Expecting.

Remember this post and the trial I talked about?

Well, I am so elated to say that it is OVER and Dylan and I are expecting our first BABY!!!!!! I am due January 28th. And oh man, oh man, oh man, are we ever excited!

I debated sharing 'the trial' only because I don't like getting too too personal, but it helped/helps me when I read people's 'I made it through my trial' stories - they inspire me.

Disclaimer: I know that a lot of people deal with infertility, and many for a lot longer than I did. In no way, shape, or form am I trying to take awawy anything from anybody's experience. This is just mine.

So, I will take you back to a year and a half ago.

Dylan and I had been happily married for about half a year when we started to get the impression that we need to start trying to have a family. What the heck!?! No way! We were barely newlyweds, Dylan was a student, we were living in an apartment, as if we wanted to bring a baby into the mix. Where was this coming from?? About a month passed - the impression only got stronger. We prayed about it - yup, that's what we were supposed to do. We went to the temple about it - no mistaking it, we were supposed to start trying.

So we did.

A month passed. Then two. Then three. Then four. Okay, this is taking longer than I thought. Not to mention, even though we weren't neccessarily stoked when we got the impression to start having a family, as soon as we started trying, our hearts were in it. The possibility of what could be is addicting. Each month you eagerly wait for the day to come when your special friend doesn't come! After four months I was getting let down. But hey, I wasn't so nieve to think that this stuff doesn't take a while.

So five months went by, then six, then seven, then eight. I was starting to get really upset. Each month that I didn't get pregnant got harder and harder. It is so easy to sit here and type the words, six, seven, eight, but those were real months, each one of them with 30ish days - this was getting to be a long time!

But we kept at it. Nine months, then ten. I was getting depressed. My heart ached. Every day that we didn't have this child that we were trying for, seemed like an eternity. It was as if time was frozen, nothing moving forward. I was miserable at my job working 50-60 hours a week, but didn't know if I could leave because what if I got pregnant the next month - I needed mat leave!
And then Sadie died. That hurt bigtime. My only real baby - gone. I was SO MAD. I was SO SAD. Oh man that was hard. My heart split into two. Crying became a daily occurence.

Then came 11. Oh no, one more month and I was hitting the dreaded one year of trying and that means infertility.

12 months hit and I made an appointment with my family doctor. The day I went to see her I was filled with a renewed optimism - we were going to find out answers and finally get the ball moving forward. Well, that didn't happen. It went something like this:

DOCTOR: What brings you in today?
ME: My husband and have been trying to get pregnant for a year, and nothing.
DOCTOR: Well, how old are you?
ME: 23
DOCTOR: You are YOUNG! You have plenty of time. You don't need to be a parent yet. Why don't you just keep on trying for another year and then if nothing has happened we will start treatments.
ME: Because we want to start a family now for personal reasons. I don't think it matters what age I am. I want to start testing to get some answers. I don't think I am ovulating.
DOCTOR: Well there are no tests that can test whether or not you are ovulating.
ME: What? I know a girl who just had that very kind of test. It was a blood test.
DOCTOR: I don't know what test she got, because there is nothing that tests if you are ovulating.
ME: Doesn't it test for progesterone??
DOCTOR: No, but if you want you can go to the drugstore and buy a home ovulation test to see if you are ovulating. They aren't always accurate though. You might get some false negatives.
ME: What does that test test for?
DOCTOR: Progesterone.
ME: So you are saying that there is a plastic, over the counter, at home test that can test for progesterone, but the labs can't !?!?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ME: Okay thanks, I will get one of those. (Knowing full well that I would NEVER EVER EVER talk to her again - idiot. What med school did you go to!?!)
DOCTOR: Great, and then come in in about 6 months to follow up.
ME: Yup, bye.

I left that appointment completely and utterly CRUSHED. C-R-U-S-H-E-D. The waterworks immediately started. I called Dylan. I could barely talk I was crying so hard. He was sweet, loving and reasuring that we were eventually going to get pregnant. But I was lost. Where were the answers I was looking for? Who cared out there? What the heck Heavenly Father!?

I called a dear friend of mine who was going through the same trial, but I knew that her doctor was great. I got the number, called, pleaded my case, and prayed that this doctor would take on a new patient. A week later they called - yup, he would see me!

My NEW doctor is GREAT! He immediately ordered some tests and reffered me to a fertility specialist. Of course, each test, and appointment takes a while to get. I had to wait 3 months to get into see my fertility doctor. So 13 months hit, then 14 and 15.

But, when I met with him (for the second time) voila, we had our answer! Just as I had suspected months ago, I was not ovulating. Like not AT ALL! My hormones were all over the place.

So, bless my doctor's soul, he put me on Clomid instead of doing more tests which would have taken about another 3 months. He had a real get-er-done approach.

I was SO nervous going on clomid - what if it didn't work, then what? I was not ready for more dissapointment. I always knew clomid would be there as an option that works for most, and if it didn't work on me I seriously would have been devastated. But ladies and gents (well really, ladies) it worked FIRST month!

I, of course, had no patience and took a test the second I was a day late. Funny story. I peed on the stick and gave it the three minutes, fully expecting to go into the bathroom and read yet another false test. I had seen SO many of them.

When Dylan and I took a look at it I first saw the dark one line,

but then I saw a VERY faint second line.

What the........
Could this be...........
No, it can't be.........
Dylan, what do you think............

So I did what any modern young lady would do - I googled it.

And sure enough, a faint pink line means just as much as a dark one - a line is a line - WE WERE PREGNANT!!!!!! FINALLY!!!

We cried and hugged and laughed and said "can you believe it" more times than I can count.

I have been sick, but that is to be expected right? And everytime I throw up, I know why, and I am grateful (to be pregant, not to be throwing my guts up).

We got our first ultrasound at 10 weeks because I started showing at 6 weeks so my doctor wanted to rule out twins. We are just having ONE! FEWF! That ultrasound was the coolest experience of my life. Besides the fact that I was in SO much pain because I drank way too much water. The tech said that due to my size I only have to drink one cup....I drank 4! Anyway, after she called in Dylan and showed us the screen I started bawling. It was the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life. She said how great the baby looked and then he/she started kicking away! "oh boy, you have an active one" she says. GREAT! haha just what we want. The the little guy/girl waved at us. It was so distinct and SO perfect. I was instantaneously IN LOVE. I look at that picture all the time and just smile. I am so grateful.

An everyday MIRACLE that's what it is.

In all of it I can see Heavenly Father's grace, and it all makes sense to me now. He knew that we were going to have trouble getting pregnant, and prompted us to start trying a year and a half before we were actually going to start (we were going to start trying this summer). I am SO thankful that we listened to that prompting. We were scared but thank goodness.

HIS plan really always does work out.

I will post pictures later - my belly is a bit much for 3 months but everyone keeps telling me its cute, so I will choose to believe them!

Leah xoxo