Baby Smith 2.0 update

I said I would update on our progress or lack there of. I don't get into too much nitty gritty but there is a potential for TMI here so don't keep reading if you don't want to know. Here we go. We met with our Reproductive Endocrinologist last Wednesday. I came loaded with a ton of questions from my pain with the previous 3 cycles, to my weight gain and hair loss (both symptoms of PCOS), to a game plan for the next cycle should this one not work out for us. I need direction and a plan and she has my answers. Her and God. We talked for a long time and got some great answers. Our doctor is fantastic. She is kind and gentle and empathetic. She knows my pain and has a heart to help me success. She got to play with Henry during the appointment, the product of her work with us and she knows how much joy he has brought us. She is in our corner and as a medical professional I have never seen better care from a physician in my life. She even held my hand when they put me under for my surgery she did in Jan 2013 so I wouldn't be scared and wispered that she would take good care of me. Tears were a flowin'! Honestly we had a great appointment but the answers she had were not all the ones we necessarily wanted to hear but here is the bullet pointed game plan now.

• My weight gain and hair loss and massive sweet tooth are symptoms of PCOS and she said a great way to treat these symptoms and resolve them is to be on a low carb/ no sugar diet to help my body burn fat instead of sugar. It will also help to maintain my glucose levels instead of big time peaks and valleys. PCOS affects your glycemic index and your insulin resistance so you almost have to act like a diabetic. (I am terrified I will end up diabetic because I'm at higher risk due to the PCOS and because of my massive sweet tooth). So I decided then and there to drop carbs massively, eat healthy fats and protein and veggies and kick my sugar to curb completely. I have been 5 days clean and sober so far. hehe. It's hard as hell. I'm having the withdrawls she warned me of including horrid headaches, fatigue, shaky occasionally and horrid sugar cravings but I will do ANYTHING to get this baby (and lose weight and keep my hair thank you very much).P.S. She had me do a 2 hour glucose tolerance test and it was perfect so yay for that. Now just to stick with this. Please message me if you want more information about this. I have done hours of homework on it since she suggested it and the success rates I have found show that within 2 months most PCOS patients see better results with cycles symptoms and half of the women put on this diet will see a pregnancy within a relatively close timeline to that as well. Praise Jesus. Halleluah!
• The pain I have been having has not been caused by ovarian cysts, thank god. She assured me the follicles we see on ultrasound each month (that can look alot like cysts) have not been cysts and that my pain the past few months has been due to having two decent size follicles, one on each ovary, that ovulate with my trigger shot which leads to pain. My body does better with one follicle and the cycles I have had only one follicle (this one and Henry's cycle) I haven't had pain. I'm hoping this a good sign for this month. 
• She said that my medication dosages, uterine lining, lab work, follicle growth rate and sizes, etc have all been textbook perfect each cycle and she doesn't have an answer as to why we aren't pregnant yet, but she is very hopeful for this month since we only had one follicle and my body is responding well to it thus far. She wants us to continue the meds we are on right now (which cost about $210/ month) but add in IUI which stands for intrauterine insemination. This helps bypass any barriers between egg and sperm and can double your chances for pregnancy. Only problem is it's $450 in addition to the meds and to add that amount of money on to each cycle makes a negative pregnancy test hurt that much more. We did IUI the cycle before we got pregnant with Henry and obviously it didn't work. It made me phsyically ill that we "wasted" all that money for nothing. I don't feel good about escalating our care to that point when I remind myself we got pregnant with Henry the very next month without it. But the idea of doubling our chances is oh so enticing to me. She offered this for a few more tries but would like to escalate care after that if we aren't successful.
• The other option she presented is to start doing daily inject-able hormones to stimulate follicle growth in addition to the medication I am on. These shots are done everyday and can cost anywhere from $250-$1000/month depending on the doseage you need to respond well. She also warned us there is a greater risk for multiples (twins we would gladly take but not triplets or higher) and if you have too many follicles growing you have to cancel the cycle and can't try that month and then you've wasted all that money and didn't even get to try. She would like to pair IUI with this as well. So we are talking a potentially $1500 cycle EVERY. MONTH. Not excited about this news.

