Faith Hope Love

The Room

There is a room in our house that didn't get put together right when we moved in. It has the access to the attic and we had work to be done in there prior to putting it together. Between the time of moving in and the time the work was done, there was a small window where I thought it could go straight to the nursery, but that pregnancy wasn't viable.

We've put the room together now as a second guest bedroom, and last weekend I dug out some signs we have from our wedding with words on them. I dug out faith, hope, and love for this room, because it felt like words that represent our journey towards parenthood.

Faith - we can't understand why it's been hard for us. In fact, to date, they have found no medical explanation. But faith that there is a reason, and that God knows the desires of our heart. Our faiths have been stretched and grown in ways we could have never fathomed through this process. Faith in our medical team and in the knowledge and research that has happened. Faith in each other and our relationship is we continue on this journey.

Hope - we've been given brief glimpses of hope, but lots of this journey has been fighting to not loose hope amidst the the 2 steps forward and 10 steps back. Hope for the next step. Hope for the future. Hope.

Love - we have a love for our two angel babies we never met. We have a love for our future children in whatever manner we may have them. Our love for each other has been changed, transformed, and strengthened by this process.

IVF

In some ways I'm still digesting we are at the point of IVF. In other ways, it feels like it took forever to get here and let's get rolling already. In other ways yet it seems like a blink of an eye and we were here. Somewhere in the back of my head I always knew this is where we would land, but secretly hoped we wouldn't. I had no reason to believe that... just one of those hunches.

We now have Day 3 shots in the books. Tomorrow I go in to find out if they are working or not. It's anxiety producing... because they could say it's a failed cycle or they could say we're right on track. Either produces anxiety. We truly have to live day by day right now.

For the first night of shots Jared stood by as emotional support. The dog was also extra interested in what mom was doing so he steered her clear. Giving myself shots isn't hard. However, I did check the doses a billion times before giving them to myself. And boy do they sting. I guess it's payback for all the shots I've given so many patients in the past that sting.

I have some side effects that have kicked in already, some I know will only continue to worsen. Gas, bloating, hormone headache. But we know what we want, and it's worth the fight and discomfort.

Grasps for Control

It's funny how in this process you grasp at whatever you can for control. Literally. I research every little thing before doing it afraid I might mess something up.

We did acupuncture yesterday to try and reduce stress. I had actually forgotten to double check with our doctor if it was ok. Then he had a new podcast out about things you could do to help improve your chances with IVF and he mentioned acupuncture... phew he's ok with it.

Infertility is one of the few things that effort doesn't equal positive outcomes. But being the Type A person I am, I want to do everything I can. It gives me a little peace to know I've at least done what I can.

Our doctor is very big on lifestyle changes, which many of the things Jared and I already did. He actually said he didn't have to educate us much on changing our lifestyle because of how we already lived. But there were a few things we did change by his advisement.

We've reduced our red meat to minimal consumption. We've increased our intake of plant proteins, we use a lot of lentils. Even if we do chicken, a lot of times I'll do half chicken and half lentils. We have reduced our daily intake of added sugar to 30 grams a day (at least most of the time). We've cut back on dairy, Jared actually took it completely out after realizing it was causing a lot of digestive issues. Prior to even seeing our doctor we had been working on reducing our plastic in our house and toxic chemicals.

These are just little things we do that help us feel like we have a tiny bit of control in an out of control situation. Can anyone else relate?

So here we are. On the next part of our journey that we will have to wait each day to see what it will bring. Leaning on faith. Grasping for hope. Clinging to love.