National Infertility Awareness Week 2017- Listen up! And Hear Our Story

  I've spent months thinking about writing an honest post about infertility. I never did because I was afraid of making people feel uncomfortable. But I want to be an advocate for the issues that surround infertility. I want to help others going through this know that they are not alone.

   So listen up! This is our story. We tried to get pregnant for 3 years, spent almost all of our savings on tests and still weren't able to get pregnant. It sucked. To say the least. My doctors and fertility specialist were helpful until I got my diagnosis of hypothyroidism and PCOS. After that, it was like everything stopped and they just told me to keep spending money on more tests and more Clomid. No help on how to control my PCOS. I eventually stopped going to them trying to get help getting pregnant and just wanted help with pain that I have been having for over a year. Every time I went in it was the same thing. I had a giant cyst, they gave me birth control to make it shrink, and I would around $200 for a simple 30 second ultrasound and two minutes of the doctor's time before she would run out of the room without asking me if I had questions. I did that for months. It used up money that was supposed to be going into savings. It was hard and frustrating and I would bawl after every visit. How was I supposed to get pregnant? Without birth control I would have cysts that prevent me from ovulating and birth control is very effective for me and I am not lucky enough to get pregnant on that. It was a never ending cycle of cysts and birth control.

    Throughout all of this my self-esteem hit rock bottom. I truly hated myself. I often thought I must have done something wrong at one point in my life for God to think I needed to go through this. I thought maybe God thought I didn't deserve to have children. I could hardly stand to look in the mirror because my PCOS causes horrible breakouts and I do not know how to use makeup to cover up acne correctly. I gained 20 pounds (I've lost 7 lbs thanks to a $3 jump rope and less soda!) and honestly I felt like a huge balloon. I figured I wasn't good enough to be a mom and that I obviously didn't deserve it. I wasn't able to sleep. I did not have any positive thoughts about myself.

    I compared myself left and right to others. Especially young moms and women who are pregnant, and I often felt like others were comparing me to others too. I pulled away from people I know and care about who were able to get pregnant. I was jealous. I didn't understand why they got to have their own kids and I couldn't. It hurt and I did not want to hurt more than I already did. So I stopped talking to them completely. I lost friendships that I never wanted to lose, but my jealousy caused me to pull away. Infertility can cause feelings that break apart relationships.

   Talking about infertility has not been easy, and that makes me frustrated. I have tried to be more open about it and now I talk about it all of the time, to most people. There are still others I dare not talk to about it because I am afraid of getting judged harshly and they will give me very unhelpful and hurtful advice. So my next point is, give support, not advice. Advice seems to just hurt more than help. I know you mean well and that sadly, people do not know what to say. No one wants to admit that it is happening. It is a really crappy thing to happen, but all it does is make it worse and you are gambling that won't get punched in the face.

We do not care if your niece ate pineapple for a month straight and got pregnant. We hate the idea that it will happen when it happens (it may not happen!). Do not tell us to pray harder (honestly, what a horrible thing to say!). Don't tell us that your friend got pregnant after she adopted (good for her! Not everyone is so lucky!). Please do not tell us how easy it was to get pregnant for you. We are jealous, and flaunting it just really is not nice. You had to try for 2-11 months to get pregnant? You have no idea what it is like, so please do not try and tell us you do. Please stop telling us that we are young and have time. That is so not the point. Infertility literally kills dreams, no matter how young you are, it still hurts and having time does not make it stop hurting. Don't tell me to just enjoy spending time with my husband. You just made me feel worse for not enjoying my husband when I thought I was! Please please please do not tell me to relax. Telling me to relax makes me more stressed and unable to relax.

I have read so many posts on harmful things that people say and unfortunately we have been the receivers of almost every one of those comments. I know people aren't trying to be rude or hurtful, but it happens. Just please think about what you say. You may be thinking, “well I do not know what to say”. Simply saying I am so sorry or that sucks, really means a lot. Or asking how you can help means a lot. Just listening to someone talk about it can make a difference. Asking how an appointment went is always nice. Not saying anything and giving a hug is always a safe way to go if you do not know what to say.

    Not knowing what to say is understandable. People just do not like to talk about it. Why? I imagine it is like how people do not like to talk about depression and anxiety. For some dumb reason it is awkward. It can be hard, but the more we talk about it, the easier it will be and people will start to understand how prevalent infertility is. 1 in 8 couples have to deal with infertility. It is extremely common, and it needs to be talked about. I hope that those suffering from infertility will speak up this week. I hope that people will become more aware of this issue so that more can be done about it. Right now there is pretty much no help from insurance providers when it comes to fertility (do not get me started on that). That needs to change (that is all I will say about it).