I would be lying if I said I didn't walk out of there terrified. We aren't made of money, we don't have thousands to waste on failed cycles, but we want to give ourselves the best chance of success. I want a baby now, but I am not quite ready to give up on what we are doing now. I can't help but hold on to the fact that it's what worked to get us pregnant with Henry. I am trying to understand that my body is different now too though, I had a baby, I am 2 years older, my hormones are all over the place, etc. I'm at a crossroads. I'm so hopeful and prayerful that we won't even have to think about this and that this month will be a success but if it's not we will have to make a decision quick as to what to do for the next month.

So that's the main jist for now. Still working on it all and so is the big man upstairs. As Morgan Freeman once said when he played the role of God. Something along the lines of " If you pray for patience and strength for example, God doesn't just get out his magic wand and say Here you go, here is patience and a dash of strength. He gives you opportunities in your life to learn to be patient and opportunities in your life to show strength. I feel like I've had plenty of months to learn those lessons by now and I would like my baby now please and thank you. But no, I am not patient, I am not strong a lot of days. He is still working on me and I will keep trying to learn.

God listens

I was taught when I was very young to pray every night before bed. To ask God for his protection, peace, patience, guidance and forgiveness among a million other things. I prayed for my whole family and my friends "and even their pets" as my childhood memorized prayer used to say. My mom taught me how important it is to lean on God even when you struggle with it. As humans, especially type A humans, we like control. Praying for me a lot of the time means I have to give up my control and hand it over to God and I don't like to do that part. I mean I really struggle with this a lot, but I practice a lot. I pray a lot. Daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. Sometimes it's something quick like "Lord, please give me patience today" or really long, more of a conversation with God. Other times I don't even have the words to say, I just say God "you know my heart, Amen". I've gotten better with my prayers as I've gotten older and gone through more struggles and even more amazing blessings. I've gotten better with less of the "keep me safely through the night and wake me with the morning light" stuff and more of the "Lord, lead me and teach me and help me when I'm not strong." I praise God for the blessings he gives me, for Taylor, for Henry, for our house and jobs and health etc but I will be honest, I ask God for help more. I'm pretty sure we all do.
When we were trying to get pregnant with Henry, my faith was shaky. Really shaky. Taylor lost his job unexpectedly, we had just bought a big new house and adopted a puppy, we were trying to pay for expensive fertility medications and treatments and I just felt like we would never get out of the dark woods we were in.  I was praying for Taylor to get a job he liked and for our puppy to stop peeing on our brand new carpet and for a baby... daily. Hourly sometimes. We had already been trying a year at that point and had been with our reproductive endocrinologist for a few months by then. I had already had tons of testing done and a surgery on my uterus to take out a membrane cutting it into two segments that could cause complications if I did get pregnant. I was having painful cysts and bad labs and bad ultrasounds showing no response to the medications I was on. I didn't even have "eggs" growing let alone getting big enough to do anything with.  All sorts of things that just kept delaying our progress until that point. I wondering why God kept telling me "No" when everything in my heart said I was made to be a mommy. I know that it wasn't a great time to get pregnant but a baby takes 9 months to grow and I was certain we would be just fine by the time it was born. I kept praying and waiting. I got angry with God as I would go to work and take care of babies withdrawing from street drugs with mothers who didn't want them or the 3 or siblings they had already lost custody of before that baby. Why was he making pregnant women and new babies all I noticed around me? Why was he showing me that I was the only one who couldn't have a baby? It felt like salt in my wound. Why wasn't he answering my prayers?
Because God has plans bigger than mine. That's why. It's still really hard for me to admit that. Hearing that from someone else when you are trying to have a baby and that's the only thing you want, hurts really really bad. It's true. It's said as a comfort, but it might mean God doesn't plan for you to have a baby at all or not for a long time or maybe just not for a few more months. I know couples that have faced that reality of the not evers or not for a long long time and I couldn't bear the thought that it could be my fate too. But God knows what he is doing. And lately he's been showing me....through music.
I know, I'm crazy. But stay with me here. I always think there is something to be said for Garth Brooks' song "Unanswered Prayers". He talks about how they are one of God's greatest gifts. That is so incredibly true and just when I really struggle and pray and feel like he isn't listening, he shows me he is. He shows me that my prayer for a baby THIS MONTH may not be what's best. He let us get back on our feet, Taylor got a good job, Cora became potty trained and obedience trained, my body had time to heal and so did our bank account and THEN we became pregnant. It wasn't our time table and that was really a hard pill to swallow but we wouldn't have Henry if it didn't happen exactly like it did, WHEN it did. It was the ultimate unanswered prayer. Because let's be honest, most of the time my prayer wasn't "Lord give me a baby please please please" it was "Lord, please let this be our month, please give me a baby NOW".  So ultimately a prayer that was unanswered and answered with a better one "Lauren, I will give you a baby when you are ready" and he did.
So I've been praying since then, daily for all things like protect my baby and keep me healthy and blah blah blah but also, to let me be able to experience pregnancy and childbirth and new motherhood and breastfeeding and watching my husband love on our new child and falling so much more in love with him all over again. It was a euphoria I can't even begin to explain and those who have children know what I mean and those who don't, it's worth fighting for. I promise. It made it worth every unanswered prayer and frustration and tear and penny and painful part of infertility treatment. It made pregnancy and throwing up and childbirth and postpartum fun worth it too. So I've prayed that I would get to do it again constantly, I prayed that in the delivery room as I thanked God for my 8lb 7oz screaming gift.

