A Different Path

Life is interesting. Tyler and I have been praying and praying for direction for our family, and it always kind of felt like our prayers were not being answered. This fall they were finally answered, just not in the way we were expecting.

After years and years of struggling with infertility, Tyler and I finally got to the point where we were ready to move forward with in vitro fertilization (IVF). It takes some couples a lot less time, but we wanted to try all of our other options first, and then it just took us a while to feel emotionally ready. We wanted to wait until after we got back from our Europe trip so we wouldn't have to worry about missing any doctors visits or morning sickness on our trip. We our preliminary appointment before we left, and as soon as we got back we started doing the prep work. We had already done many tests over the years, but there are special tests that check to make sure your body will respond well to IVF. At the end of September the clinic called with one of the test results, and it was bad. Very bad. So bad that they thought maybe there was an error with the test, so they told me not to worry and they would test again in October. We had a month to try (unsuccessfully) not to worry, and we tested again. We had an appointment with our fertility specialist who broke the news to us.

The test we failed was the ovarian assessment report, which checks the ovarian reserve (how many eggs I have). My test results were so low that my score actually fell off the chart. He said if I ever did have any eggs, I probably lost them years ago before I got married. Even with IVF, our chances of conceiving are close to 0%. To add to the despair, my FSH levels are extremely high because my body has to work so hard to try to ovulate, so even if we did conceive we would have a high chance of miscarriage.

This was devastating news. The doctor was very compassionate. He felt so bad giving us the news, and told us it was the worst news he has to give in his profession. It's so permanent. I was actually somewhat in denial for a while. I told Tyler it feels like when Dumbledore died. I kept expecting him to turn up alive later on in the books. I just couldn't believe that he was actually dead. That's how it feels. Our family has been grieving with us, and they have been extremely supportive. I still grieve for the things we will never have. I don't like to say never, but this is pretty close. We will never have the joy of announcing a pregnancy. I will never know the feeling of carrying life inside of me. As much as people complain about it, I will never be able to experience the ups and downs of pregnancy and the incredible experience of giving birth. People will never tell our children that they look just like us. We'll never get to see what traits they get from Tyler and what traits they get from me. There are many other things we still mourn.

And yet, we also rejoice in knowing that our Heavenly Father has a plan for us. We are grateful to finally have a clear direction. We are grateful to know that our family will grow, although differently from most. We are moving forward with the adoption process and are so excited. It didn't take us long to decide to adopt, and we have been working furiously on the process ever since. It is a ridiculously long process with mountains of paperwork and training, but we are within weeks of getting our profile published! Our families have been so supportive and we look forward to all of the support we know we are going to get from our dear friends.

This post sounds so depressing, but we want you all to know that we are in a good place now. Despite the things we have lost, we are thrilled to be moving forward in this new direction. We look forward to finding our babies, and we will be needing your help! We will let everyone know when our profile is published and then we'll need as many people as possible to spread the word about our desire to grow our family. Stay tuned!