Gaudete Indeed

I imagined many times what it would be like to write this post. I had hoped for this day for many years.

I am pregnant. What a heavy yet ordinary sentence. Having been dealing with infertility and reproductive issues for almost 10 years (well more than 10yrs if you count the horrendously painful cycles and awful PMS I started to have in high school) my mind is trying to understand that I am growing a human being in my body. Prior miscarriage coupled with the years of infertility make this experience for me so much different than your average pregnant mother. I have to exercise my anxiety and scrupulosity calming muscle A LOT more these days.

Taking things day by day and moment by moment is a challenge. So, I just have to go on with what I know right now which is that I am pregnant and my levels are looking great so far. Somedays I hate chicken but love red meat and vice versa. I need to praise God for the present moment and trust Him for the next. I need to be joyful and not just cautious about this pregnancy. There is a new life created through the merciful hand of God working through the ordinary function of our human bodies which He created.

Did I tell you yet that I did not do any trigger shots? I ovulated on my own this cycle and twice to boot once on each side! My usually low fertility signs were amazing on their own without any extra enhancer supplements! And my progesterone was looking great post peak with just taking the standard oral dose and no post peak hcg! When I went in for my NaPro appt. after the detox was done the doctor was pleased with how my chart looked so we scheduled an u/s for a week later to check for ovulation or a LUF. Well at the u/s appt. she confirmed ovulation on the right (which made me a little sad since that tube is blocked completely). She reminded me that the left tube can still pick up the egg from the right side so all hope was not lost. Then she went over to check the left and said "Well, you little over achiever! There is a corpus luteum on this side as well. Thank you Jesus!"

 After the u/s we asked what the plans were for the next cycle. Then she said since I ovulated I did not need the trigger shots any more or post peak hcg shots since my progesterone came back great. I also did not need to do the detox supplements longer. She said basically just keep up with the nutrition plan, take some supplements that I was on prior to detox and my usual post peak progesterone. That was it! She would monitor to make sure there was no LUF each cycle but there was no official cycle plan. Little did we know that conception had already taken place and new life had sprung forth!

 Crazy, right?! I am so used to getting bad news or needing to tweak something that I was stunned to not have such a regimented cycle plan to follow. I LOVE that God showed off His skills because really this could only be Him. I mean come on, I ovulated twice and I was one who had  LUFS for years! I could not ovulate on my own without a trigger shot. That is totally God at work!

We tested on P+13 which was on a Sunday in October and it was actually the Feast of Christ the King in the Traditional Latin Mass calendar. I said a prayer before and just gave it all to God knowing that I would be OK either way. When I read the test I thought it was negative because it was not the tests that I am used to taking, JJ got a different brand this time. So, when I read the test I sighed and said "OK God not this cycle. You are still Christ the King." Then as I was getting ready to throw the test out with the box I glanced at the box and gasped. I had read the test wrong! It was positive! I kept saying "Wait, what?" over and over again which concerned JJ so he started coming toward the bathroom. I took the test to him and showed him that it was positive!

 What a turn of events and emotions in a short amount of time. It is a moment that I hope I never forget. It felt different than when we found out about Cecilia. With Cecilia we were on cloud 9 and excited. With this baby our emotions have been more subdued, calm and peaceful. We don't have any rose colored glasses on and we know we have to take things day by day because we have a long road to July. We are excited yet realistic knowing that we entrust this little one to God and His plans for his/her life. I feel the weight of this responsibility and I am humbled and thankful to be entrusted with this little life.

 I had many years to get comfortable with carrying the cross of infertility and miscarriage. Now, I hope I have many years to get used to carrying the cross of parenthood. My prayer is that I get to meet this baby, have them Baptized and they become a saint.  I want God's will. That is all I want.

Gaudete! Deo Gratias!

Calling It Quits...

