I had always wanted to be a mom, it is something that I dreamed about. After I received my PCOS diagnosis, I knew that having babies could possibly take me a little longer and I knew that I needed to start trying young but I never expected the journey to mommy hood to be what is was! As soon as Tim and I had gotten married I was ready to go off of birth control, I wasn't even 21 yet but I knew that is what I wanted, Tim on the other hand wasn't so sure! After many conversations, in October of 2003 Tim let me throw away the birth control pills as an early present for my 21st birthday!! When most girls would have been out partying and celebrating being legal I was planning and hoping for a baby! After 4 months of trying it was time for my annual appointment and after talking to my gynecologist, he suggested that we should go ahead and start Clomid based on my medical history, he told us that he could administer Clomid up to a certain dosage but once I surpassed that we would need to seek the help of a Reproductive Endocrinologist, we did Clomid with him from February of 2004 into the summer and had no success, he then referred us to Dr. Maryanne McRae, she offered us a lot of hope, she said we were young and had lots of years to work on making a baby, she also told me that I was her youngest patient ever and that she wished more woman with PCOS would seek out reproductive help at a younger age as they would have more success. We started off doing a more aggressive dose of clomid and did this for 4 or 5 cycles, after a couple of months of trying with the clomid they found that we would also need to do IUI's because of some of the side effects of the clomid, all of this proved unsuccessful and so we started on the journey of Follistim and IUI's, Doing the shots was something I so dreaded I did not want to embark on that journey, I knew it would be a hormonal rollercoaster ride but we did it and we survived! We finally got our first ever positive pregnancy test on June 1st 2005 just days after closing on our first home!! It was a VERY exciting week for us, I wish I could say that was the end of the story, but it's not, my first trimester with Carleigh was touch and go, they kept telling us my HCG levels weren't rising correctly and that it looked like we would have a miscarriage, I hit my knees praying and I believed with all of my heart that God would not take this miracle away from us, the pregnancy was one filled with lots of bumps, I end up with Intrauterine Growth Restriction and Carleigh Lou was born on January 13th 2006 at 35 weeks 6 days via emergency C-Section, she only weighed 5lbs 4oz and they found at delivery that she had a 2 vessel umbilical cord, they had prepared us that she would need to go to NICU but being the fighter she was she came out a hollering and no NICU visit was needed, she was healthy, pink and amazing! I was instantly in love, I enjoyed every minute of being her mommy and still do!! Tim and I knew we wanted more children and we were told that achieving a natural pregnancy the first year after having a baby was our best chance so after 6 months my Dr. told us we could forgo the birth control and so we did. When Carleigh was 18 months old I made the appt to head back to my Reproductive Endocrinologist. If anyone would have told me that the journey to our second baby would be filled with more heartache than our first journey I would not have believed them. How could it possibly be more difficult, we had figured out the proper treatment and protocol to get me pregnant and keep me pregnant. In my mind it was going to take a couple of months of doing the same thing we did on the cycle that worked for Carleigh and we would be on our way to meeting our new baby. We started on the shots in July of 2007 and got more aggressive each month doing two IUI's with each cycle, We had no success and there was talk of IVF, they set us up for our consult appt to learn about IVF and two weeks later we got a positive pregnancy test, not only was it positive but my HCG level was over 2000 indicating that the pregnancy was multiples! We were so excited! We went in for a sonogram on November 8th and found that my ovaries were extremely hyper stimulated, to at least 16cm each, and they saw one yolk sac, it was to early for a heartbeat, but figured there was a second one hidden but my ovaries were so big they couldn't see anything because they were smashing my uterus. On November 15th I went back in for my heartbeat appointment and when the doctor looked there wasn't one, my ovaries were still enlarged and she still couldn't find the other sac. They sent me home after doing blood work and telling me they would call me with the results that afternoon. I was naive and I figured everything would be fine that the baby just implanted later and the heartbeat was a little behind schedule. They called me that afternoon while I was working and told me that my HCG level was dropping and I was going to have a miscarriage. I carried our baby for another 10days before my miscarriage started. Once the miscarriage took place I had to wait for my HCG levels to go back to normal before we could start trying again, this took an abnormally long time and looking back I should have known something wasn't right, in January one morning out of the blue I passed what we would come to find out was a baby (we now assume that was the twin of the November cycle, the doctors could never explain what happened and why it was missed except that I had such huge ovaries) this happened a couple of days after we got a positive pregnancy test, which ended up being a chemical pregnancy that didn't implant probably because my body was still trying to get rid of the other baby. In March of 2008 we received another positive pregnancy test, we were very apprehensive but excited. We went in for the heartbeat sonogram and once again the heartbeat had stopped. We watched if for another week and then on April 15th I had a DnC. This time not only was I heartbroken but I was mad! Our Dr.'s made us take a couple cycles off for a mental health break but I went back in for my June cycle as I didn't want to waste anymore time. This cycle we only had one little ol' egg that was mature at the time of our insemination, I had never gotten pregnant on a cycle with less than four eggs so I had pretty much wiped this one out of the picture. During our two week wait my RE did a blood test that would show that I had a clotting disorder which was aiding in my miscarriages, I would now have to be on blood thinners. I told my husband that if this pregnancy was a negative then I wasn't trying naturally anymore to expand our family, I didn't want to have to take blood thinners and we could just adopt because that is something I have always wanted to do anyway. God knew how I would react and that pregnancy test was a big positive, they immediately started me on Lovanox and Progesterone shots! We went in for our 6 week ultrasound and that little heartbeat was plugging away, there was never a sweeter sound to this mama's ears!! Caylee Michele was born on March 24, 2009 via emergency c-section due to heart decelerations, she was 7lbs 3oz and had the cutest full head of curly hair! Her big sister was smitten with her and still is and so are her parents!! Our days of fertility treatments are over, we won't be growing our family that way anymore in the future. But my infertility will be a battle my whole life, I wanted a houseful of kids and trust me my two most often resemble a whole houseful! LOL! but I still feel like it has robbed me of the choice of growing my family. God gave us two miracles, 2 giggling girls I never should have gotten, will He send us another miracle, that is only something He knows! For now we have open arms, full hearts, and a house full of laughter but there is always room for one more! :)
