My Infertility Soundtrack

A couple of songs that have encouraged me along the way...you can listen to them on the bottom of this blog:
Praise You in This Storm-Casting Crowns- This song really spoke to me that we can praise God as we are going through this storm and every tear we've cried, He has held it in His hand.
I Would Die For That-Kellie Coffey- I love this song.
Fix You-Coldplay- "and the tears come streaming down your face, when you lose something you can't replace" This song really spoke to me after my loss.
Baby Mine-Allison Krauss- I dream of singing this song to my baby some day.
The Innocence Mission- "waiting for you to arrive, where does the time go?" Don and Karen Peris know all to well what it is like to wait for a little one.
So Hard-Dixie Chicks-sisters Emily & Martie both dealt with infertility and loss. "It's so hard when it doesn't come easy"--well said and so true.

Oh Progesterone!

Dear Prog Supps,
Please stop making me feel pregnant. You are not making the 2ww easy on me!
Love,
C

My False Positive

This was last cycle. Do you see two lines? I know it is faint, but it was way darker in person just take my word for it. In a perfect world, this would mean I was pregnant. I had all of the signs... a great 21 day prog number, really sore bbs, very emotional so when I saw two lines I thought our prayers had been answered. I dove back into the bed to tell Shaun the good news. We immediately prayed and thanked God for this wonderful blessing. And we spent the rest of the day, calling and telling all of our close friends and family the good news. I walked around with my hand on my belly all afternoon, and I was beyond happy. The next morning, I got to test again hoping for a darker line only to see a positive on the $ tree tests and a BFN on first response. Now all ttc girls know that FRER is the best and most reliable at detecting early so this should have been a big flashing "you are not pregnant" sign, but I still didn't believe it. I called my ob-gyn's nurse who has to be one of the rudest nurses in america to see if I could get b/w done right away. When I got to the lab, I explained to the poor lab lady what happened to me, and I asked her if the order said to do a yes or no beta or a number beta. She said just a yes or no, and I asked her to please see if we could do a number because there can be false negatives with a yes or no depending on the lab with it being so early. She agreed and in no time at all I had the rude nurse yelling at me that they were only going to do a yes or no and that's it. She walked away, and I immediately started crying... that was the last straw for me with that nurse. I waited in the waiting room with all of the glowing pregnant girls as I tried to stop crying. I flipped open a magazine and turned the pages, but I didn't read one single thing...all I could think about is yes or no. Probably about 30 minutes later, the lab ladies called me in there to tell me I was not pregnant. I lost it...I could hardly stand up. Honestly my immediate reaction was "why God, why would you let me get a false positive??" I made the lab ladies cry, and they wouldn't let me leave until I got okay. My first phone call was to a woman named Joy at the RE's office to ask if I could get the appointment back that I canceled just hours before when I just knew for sure that I was pregnant. She was so kind to me, and she made sure that I got my appointment back. I spent the rest of the day just crying. Apparently the lab ladies told my doctor what was going on because the rude nurse called back in the evening to say that "we decided to run the numbers...and it was .07 so you definitely are not pregnant." She was extremely nice so either she felt bad for how rude she was (find that unlikely) or someone got on to her. I didn't have much to say to her, but I let her know that I had an appointment with Dr. H and that I wouldn't be back. I honestly loved my doctor that is why I was so torn leaving her for a specialist, but I knew I needed to go to an RE to be watched more carefully. God wanted me there, and rude nurse just made it that much easier to leave. thank you rude nurse.

An Introduction

My husband and I met when we were fifteen years old. I was very unpopular, and he was the new, oh so popular football player. It was pretty much love at first sight. I can remember the two of us smiling and staring at each other from across the classroom all day long. One Friday night after a football game, I sat in the corner of our auditorium just hoping that he would ask me to dance. He did and the rest is history. After almost six years together, we finally got married, and we were so happy. Sure... life wasn't easy with paying bills, a tiny apartment, jobs, and finishing college, but we loved every second of being together. The only thing that was difficult was the big S word. Of course, it was special because we waited, but I felt like I had the libido of an old woman on her death bed. After 9 months, I finally broke down and told my ob/gyn about my issues. "Oh you poor thing, it is most likely because you are not very experienced." She was even sweet enough to copy off a chapter or two of a sex book. But thankfully, she said she would run some blood work just to make sure that my birth control wasn't taking a toll on my free testosterone. About a week later, she called back with the test results, "Courtney, I'm going to have to apologize to you. You really do have a hormone problem. Your blood work shows that you have hardly any free testosterone." I immediately went home and started finding out as much information as I could about the link between birth control pills and sex drive. Fortunately a new study came out in Jan of 06 that proved a connection. This was only the beginning of my medical internet researching as you will learn soon enough about me. Shaun and I made the tough decision that even though we weren't completely financially ready for a baby, we would stop using birth control pills in the hopes that my hormone problems would go away. And by the way because I know you are curious...over time it got A LOT better. Well we tried the condom route, and that just wasn't happening...then we tried some sort of foam that we still laugh about today so we ended up just saying the heck with it... let's just do it. Looking back on this makes me laugh, but I am also so grateful that God started us on this ttc journey a lot sooner than expected. If we hadn't stopped birth control pills, we would probably have no idea right now of our problems. I would be just getting off the pill with my friends only to watch them all get pregnant, and I would be left wondering what was taking us so long. I hope this long story explains in part why I am now writing an infertility blog at only 24.