And this time, when I prayed for a baby NOW, he listened, but is isn't my time yet. I'm crying writing these words because it hurts to admit it. It hurts to know that this emotionally and physically and financially and mentally painful journey might not have a quick reward, but it hurts so good to know it will be worth it, in his time. Not mine. Because Henry has been my greatest gift and I was given him when I was good and ready and this time I have no doubt will be any different. Do I like that answer? Not really, lol. But I know it's what's best. So how is God listening? How do I know he hears my cries? Well get this.

Taylor has a new Ford Explorer, it's blue tooth compatible. So that means that if I am in the car, it will pick up my phone's signal and can wirelessly play music off my spotify playlist through the speakers in the car. So I put Henry in the car on Sunday (the day I found out that this cycle probably meant no baby and I was taking it HARD). I had cried myself to sleep after work out of frustration and exhaustion from being up all night. I was so sure it was going to be this month, but it wasn't. We decided to take Henry to the pet store to see all the puppies and animals (which he loves to do). It would be a good distraction for me too. I strapped him into his carseat and sat in the passenger side waiting for Taylor to come out. I turned the key and "Lauren's iphone" popped up in the display on the radio. I hadn't selected a song yet or even opened my spotify playlist yet or turned on my phone. It was still in my pocket in fact and music started to play. I knew from the first 3 notes what song it was and just started crying. The song was "Beautiful Things"  by Gungor. It's the song that I listened to all the time when I was trying to get pregnant with Henry and it's the song that I set our infertility journey slideshow video to. Which you can see HERE. (you may not be able to watch it on your phone).

The song that was selected to play on my phone was not even in the same playlist as the one playing and my phone's ticker of how many minutes or seconds the song had been playing was couting indictating the other song should have been playing through the speakers. But it wasn't. I'm not sure how it played through the car but it did and I just said "alright God, I got it". He is listening. He knows my heart and there is so much comfort in that.

Here is one more recent example. Today I was in the car with Henry and I listen to K-Love radio station alot. Hello! Postive and Encouraging K-Love is their slogan. I need that right now. And not suprisingly (this happens to me, and apparently others a lot). The song that played just hit me like a ton of bricks and I just started crying again. Stupid hormones. The song is "something beautiful" by Stephen Curtis Chapman and I have heard that song a million times before and know all the words by heart but never really listened to them or applied them. Today the part that goes like this is what got me.
"I see you sitting over there with your head in your hands
and the mess life's made of your best laid plans.
You really wanna shake your fist, but you don't know who to blame.
Well you can blame yourself or the man upstairs.
 Or the guy on the screen who says he cares.
 But all the shame and the blame won't change a thing.
What's done is done but
GRACE HAS JUST BEGUN.
 And God says
 I'm gonna turn it into something different,
I'm gonna turn it into something good.
 I'm gonna take all the broken pieces and make something beautiful like only I could.
So put it all in the hands of the Father
Give it up.
Give it all over to the only one who can turn it into
Something beautiful.
Something really beautiful."

Alright God, got me again. I will stop being negative this week. I'll appreciate your fresh start and fresh mind and your reminder and I will try to be strong this month and when I can't I will remember to give it up to you again......I know you are listening.