us to keep looking elsewhere. We listened some more. All we could hear was adoption? adoption? fostering? adoption? And after each one, we heard question marks, which left us a little confused, so we continued to take the time we needed to discern. We explored the world of fostering and we both feel that’s likely apart of our journey in the future but not just yet. Adoption just keeps powerfully being told to us. We always knew it was apart of the journey, but through who, why was this fantastic agency we’ve worked with not standing out to us?

I continue to feel a little one wants us. I feel it everyday, I literally have that gut feeling in this exact moment. Is there someone feeling something similar? Is there a young mom or dad looking for a family like us to let us adopt their child? Maybe? Maybe we adopt through this agency but maybe not. God knows and I just can’t seem to understand. God also knows I don’t always listen real well and sometimes I can be a bit stubborn, so He probably is telling me I just don’t seem to follow. We’ll keep listening though, patiently.

In the meantime, I will continue to share the journey God has given us. And maybe, just maybe you’re hearing a voice telling you to share our story with someone else. Maybe that someone else is looking for us. ❤️

16ish months

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The days are moving faster and I feel like less time is being spent with Zayden. Probably not, but it seems like he just doesn’t need as much attention from us as he did when he was a wee little baby. He’s climbing up into the chair by himself, eating by himself (when he chooses to eat and not throw it on the floor), picks books up and reads them to himself…or really just points out the animals he likes best. He throws trash away, and sometimes the remote, my cell phone, basically anything that can go in the trash can does. 😂

Zayden says more and more words every single day and it blows me away the amount of information he takes in. He truly is our little miracle and he shows us that every single day!

Some new things we have done the past month is:

Travel to Hawaii, it took me 34 years to make it to HI and you got to in your first 2 years!

First haircut – which was super terrible, so you also got your second haircut the following day 😂

Mastering the stairs like the little climber you are!

First dentist appointment which went surprisingly well and you received an great report from them!

Sleeping has gone from not bad to beyond pitiful but we are patient and will continue to love on you on bad nights. It will pass and we know it.

This has been a good month bub, as every month is with you. ❤️ Now let’s reminisce on this haircut transformation! Where did my little boy go?

Never give up that glimpse of hope.

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“Happy Implantation Day!” a sweet friend text me this week. I thought to myself, wait is that my implantation day in 2017, did I forget about it, was I blocking that day and it’s chaos? Her question encouraged me to look back on that day and remind myself what I was feeling. So I did. I didn’t read it all the way through because I had errands to run and it was sad and my emotions were coming back to me and I just couldn’t right then.

The day continues and our sick little guy ended up not sleeping basically from 1:30-4 this morning. He can’t sleep unless I’m holding him, I can’t sleep unless I’m not holding him. So there we are, me holding him and wishing I was just getting some sleep. I found myself a little irritated and finally I just said, “Hey God.. I am thankful for a crying baby. I am grateful for my lack of sleep because it means we have him. So thank you.”

I was the reminded about the implantation day text so early this morning, I went back through my blog and found 2 posts from 02/15/17. Implantation Day. Countless shots, medications, and lots of tears and we finally reached this day. It was nerve-wracking to say the least. I’ve posted the 2 blogs from that day below for you to read if interested but my emotions were all over the place and my summary is below:

02/15/17 – Before the Call

02/15/17 – After the Call

  • Nervous as all get out. We had 13 embryo.
  • Receive a call first thing on implantation day and all embryos are poor quality and they weren’t sure any of them would make it. My faith, patience, emotions were shattered.
  • Wait. Wait. Wait a few hours to see if we can even implant any.
  • Receive another call to come in and we will transfer the best 2 if we wanted to but basically don’t give your hopes up because they have such a poor rating they can’t rate them.
  • My faith still shattered, but I prayed.
  • Go in to the Dr. and we put in the best 2. It was so difficult to not cry but I sucked it up and held it in. Made it through the appointment and literally did nothing for the rest of the day. I was upset and defeated but I knew I needed to trust God.