After much prayer and discernment JJ and I have decided to stop NaPro treatments at the end of the year. We are going to give it six more months and then we are going to move on to pursuing adoption full force or not pursue anything. It is a tiring journey to go through medical treatments to have a family. We feel like we have been at this much longer than we have and I feel much older than I am. We were originally thinking that the surgery would be the last thing we would do but after talking we decided that we still want to hold onto having more biological children.

I went to confession the other day which then turned into a private Mass that JJ and I got to go to with one of our favorite priests. Well I turned confession into a little bit of spiritual direction because I was so desperate for some spiritual counsel. I brought up the confusion on whether to continue with NaPro or to give it up. The priest, who knows our story very well, said "I don't think you are ready to give it up just yet. From what I know of you and JJ you really want to live out your vocation with children. The fact that you were able to conceive before shows that there is hope for more biological children.  There is no harm or sin in stopping NaPro but maybe you should give it to the end of the year." His words were confirmation on what we have been thinking! Then we had Mass which we were one of the intentions and he prayed that God would bless us with children. It was such a blessed time and exactly what we needed to get us through the next 6 months of treatments and hoping to have more biological children.

So that is our plan and hopefully by our 6 year anniversary in Dec. we will be pregnant or have some direction on what God wants from us. We are going to not take anything to help me ovulate for 2 cycles to see if the wedge resection helps me to ovulate on my own, then we are going to try Fe.mara again for 2 cycles and then our last resort will be 2 cycles of the dreaded clomid. I figure I am willing to go all in for the next six months knowing that there will be an end in sight. I will not do endless cycles of drugs, it is just too hard on me and my body. We will also still be doing a gluten and dairy free as well as low sugar diet plus our supplements and exercise.

I don't know if after the six months we will stop NaPro forever or just take a break for a year or more but God will let us know in time and it is nice to know that we can pick it back up again if we feel inclined to.

Please pray for us! This is a very trying journey. We are both feeling tired and weary probably more so me than JJ as I am the one whose body is going through all of this. I feel like I am on the last leg of a marathon and I need to dig deep within me to find the strength to finish strong. I was never an athlete but I know what endurance is and I feel like I need some of that right now. I will be stepping it up in my prayer life or at least trying to because His grace is what is going to get me through. We are praying for a miracle this next six months and above all we pray God's will be done in our lives!

Recovery

Well I am back! The recovery process is going well and JJ is doing an amazing job at being my caretaker. I really am very blessed to have him. I am not gonna lie it is a painful recovery, she did take out part of my left ovary and played around with my right Fallopian tube a lot. I have been taking the pain medication regularly so that I am able to do some stuff on my own. I hate taking pain medication but I will admit that it is helping me do things like eat, stand, walk, you know all of the hard stuff ;)

During surgery I wrote out a specific plan of prayers for my mom and JJ to say, I know I am so choleric. As I was waking up from the surgery I couldn't help but smile. The nurses probably thought I was the strangest patient but it felt so right to smile I was alive and the surgery was done. Every time one of the nurses came to check on me I tried to smile and say thank you so that even in me weakest moments I could show love and appreciation to them. All of the nurses that took care of me were so gentle and patient. Nurses rock!

I felt challenged to be a gentle and appreciative patient when I first got there because they tried 3 different places to put the IV because my veins are so tiny. I told them that it would only go on my right arm but they said they had to try the left arm and right hand first. It really hurt especially when they tried my right hand so I closed my eyes and prayed to be united more to Jesus in his sufferings of his pierced hands. The poor nurse felt so bad I think she almost started crying and she apologized a lot. I just tried to smile and tell her that it was ok, I understood they had a procedure to follow. I now have some pretty nasty bruises from that ordeal but at least it is over.

My NaPro Dr. was amazed that she did the wedge resection on only one ovary. She said "it is rare that this happens where only one ovary is showing signs of PCOS especially since they were both showing signs of PCOS at your last surgery almost 2 yrs. ago" and I said "well miracles still happen don't they Doc." I love having a Catholic/Christian Dr. who believes in miracles! She cleared me to go home on Friday and we have a follow up appt. with her in 2 weeks.