     Everyone goes through infertility differently. I happen to be quite bitter and cynical and often felt like I was the only one who felt like that. Everyone else seemed to have hope, and after the first year and a half, our hope disappeared. I had people tell me to not give up hope and say it will happen. Honestly, Abe and I do not think it will happen, and we have come to terms with that. There are other options out there.
    I have heard many women say that their infertility has been a blessing. I have not yet felt like my infertility has been a blessing. If my infertility is supposed to be a blessing, I feel like it will be a blessing for someone else. Hopefully someone who is struggling with it also and can relate and know that they are not alone. As alone as you may feel, remember that there are still women out there (like me!) who haven't been able to get pregnant. For women out there still going through this, please remember that you are not alone.

-Amanda and Abraham                                                                                                  

                                     

Our version of a Christmas Card!

Merry Christmas!

It has been a crazy year and I really just have no excuse for not writing anything besides that. I graduated a year ago from Weber State with my degree in Early Childhood. I have been working as a teacher at Head Start here in Ogden and I love it! My coworkers are amazing and many of the kids are very sweet and loving.

Abe got an amazing opportunity for a paid internship at Ben Lomond High School here in Ogden instead of doing regular student teaching. He is loving it and will graduate from Weber State with his degree in Spanish Teaching in April. He will get to keep his job at Ben Lomond when he graduates, as long as they continue to like him that is ;-). Many parents of his students have come to him and told him that he is their child's favorite teacher. I am so proud of him! His instructional coach said that he has great classroom management already! He still wants to continue his education and get his Master's and Doctorate degrees, but he feels less rushed now. I just want him to be happy with wherever he is and will be proud of him no matter what he decided to do with his career in teaching. He is an excellent teacher and will do very well anywhere he goes. He is extremely excited about summer vacation. It will be his first summer not having to work since before his mission. I will also not be working so we are going to have to find something to entertain ourselves. We are going to be moving apartments! That will help keep us busy for at least a couple of weeks.

Six weeks ago I went to my doctor about pain I was having and to get my thyroid levels checked. I walked out of the office after finding that I had a cyst taking over my whole left ovary that was almost 7 cm and possibly a smaller cyst in my right ovary. It is also a possibility that I have Endometriosis (Google it), because of the type of pain I have been having. I have been on a super strong dose of birth control to try and get the cyst to shrink. It is continual dosage so I have to skip the sugar pill week. My body has not been pleased with this and I have been grumpy and tired. If the cyst had not shrunk in 6 weeks I was going to have to get surgery to get it removed and check for Endometriosis.

I went to the follow up appointment this week and my cyst has completely dissolved! Thank goodness! My doctor told me to stop the birth control today and get onto prenatal vitamins because it is possible that I have been drained of folic acid. Endometriosis is still a possibility but she is going to hold off on diagnosing that because the only way to really diagnose it is to have surgery I guess. If I still can't get pregnant after trying IUI then we will look more into that. So for now we are not trying aggressively to get pregnant but we are not preventing it. Once Abe finds out if we have to pay his full tuition then we are going to start being more aggressive with trying to get pregnant again. We will try fertility meds again and IUI.

This year for Christmas we have been doing the Light the World Calendar. It has been awesome. I love the focus on charity and it really does help get us in the Christmas spirit. I would suggest looking at it and trying it out. Even if you are not active in the church or LDS! It is a wonderful way to celebrate the birth and atonement of our Savior. He made a huge (that is an understatement) sacrifice for us and it is a wonderful feeling to try and give something back.

In Relief Society this past Sunday we also had a lesson on trying to be more like the Savior and obtaining his attributes. We were challenged to select two or more attributes that Christ has and studying about the attributes for ten days. Every day you will pick one attribute and find a scripture on that attribute that really touches you. Study it and pray about it (pray like you are speaking to a friend or parent) and ask for help on becoming more like Christ and obtaining that attribute.

I loved this challenge because the past year I have had a very hard time being patient and submissive. When first starting trying to get pregnant I was excited and hopeful. As almost three years of trying to get pregnant have passed by, and I have pretty much failed at being female, I realized that I was in the mindset that I want it now so I am going to get it now. That has just made me extremely unhappy and bitter (I pretty much have to stop myself from sobbing every time I see a pregnant woman and pregnancy announcements are like a stab in the heart. And do not get me started on all of the hurtful things that people say to you or just ignore about you when you've been trying for almost 3 years).

