Jed & Lori + 4

I didn’t go to church on Sunday. I just couldn’t do it. The ward theme this month has been “families”. Eternal families, and having children and if your not having children, WHY NOT?!! It has been a difficult thing to listen to because we are trying to accomplish both the eternal thing and the procreating thing and neither one seems to be getting any results. So sitting in church for three hours each week listening to all of that has been very emotionally draining and I just could not do it one more week!

So here’s the scoop on why it has been so emotional. We quit using birth control in December. That was the deal we made when we got married…let’s wait a year and then see what happens. Nothing happened for 4 months. I got some basic blood work done and the Dr. said it looked like my hormones were a little out of whack. He also said that if I wanted to get pregnant I would need to loose a lot weight. Personally, I don't buy it. I know a lot of overweight people who can still get pregnant. He didn’t give me a lot of hope.

So I went to see an OB/GYN to get a little more detail on what was really going on. Most OB’s won’t talk to you about this until you’ve been trying to get pregnant for at least a year. I was lucky and found one who really listened to me and seemed to understand that I needed to know what was going on with my body. He ordered more blood tests. (Taken at the right time and in the right manner. i.e. fasting etc.) We found out my estrogen levels are low, but other than that everything else is good. He didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t get pregnant without a little help. Hope was returned.

I started taking a drug called Clomid. It’s supposed to stimulate ovulation. You see, when your estrogen levels are low, you don’t ovulate. If you don’t ovulate, you can’t get pregnant. You take the drugs on days 5-9 of your cycle. On day 10 you start doing ovulation testing for about 10 days. Yep, I have to take drugs for five days that make me extremely emotional and give me hot flashes like nothing I’ve experienced before and then I get to pee on sticks for 10 more days to see if the drug actually worked. And then, if the ovulation testing tells me that yes indeed I am ovulating, I have to quickly plan a “get together” with my husband in the next 24-48 hours. Very romantic, huh? Then we have to wait to see if all that work pays off in either a positive pregnancy test or the beginning of a new cycle.

Once again this week, my body told me what in my heart I already knew. Not Pregnant. The whole drama would have to start over again. I will be starting my fourth round of drugs this week. I hate it! I hate it that we didn’t just get pregnant right off. I hate having to keep track of every single detail of my reproductive cycle. I hate being even more emotional than my normal self. I’m sure Jed doesn’t like it too much either as he is the one who gets to deal with my craziness. I hate it that every time I go to a ward activity it seems like all the talk is centered on children. I feel so left out and wonder if I will ever get to join that club. I know it’s only been 9 months since we have been trying to get pregnant. I have friends who have been dealing with infertility for much longer than we have and they've had to deal with so much more than we have. We are just starting this journey and hope it will end soon. It's so hard not to feel down and get frustrated and yet keep hope alive that all of this work will somehow produce what we ultimately want…a healthy baby in our arms.

And so I am asking for a small favor from you. Please pray for us. Please pray that we will be able to keep hope alive and be blessed with the opportunity to have a child. We need all the help we can get!