As I was becoming more coherent after the surgery JJ told me the details. I was amazed that my body is so mismatched with one non PCOS ovary and one tube that was open. Hopefully now after the surgery they will all work together and get back on track! I am glad I asked her to do the HSG to check my tubes at the last minute so that we discovered the blockage on the right. She said that my pregnancy with Cecilia was probably ectopic and that is why it was blocked because of the scarred tissue. When I heard this I was sad and comforted at the same time. Knowing that I miscarried so early means that Cecilia was itty bitty when she died and if she would have grown any bigger I could have had a rupture, lost the right tube or worse died. So in a sense my baby saved my life, oh how I miss her and can't wait to meet her in heaven! The good Doc said that next time I get pregnant we would have to be more vigilant with blood draws and ultrasound to make sure it is not ectopic. When she said "next time you get pregnant" I had a strong sense of hope that it can happen again. This is was a rare occasion that I allowed myself to hope again and the good Doc seemed very hopeful too.

We had a bit of a funny situation happen the day we left. I was staying in the women's center which includes labor and delivery patients as well, there weren't too many patients there which was nice. I got my own room and JJ was able to stay overnight with me both nights. Well on the day I was discharged a volunteer came in to refill my water pitcher and when she left she said "congratulations!" JJ and I looked at each other and laughed, yes congratulations to us our tubes are open and only one ovary is showing PCOS, woohoo! We didn't have the heart to tell her we didn't just have a baby so I think we said thank you.

Coming home was rough because it took about 2 hrs. and the freeways were a bit bumpy, ouch! It was so nice to walk in the door at home though I feel so much more relaxed. I finally felt strong enough to shower this morning and it felt so good but it was so tiring. I hadn't showered since tuesday night so I really needed to shower. When you can't do basic things on your own you really start to be thankful for what you can do.

I am now resting from my morning activities and waiting for lunch to be ready. I am taking any Netflix recommendations and looking forward to catching up on reading blogs so write some good stuff to entertain me :)

I would like to thank all of you who have been praying for me! I appreciate it more than you know and have felt covered in prayer. There are others who are going through much worse than me and it humbles me that there are people who have been praying for me. I know that it is because of prayer that this experience has not been too bad, know that you are all in my prayers!

Surgery Update

Kat's surgery was yesterday. Dr. Awesome said that everything went very well. It turns out that only the left ovary was polysistic and the right one was fine. This is miraculous because both ovaries were not looking so good two years ago. So the wedge resection was done on the one and then the Fallopian tubes were checked. Flip the script; the left one was fine but the right one was blocked. The good doc was able to unblock it and then proceeded to exit and close the incision. Kat was in recovery for a while, then she got her own room and will be at the hospital until tomorrow. For today, she is ready to eat solid food and get up and try to walk and such. The pain of the incision is minimally tolerable with out medication at this point and she is in and out of sleep. Aside from this, she is looking beautiful and cute. Her courage is inspiring and little by little she will be getting stronger and soon blogging again. Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes. Praised be the Lord Jesus Christ.

Practitioner Diary

As a Creighton Model FertilityCare practitioner, you run into interesting situations, especially when people ask me what I do for a living. So I was not that surprised when one of these interesting situations happened recently. You know the ones where you know God was working and put you in the right place at the right time.

The other day I was walking into my blood draw lab for my usual monthly blood work, I noticed a woman who could not have been older than 25 sitting on the curb with her head down. I noticed the band around her arm and figured she just had her blood drawn and was feeling a bit dizzy. I went inside to sign in and felt this need to talk to this woman, a motherly pull to make sure she was okay. Her mom was with her outside to make sure she didn't faint and her husband was inside watching their stuff. They came back inside and took her to the back room so she can lay down.