But I have had to come to an understanding that it is not my will, but God's will and I am just going to have to be submissive, patient and faithful. It is extremely difficult trying to switch my brain over and become submissive and patient. I am neither of those things really. This challenge is really helping me and it has been a wonderful opportunity to try and make myself more like our Savior. I would also suggest trying this challenge  if you are feeling like your faith may not be as strong as you would like it to be or if you are working on a specific attribute.

We hope that everyone is doing well and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

-Abe and Amanda

P.S. If anyone is or knows anyone who is going through fertility issues like we have, they are more than welcome to send me a message on Facebook. It is a poopy situation and the holidays are especially difficult. We are hoping to be more open about infertility and welcome any insights and would love to have some friends who understand and are going through this now!

Oh and my little sister Alexandria took some family photos for us. These are just a couple of them!

Fall Updates

Happy Fall Everyone!

School has been extremely busy. I am in my last semester of school and I am student teaching at Weber State's Children's School and I am also student teaching at a Head Start in Ogden. I am busy teaching until 4 pm and then I come home and do lots of hours of homework. Haha but it is good! I am so close to being done. I am very nervous because I have to pass two huge tests and I have one coming up in two weeks and one is in December. I am freaking out a little bit. I feel like I do not know enough. I have been loving student teaching though! The children at Head Start are amazing and I am so excited to graduate and hopefully I get a job at Head Start. Abe is also super busy. He is taking a few of his Spanish classes and he is also taking French. He had to take a long 4 hour test and go to an interview to get accepted into the education program here at Weber. Once he is accepted he will graduate in two semesters. So next December he will be done with his Bachelors! Then he wants to go on and get his Masters Degree and Doctorates. We think it would be fun to try and go to Spain or somewhere for him to get his Masters or Doctorates, but we will see what happens! I am very proud of him and all he does. He works so hard and he never complains. He is the best.

I did not get pregnant. So I am once again on birth control. I just want to relax and not stress about it anymore. I always felt miserable and down on myself and it sucked. So we are done. We will try again probably, but right now we just quit. And I am 100% sure I am not lucky enough to get pregnant on birth control so I just will focus on school, graduating, and getting a job.

Well that is all we have been up to!

~Amanda

Thyroid Tests and Clomid Cycle 2

Hello!
This is just a quick update on my thyroid and Clomid. I just got my TSH results and it is all normal! So I do not need to change my thyroid medication. That's a relief! I will be on thyroid medication for the rest of my life though. Which is fine and I was expecting that haha. I am just glad that the medicine worked and that my levels are now in the normal range. The nurse said that if I get pregnant they will up my dose of thyroid medicine, but I have to actually get pregnant first. But really I am very glad that, from what we can see, I have no real huge issues anymore and I am ovulating, so really, I can get pregnant and hopefully I do.

My second cycle of Clomid also went well! The second day I had a pretty bad headache for about an hour until Abe made me take medicine for it. Then it went away and I felt great. I did not get grumpy or gain weight. Which is awesome. I did ovulate again which is good. I am glad that my body responds to it so well and we are hoping that we are close to getting pregnant.

We have decided that if after my third cycle of Clomid we are not pregnant, we will stop trying. Just to relax and chill for awhile. I want to lose the weight I have gained since we got married and I am sure Abe just wants a normal wife back haha poor guy. He has been so amazing through all of this and he has not once blamed me or gotten upset with me. He really is the best husband ever. I do not think anyone else would deal with me like he does haha. I am very thankful that he is my husband. I love him very much. If we manage to get pregnant I will definitely let everyone know on here and keep updates. If we do not and we reach the point where we take a break from trying, then I will let everyone know that too and do little updates on what we are up to with school and our lives. Thanks for all of the love and support everyone has given us! It means a lot! Have a good week!

~Amanda

The Day I Decided to be Cheap

Hello All!

I have decided to write about my wonderful experience of trying to save our little family money. Our apartment complex here in Ogden is fairly old. There are not many new apartments in this area and the new ones are way more expensive than a young married college couple can afford. So our plumbing and drains are not the best quality and every three months the sinks get clogged and we have to go to the store and waste money on something that unclogs the sink. Well this time I was sick of spending $5-$10 on Drain-O or some other brand. I looked up a few ways on Pinterest of how to unclog sinks in a cheaper way and finding good reviews, I bought baking soda and vinegar instead Drain-O. 

I got home and was all pumped to finally have a bathroom sink that drains and I saved money doing it and I had enough supplies to last me a year of unclogging the sink. I looked up the exact way of how to use the ingredients together and how to put them in my sink to get the optimum results. I followed the instructions step by step. I let it sit, then I poured hot water into the sink to get everything down like the directions said. It wasn't draining at all now. Not one bit. So I left it alone for 30 minutes to see if maybe it was but just super slow. I came back and it was still full of hot water. So I thought I did something wrong. I immediately called my parents house to ask my mom what her secret was, because she told me how great it worked. I called and my dad informed me that she got home from work at about 9 a.m, and so I asked him, and he told me to plunge it. I was thinking huh weird. Sounds odd, but I figured I would give it a try. 