It was a rollercoaster of emotions, my faith was shattered more than a couple of times, my frustration had overcome me more times than I can count, but on the other side we have one sweet, amazing, strong, a little crazy, cuddliest, orneriest toddler that you can imagine. So I will continue to love those sleepless nights and I will watch all the episodes of Curious George for the 18th time (literally what we are watching right now, I guess it’s better than Baby Shark -I even whispered Baby Shark in my head, just in case he has telepathy, in fear he will want to watch and dance to it again) 😂 🤞

Our chances of a successful pregnancy per history was a big fat 0. Maybe the Dr. chances were slightly higher but I knew in my heart that after losing 5 babies and ending up with losing both of my tubes, that our chances were next to nothing but God knew something I didn’t. He had a bigger plan. And I’m so thankful we didn’t give up hope and we trusted Him. To anyone going through infertility, I pray for you and I hope your faith isn’t shattered and I hope you never give up. Sending love to all of you today on our Implantation Day! ❤️

Written by Chasnie & Zayden 😊

Living with a 1-Year Old

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Life has been crazy keeping up with a 1-year old! I still can’t believe he has grown so much and developed are sweet and ORNERY personality! Everyone that hangs out with Z talks about how sweet he is, what they don’t always get to witness is the crazy side of him. I mean, as I am typing this he has accidentally given me a black eye from “fake falling” on my face. lol

It’s been a little exhausting keeping up lately. Teething has taken over our nights and early mornings which has led to minimal sleep again, but that will pass soon (or so I hope)😴

Some new things little man has been doing this month is running around nonstop, being more interactive most of the time vs not, picking up his messes but making them more than not, and being extra affectionate which I will take a sloppy kiss from that sweet boy any day! ♥️. He has also said a few more words so we wanted to write them down to remember them! Of course the norm, like mom and dad and bubba (whoever that is):

Bubbles

Butt bomb (haha, is that a bad word?)

Della

Water

Baseball

Bath

Della (apparently she’s his favorite)

Backpack

Jesus – thank you to some kids songs the says this with conviction!

Yes

Baby

Woah

And a few others I can’t seem to think of…

Keeping up with a 1-year old brings a whole different level of love, happiness, patience, joy…all of which we just are reminded daily that he is worth every second. Thank you God for giving us such a sweet, ornery boy in our lives.

1 Year Old | Zayden Gray | My Superman

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Over a year ago, we sat in a hospital room talking to our doctor about how we only had 2 embryos that have survived and they were so poor they couldn’t even rate them. They asked us if we wanted to proceed forward and try anyways… With no real hope, we prayed over those 2 embryos every day and today we have a healthy 1-year old. Cue the tears 😭.

What a superhero, little miracle, blessing from God you are Zayden Gray. We have spent 365 days with you in our arms or chasing you around. You have kept us on our toes each and every day as we figure out this whole parenting thing!

We have gone through so many firsts with you, firsts that I normally wouldn’t think twice about but we have cherished every single one. I can’t wait to see how the rest of our future goes together! ♥️

A few things you’ve learned this month:

Learned how to climb a ladder

Being more affectionate, especially with the puppies. They love Z’s hugs & kisses

Say a few new random words (backpack, phone, baseball)

Going up & down stairs 😬 which happens to be your new fave game.

Causing destruction

More teeth – molars this time!

Being a little daredevil 😬😬

Using utensils

And the best part …starting to look like your mama! ♥️

Your first year in pictures:

11 Months | Zayden Gray

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I just can’t….you are growing up way too fast little man! Today you are 11 months and we will be celebrating your first birthday before we know it!

We started this month off in California but stayed close to home for the rest of the month, besides a quick trip to hang with your cousin John while we did a shoot in Kansas City. God was looking out for our schedule this month because we spent most of it passing a little sickness around. Luckily, you managed to break away from it after a couple of days.

This month you’ve really been trying to master your walk. You choose to walk most places, unless you need to get there fast and you stick with your power crawl 😂. Some other things new you’ve been doing this month:

*Kick and throw balls

*Say “mmmmmm” when you really love your food, but you close your eyes and say it, which makes it even cuter.

*Says, “I love you” or it sounds really close!

*You can find your ears, nose, toes and private parts but I’m pretty sure all boys don’t have an issue finding them.

*You still only recognize dogs, cows and birds as animals, apparently they are your favorite.

*We made our first trip to the Amazeum which was fun overload for you!

*We did our first painting, and I must say you’re quite the artist! 😊

*Ollie and Della are your favorite puppies this month but you really want Charlie to be your best friend. Maybe one day…

*You give hugs & kisses way more frequently and it just melts this Mama’s heart! You can never get enough of those, especially when they aren’t asked for but just random ones. ♥️

I can’t help but remember how long the process was to get you. We struggled for so long for you. You may not be our only little man but you are the only one we’ve gotten to hold, receive hugs and kisses from, and get to watch grow in front of our eyes. We are so thankful for you Zayden and cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings!