Even though I don’t have the ending yet, I think I’m ready to write about the beginning.
Because we’ve already come so far.
God has transformed our lives in the past year, and I look back in absolute awe of His tender mercy and love.
Last October, I went off birth control. Looking back, I can see how the decision was a lot more about me than it was about Adam. I was ready. My internal clock was ticking. I wanted a baby. And Adam? He was scared. He was trying to figure out how we would financially care for a new baby. He was being logical, while I was thinking only with my heart. We weren’t united.
Those first few months were (I now know) filled with trying in vain. My period never came on time. I’d have one or two days of bleeding, followed by a few weeks of nothing, followed by more intermittent bleeding. There was no rhyme of reason to any of it. I’d be on a “period” of some kind for two or three weeks a month; sometimes less, sometimes more. I knew it wasn’t right.
I made an appointment with my primary care physician, who sat me down and, with a smile, told me that babies were worth waiting for. That we should just give it some time—coming off birth control can have weird effects on a menstrual cycle, and we should just wait it out.
And for about five months, we did.
During that time, I became obsessed. I scoured the internet for information on getting pregnant, on irregular menstrual cycles, and on anything else I could point to as a “symptom” I needed to fix. I charted. I tracked my cervical mucus changes (I know, ew) and I did anything and everything else that I thought might help me figure out my body.
I was an emotional wreck. I was angry. It seemed like everyone I knew had what I wanted--everyone was getting pregnant and sharing the good news. And I was selfish. I’m embarrassed to admit that I locked myself in our bathroom on more than one occasion to sit on the floor and cry myself a pity party over the announcement of a friend’s pregnancy. I couldn’t see past the end of my own nose—everything was about me.
That wasn’t a pretty place to be. I was making myself depressed. I’d go to work everyday and look at these precious little people and I’d think, “Why not me, Lord? Why can’t I have that?” I was hurting, and instead of running to God, I was blaming Him. I was letting my infertility define me, rather than letting my God define me.
Finally, in April, we decided that we needed to see a specialist. My PCP (who is a family practitioner who specializes in family medicine and baby birthing) is a very kind woman, but I just didn’t feel like she was taking me seriously. She wanted me to wait it out. She’d smile at me and pat my knee. She’d remind me how young I was. I felt like I was in this whole thing alone, and I knew in my heart that it was time to move on from her care.
So, never having had a OB/GYN before, I did the only thing I could think of: I called every OB/GYN in the phone book and left desperate message after increasingly desperate message begging them to see me. I was crushed when no one could.
In desperation, I finally just googled “infertility specialist in Portland”. I knew that my options in Salem were slim to none. The first link that popped up for was the OHSU Fertility Specialists. After poking around on their website for a while, I was quickly convinced that I needed an appointment with these people. Little did I know that getting one would be no small miracle in itself.
The day I called, a wonderful woman at the front desk (who I now know quite well) answered in the affirmative to my question of whether or not they were accepting patients. After I stopped hyperventilating, I explained—in probably way too much detail—our need for fertility help and begged for an appointment. She told me that we were probably looking at needing to schedule at least a couple months out. My heart sank, but I told her that I’d just be willing to take any appointment she could find.
Imagine my shock when I heard a slight hesitation, then her voice telling me that an appointment had just opened up for Monday (this was the Friday before) at 8AM. She asked if I wanted it. Did I want it? Oh sweet Jesus, give me the appointment!!
I called Adam absolutely frantic with excitement. We were finally going to see someone who could help us.
At this point, I don’t think I was really taking this seriously. Yeah, we were having trouble getting pregnant, but I didn’t seriously think anything was wrong with me. I thought it would be an easy fix; maybe some fertility medications and then we’d be good to go.
At our first appointment at OHSU, our doctor (who graduated Cum Laude from YALE…how’s that for a confidence builder?) asked us all sorts of questions to learn about our lifestyle. When we answered that we’d only had one sexual partner (each other), didn’t smoke or drink, and had never done illegal drugs, his jaw pretty much hit the floor. At least we could cross “undiagnosed STDs” off the list as potential problems in our baby quest.
That appointment consisted of blood draws to test for all sorts of things—thyroid function, androgen production, presence of FSH, etc. etc. It also consisted of my very first-ever vaginal ultrasound. I’ll spare you those details—let’s just say the probe looks like a microphone and they stick it up where the sun don’t shine. Oh boy!
What that initial ultrasound revealed shattered my belief that everything was fine. My little ovaries looked like this:
Normal ovaries should look like this:
The black spots on the ultrasound images are follicles. My ovaries were polycystic. Meaning, lots of follicles (what holds the egg…think of it as a launch pad) but none being stimulated to maturity each month. Basically, if you think of each ovary like a baseball field, there should only be one player up to bat at a time. In my ovaries, I had the whole team standing at home plate trying to hit a home run simultaneously….and nobody was connecting with the ball.
My doctor’s initial thought was that I had PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), but he hesitated because I didn’t have any of the clinical signs of the disease. I’m not obese, I don’t produce excess androgens (male hormones) and I don’t have excessive facial hair (oh thank you sweet Jesus). So what he ended up concluding was that, while my ovaries are most definitely polycystic, I do not have PCOS. What does that mean? We don’t know exactly. The treatment for polycystic ovaries is the same as the treatment for PCOS, so while my doctor knew exactly what direction we needed to go, my official diagnosis was polycystic ovaries and unexplained infertility.