When her mom came back in the lobby I just had to ask if her daughter needed food or sugar in her system, which I offered. As a recovering hypoglycemic I always carry food in my purse. She said she was doing a fasting blood draw for the next 3 hours so she couldn't eat anything. I asked if she was hypoglycemic and they said that is what the Drs. are testing her for. We started talking about the symptoms of hypoglycemia and during the conversation I asked if she had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). Realizing that I may have gotten too personal, I felt embarrassed. Her mom and husband looked at me and said " how did you know?" I explained to them that I have PCOS and hypoglycemia and that they are very common to have together.

I started telling them about my treatment and recovery process, then dratz my name was called! Thank God for my wonderful husband JJ who has gone to every blood draw with me because at that point he took over the conversation with them. I went into the back room so the vampires could take my blood and I identified with the woman laying down. She was laying there in her sickness and probably embarrassed by her weakness. I know I have been embarrassed by mine many times. Trying not to stare I said a prayer for her as they were taking my blood.

I went back into the lobby and jumped back into the conversation. As the conversation progressed the woman came back in the lobby and sat next to her husband, her ears were probably burning because we were talking about her. Her mother told her that I have the same condition that she has. I started to explain my journey and the woman started to cry because she could identify with the struggle I have gone through. I explained that the Drs. I went to thought I was crazy, that my illness was all in my head, and they wanted to put me on anti-anxiety medication and birth control pills. She said she was on an anti-depressant that her Dr. prescribed her and that they were going to put her on the pill to start her cycles. I explained to her why I refused the Drs. protocol. It was because I knew there was something going on and that there had to be a way to fix it or at least make it manageable without just putting a band aid of medication on it. As I was explaining my journey the woman kept nodding her head and saying that's exactly what the Drs. told her.

I told them about my naturopath and my awesome NaPro Dr. They seemed very excited to hear that there can be a better way of managing PCOS. Then I went into my practitioner/science geek mode of explaining PCOS and how to treat it. JJ told them that I could help them by having the woman start to chart her cycles. I gave them my information and Dr. Awesome's card so they can look into more information. I hope and pray that they at least have one appointment with Dr. Awesome, I know they will not regret it.

At different points in the conversation I noticed the woman's manner changed from embarrassment, to sadness to anger then to relief and empowerment. Why, so many different emotions? Well embarrassment and sadness come from being sick and having your hormones out of whack. Anger comes from the fact that all these years you thought the problem was all in your head and it was not! Anger comes from Drs. not giving you the time of day and paying them just to tell you they have no idea how to help you only by giving you a medication that is a class 1 carcinogen and can cause cancer! Relief comes from knowing that you are not alone in this battle and that others have gone through similar situations. Empowerment comes from the knowledge about your fertility and femininity.

With Creighton we say that every woman has a right to know about her fertility and her cycles. She has a right to know what her body is doing and to get medical treatment if need be. When a woman has this knowledge she sees her fertility as a gift; not a disease that needs to be destroyed by artificial hormones. She becomes more feminine, confident and beautiful. This is why I do what I do and I love my job! I love working with women and being a detective to help uncover the mystery of their fertility. Being a support on each client's journey, I am humbled that my clients allow me into this part of their life. I understand that it is not easy for them and I don't take it for granted.

I love that God doesn't have to show me why He has me where He does, but He does anyway!

Advent...waiting

So I was going to partake in Conversion Diary's quick-takes this week but I have been so busy and lazy to post anything. My life with Creighton as a practitioner intern has been busy this week and next week promises to be even crazier. I was suppose to take Dec. off from doing intro. sessions so I can focus on the paper work aspect and prepare for my supervisor visit hopefully in Jan. but a couple called me this week and I couldn't resist. So I am doing an individual intro. for them this week and I have follow-ups every night this week plus a wedding on Saturday of a dear friend who was in my wedding. Saturday I had Creighton stuff all day. We had an appt. with our practitioner(yes I go see my practitioner still I had been having issues in my chart), then I had clients of my own Saturday afternoon, and in the evening I gave a talk at a Young Adult Group here in L.A. about NFP and Creighton/NaPro. So a few things on Saturday got me thinking and reflecting today.