I go back into the bathroom, determined to have a sink that drains. I grab our plunger and stick it in the sink and push down as hard as I can..... Now if your sink is clogged, apparently water goes up into the draining holes. 

I pushed down and the most disgusting black goopy water came shooting out of those draining holes. It literally got all over me, our sink, our mirror and the floor. I wanted to die. It was so gross and smelled terrible... and I was covered in it. I was so shocked I literally sat there for a good 30 seconds wondering what the heck to do.I am so glad my mouth was closed then I pushed down on that plunger. Thankfully I had moved our toothbrushes and my hair brush into another room. I grabbed everything off of the sink, gagging as I was going, and threw it into the shower, turned on scalding hot water, and washed everything off. Then I got to work on myself. Then I finally cleaned the bathroom up. 

My sink is still clogged and I am waiting for Abraham to get home so that we can go to the store together because I have already been there once today. I learned my lesson. I am never going the cheap route again. I love those chemicals that unclog my sink. They are worth the money. And I love showers and soap.

Amanda

Summer Updates!

Hello!
Still no luck with getting pregnant. All of my blood tests have come back. It is all looking good. My thyroid is the only problem still but it is a stable problem, if that makes sense. My levels are a stable high. I have a blood test for that in two weeks to check to see if my thyroid levels have gone down. Hopefully they have! The blood test I had to check if I ovulated came back and I did. I ovulated a good egg, but it just didn't take. I start my second cycle of Clomid on Friday. Hopefully it goes as well as it did last time. I had no symptoms last time and I ovulated so hopefully the same goes for this time. Thankfully it worked wonders on spotting in between periods. That was so awesome! It was great to not have to wonder if I was going to start two weeks early. So now it is just more waiting and hoping and praying. I was so hoping that the Clomid would be the key to getting pregnant, and I tried not getting my hopes up too high, but it was hard and I was still crushed when I started having PMS and my period started. Every month I tell myself not to get my hopes up, but I fail every time. Anyways! On to other more fun topics.

Abe and I have had a fun summer! We went to my family reunion. We ate yummy food and went swimming. That is always great! My sweet cousin Isabelle cried when it was over because she just wanted it to last forever haha. She is adorable. We went to Idaho and visited our families on the Fourth of July. We had fireworks with Abe's family on the third. My dad joined us for that and it was like the funniest thing ever. My dad got so excited about the fireworks and he had s much fun. I loved seeing that. He talked about it for days after. On the Fourth we had lunch with Abe's family. Then we drove to Idaho Falls and hung out with my family and watched the firework show there. We had a great time with both families. We went to an Ogden Raptors MILB game. I loved it! We had so much fun.

The Raptors also won! That was awesome haha. We are hoping to go to another game soon. School also starts in a little over a month. We are not exactly excited for that. I have a lot of preparation I need to do still for student teaching and another class I am in. It should be exciting! I hopefully pass all of my classes and graduate in December. Well we hope everyone is having an awesome summer!

Amanda and Abraham

Blood Test Results!

Hello!
Happy late 4th of July! Just a few updates today. Abe and I are now both 23! I finished my first Clomid cycle a week ago. I had no side effects with it. I did not even get grumpy! So that was great! Some more good news! I have lost 5 pounds! Which is awesome! I finally got my blood results! I thought they were gonna call me, they had not called, but I got sick of waiting and I called them. There is nothing wrong with my ovaries. Actually, the Ovarian Assessment Report was good. I am in the top 80th percentile. Which means I have more eggs than 80% of women my age. And my eggs are healthy. My score was 16 which means my egg supply is excellent. Because of this news, that means the PCOS is not bad at all. They said I do have a tiny bit of ovulation dysfunction. The Clomid should help with that.
The kicker is that my thyroid levels were really high, which is not good or a surprise. My mom had thyroid problems and cancer and my grandma has had thyroid problems. My levels were like 5. something and for maximum fertility they should be around 2. something. So I am going to go onto medication to stabilize and lower those levels. I have more blood tests next week and then again in three weeks to retest my thyroid levels. We are so glad that the PCOS is not bad and that thyroid problems are a bit easier to fix than ovary problems. Hopefully we will get pregnant here in a few months! Thanks for all of the support and help I have received from everyone! I received a few Facebook messages and texts from friends and I want you guys to know that you helped me a lot. Thank you so much for that! Have a good week!

-Amanda