Unexplained infertility. I find that fascinating, because by the very nature of that diagnosis God is being glorified. Science can’t explain why my ovaries are polycystic, and why I am unable to fertilize an egg naturally. Science can’t explain it, because life is miraculous. God’s plan for the creation of life is absolutely beyond comprehension; it blows my mind. Let me share with you some information I learned during this stage in the journey:
Each month, you have a 2-3 day window during which you are actually fertile. This is the period after the egg has been released from the follicle and pushed out of the ovary. The egg is only viable outside the ovary for a period of 24 hours before it dies. So, the 2-3 day window really refers to the time frame during which you can have intercourse and have a reasonable chance of live sperm meeting a live egg. Finding your “window” is, in itself, an extremely complicated math problem that proves almost impossible unless you are ridiculously regular. There are minute changes in hormone levels that can be detected through ovulation tests and daily temperature charting, but by the time you pick up these changes, it’s usually too late. You’ve already ovulated.
Even for those who chart everything correctly and pinpoint the right days of the month during which you are fertile, you’re far from a sure thing. Under ideal circumstances, where the sperm and the egg meet and the timing is perfect, you only have a 20% chance of becoming pregnant. That’s in perfect conditions.
That doesn’t even begin to touch on the number of “chemical pregnancies” that occur--and are lost--before you ever know you were pregnant.
Are you beginning to wonder how “accidental” pregnancies can possibly happen? It’s miraculous and can only be attributed to our Mighty God.
The female reproductive system is an amazing baby-making machine. And science just can’t explain it. Even in the IVF process, the doctors can only go so far as to create an embryo and put it into the uterus. They cannot force it to attach. They don’t know how. They don’t understand how that process works. The miracle of life can be unraveled only by God himself.
After our initial consultation, our doctor put us on Clomid—a fertility drug—to force my ovaries to stimulate an egg. I started on 50mg. That first month, we were disappointed to find out that the Clomid did not work. Our monthly ultrasounds revealed my largest follicle at only 8mm on cycle day 21. Normal cycles ovulate on or near day 14 and the optimum follicle size for ovulation is 22mm. As you can see, I wasn’t even close.
We were so discouraged, but it was at this point that God began pulling at my heart—mending the broken pieces and stitching it together to mirror His. God was revealing to me His plan for this journey, and I began to long for time spent with Him. I felt His presence in a way I’ve never felt it before, in a way that can only be found through complete surrender and dependence. I felt like God was asking me to walk this journey for Him, to use our story as a mouthpiece for His glory, and to rest in the knowledge that He would be there each step of the journey. I started this blog that very day.
It was also during this time that I sat with my husband in the parking lot at his work for two hours, talking and praying with him as he made the decision to rededicate his life to the Lord. A few weeks later, I watched as he was baptized.
Coincidence? No. God’s remarkable grace.
The next month, we were put on 100mg of Clomid, and for two months, it worked. My ovaries were stimulated enough to produce an egg, and although I don’t produce the hormone that triggers ovulation, I was able to take a shot subcutaneously (injected under the skin on my stomach) to force the egg to release. Despite our success in ovulation, we were not successful in achieving pregnancy.
I think this almost takes us up to today. As you know, last month the Clomid decided not to work. That’s the “unexplained” portion of our infertility rearing its ugly head. At our last appointment for that month, my doctor gave us the bleak news that he didn’t expect Clomid to work. Our chances for achieving a pregnancy this way had taken a nosedive.
And that led us to IVF. I’ll be honest; we were terrified. I knew next to nothing about the process, and I had visions of discarded embryos and sextuplets dancing in my head. But again, God’s grace reached us even in that place of fear. His grace led us to the home of a precious family that had experienced IVF before, who had built their family through this miraculous therapy, and who were willing to come alongside us and minister to us as brothers and sisters in Christ. It can only be described as God moment. And a powerful one at that.
In talking with this couple, and reading their blog, we realized that the doctor who had performed their IVF procedures years before was the same doctor who would be doing ours. They were one and the same. And they brought up the point that maybe, just maybe, this journey isn’t about us.
And that’s powerful.
It’s powerful to step outside your own little world and look at the big picture. Maybe Adam and I have a role to play in someone else’s story. It’s certainly not a coincidence that our doctor has encountered two couples who love the Lord and are committed to honoring Him through the IVF process. It’s certainly not a coincidence.
My prayer is that God uses us in a mighty way, to bring about a saving knowledge of who He is and of His unfailing love. My prayer is to be used as a mouthpiece; that I may reflect His love in all that I say and do.
And, of course, I pray for a baby Breitenstein :)
Today, all the fear and anxiety of the early days has been replaced with joy. And that’s a God thing. The strength I’ve found to face this giant does not come from me. “It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.” 2 Samuel 22:33
Today, Adam and I are, to the very core of our being, united on this journey. We’re united in our deepest desire to be parents. To have little precious babies call us mommy and daddy. We’re ready.
I feel like God has taken us on a yearlong honeymoon—inviting us to know Him, to rest in Him, and to trust Him. He has ministered to my heart and given me an intimate and tender knowledge of who He is. I am forever grateful. I am forever changed.
And I wouldn’t trade a single moment. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead, to meet my babies, and to share each step of the journey with you.