The first thing is that we have been doing NaPro and using Creighton for about two years now, prior to using Creighton we used the sympto-thermal method for two years. We loved the sympto-thermal method for the time we used it but we needed medical intervention hence Creighton. Our practitioner M pointed out to us how far we've come since we started our journey with NaPro. When we first started all we wanted was a baby and to have healthier cycles. We were so focused on our will and having biological children, we did not want to be labeled infertile or subfertile at all. When we took our first SPICE index (this is a diagnostic tool in Creighton for the spouses to communicate) we thought we were NFP rock stars and that we would get such a high score. Well we soon realized that we had a lot to work on in our marriage.

Our focus shifted from wanting to get pregnant to wanting to get my body healthy. We had long conversations with our practitioner during our sessions about being open to God's will and that it was something we struggled with to know that we might never have a biological child. Every step of the way from the hormone profile to my surgery to our miscarriage I know our practitioner M has been praying for us. Through NaPro our charts as well as our hearts have changed. My last cycle looked almost normal with no intermenstrual bleeding, only one day of TEBB at the end of Aunt Flow, I had no heavy days of bleeding with clotting which I usually have at least 2-3 days of, I had no signs of PMS at all and no cramping where I needed to take medication! My body has come a long way since two years ago.

Our hearts have been changed in that we are more open to God's will and where He has us at each moment. Even though I knew that I would never do IVF, for reasons I will get into later, I still thought of children as my right. I might not have said it out loud but in my heart I struggled with this, telling God that he called me to marriage so He needs to make me pregnant and give me children now. Wow the audacity I had toward my Lord, thank God for reconciliation and the sacraments! We are more open to pursuing adoption earlier rather than later, which in the beginning we wanted to have biological children before we pursued adoption. Now we are going with the flow of where God takes us. It isn't always easy, like this past week JJ held me as I cried and sobbed that I don't get to be in the mommy club and make play dates with friends and their children. I don't get to talk about breast feeding, cloth diapering, or those funny stories of baby farts.

The second thing I was reflecting on was why we chose to use NFP and NaPro to try and conceive rather than ART( Artificial Reproductive Technology) and IVF. Besides the fact that most ART are unethical they are also not healthy for the mother and child. IVF is founded on the principle to create life to destroy it so that one might survive. If you believe that life begins at conception why would you want your child conceived in anywhere other than where nature intended, the Fallopian tubes. Furthermore for every successful IVF cycle approximately 6 embryos(children) are sacrificed in the attempt and what about all those embryos who are frozen and just waiting to be implanted or sacrificed.

I am not judging people for decisions that they have made with respect to ART I am just stating facts of the process. Also, if people have feelings of guilt for decisions they make it is not a bad thing, guilt helps to guide our consciences and moral compass. It also goes back to the fact that we think we have a right to children, we don't. I know this may be hard to hear for some, it was hard for me to hear and digest but it's true. Children are a gift from God not a right or commodity. I know the longing of wanting children and thinking I would do anything to have them, but there are just certain things I will not do. Let's also mention the ridiculous cost of IVF as opposed to NaPro or adoption. A lot of NaPro treatments should be covered under your insurance, if you are blessed enough to have it, because NaPro seeks to repair the body not just get a woman pregnant. There are also adoption tax credits that you can get as well as possible reimbursements you can get from your employer.

Here is the BIG reason why we will not do ART: we are NOT willing to separate the sexual act from procreation! For the same reason that contraception is wrong so is ART. We keep the marital embrace(sex) between us as a couple and don't want a technician making conception happen for us. If it be God's will we want Him to make conception happen by our obedience and yes to our vows by the renewal of the covenant we made on our wedding day.

I know this is a hard topic to read about and it is not easy to write about. I understand that we all come from different backgrounds and values so not everyone agrees with the point of view that I have laid out here. This is a public forum so if you comment please be kind and respectful :) As we begin this season of waiting in advent may we be patient as we wait for a child, a spouse, a job, or whatever you may be waiting for.