It Was All SO Good!

I always think of Christmas as one of our lowest points with infertility. Christmas is the time when everyone celebrates their families. It's the time of year when it's very lonely for those who don't have kids. Four years ago we celebrated our hardest Christmas ever. We had just failed another cycle (our first cycle with Braverman) and hope was all but lost. We had tried his immune treatments and still didn't have success. About a week before that Christmas we attended our first adoption orientation and started to look in that direction. On Christmas Eve, Walt's cousin announced she was pregnant after they had just gotten married in June. It was hard. We barely made it through and I distinctly remember throwing up in the driveway after Christmas dinner and too many drinks.

This year couldn't have felt any different. We did so many fun and festive things as a family this Christmas season. We went to Lights on the Lake and the girls loved driving through the light tunnels and seeing the princesses. We cut down our Christmas tree as a family and enjoyed the hot chocolate and popcorn they had to offer for free after. We hung ornaments and lights on our tree together and listened to Christmas music. We got the girls their own little Christmas trees for their bedroom that they decorated with lights and ornaments. We made a whole bunch of handprint cards and went to a nursing home to hand them out and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We had a book advent calendar and opened a Christmas book every day to read. We made a few batches of Christmas cookies and enjoyed them immensely. We attended the Mom's of Multiples Christmas party and built a snowman. We saw Santa and had very mixed results. We went sledding for the first time as W had a few days off before Christmas and the girls LOVED it! We also got to go to Lucy and Clara's preschool for a Christmas tea and to see them sing holiday songs. In addition, we attended a Christmas Eve church service and had dinner with W's parents for Christmas Eve. Boody Mary's, my in laws, and pajamas at home on Christmas morning. It was all so good!!

Our Christmas card

Our snowman we built

Christmas pajamas

Our book advent calendar before I wrapped them all. 

We got a fireplace this year too! I loved decorating it. 

MMM Christmas party

Library fun 

Our Christmas tree!

Where we get our tree

Hot chocolate after tree hunting

Santa cookies!

Decorating our tree

Post bath crazy Santa 

decorating the tree at pop pop and Grandma Becky's house 

Baking cookies with grandma becky and pop pop 

After singing Christmas songs at preschool 

My girls

Sledding with Daddy. So much fun!!

Ready for swim lessons

Close encounter!

Christmas Eve church service 

Christmas Eve Dinner 

Reading The Night Before Christmas

Daddy's last day off so we went for carousel rides. 

This holiday season I can't forget how lucky I am to have everything we have. I have THREE beautiful girls that make life feel so full. They fill my days with laughter and joy as well as frustration from time to time. I have an amazing husband who works hard every day and a job he loves to provide for our family. He is such an amazing hands on daddy to our girls and we're all so lucky to have him.

I just feel so lucky and blessed to be where we are now. I know how lucky we are because I've seen the other side of that. I've felt heartbreak as we waited for our turn to be parents. We were so close to giving up.

"When the world says give up, hope whispers try it one more time." I'm beyond grateful I emailed Dr. Braverman when it felt like all hope was lost and he told me I had to give it one more try after that unsuccessful December cycle. He told me I had to try at least one more time in order to know if the treatment was successful or not. When all hope felt lost I had a glimmer of hope in his reply. That glimmer turned into an IVF cycle at his clinic the following month. That next month I got pregnant with twins after the hardest Christmas ever. One month and a little hope was all it took to change our fate beyond belief.

Everything

Last night we brought the girls trick or treating in our neighborhood. W pulled them in a wagon while I wore Stella. As I watched my girls faces light up with excitement at the second or third house I turned to W and said, "if you told us four years ago we'd be doing this with three kids, we never would have believed it." I felt so lucky in that moment that I was enjoying this holiday with my beautiful little girls. I seriously feel like the luckiest person in the world most days!

We all had so much fun. It's so exciting to think that it'll be even more fun next year when Stella can join in. 

These are the moments I dreamt of when I was doing injections in public bathrooms or crying over another failed cycle or chemical pregnancy. I'm so grateful to be on the other side with my children, but I can't forget to look back and remember everything we went through to get here. Every appointment, ultrasound, injection, and tear feels 100% worth it. These girls are my everything!

Unfair

I recently mentioned my friend Katie in a post. We met at prenatal yoga and really bonded because we were both pregnant with twins. I have a subtle way and trying to determine if someone's multiples were conceived with fertility treatments or not. I ask them when they found out. If someone found out at 6 weeks it was likely fertility treatments due to the close monitoring. If someone found out at more like 8 weeks likely they spontaneously conceived their multiples. The first time I met Katie I asked her when she found out. She told me at around 8 weeks and also mentioned in passing that she had twin nieces. I assumed her twins were spontaneous. 

Katie and I chatted before and after yoga quite a few times and added each other on Facebook and exchanged a few messages. We made plans to go for dinner sometime with our hubbies, but she got placed on bed rest at 24 weeks so it never happened.

Katie was in and out of the hospital due to placenta previa and concerns with baby B. One afternoon while I was pumping in the NICU I received a message from her that she was back in the hospital and that baby B wasn't going to survive. Unfortunately, they lost him at 27 weeks.

The surviving twin was born 2 weeks ago at almost 34 weeks. It's funny that we were 8 weeks apart in our pregnancies and now our babies are 8 weeks apart. Not how either of us planned things, that's for sure. 

I visited Katie last Wednesday at the hospital. I met her little boy who has his twin brother's first name as his middle name. We chatted about a lot of different things because I was there a few hours. Somehow the 6 week pp ob appointment and birth control came up. She said something along the lines of them having a hard time getting pregnant. I added that my ob asked and I said we weren't going to use any birth control since it took us 5 rounds of IVF to get pregnant. She asked if we used CNY (Dr. K) which is the clinic I did 3 ivf's at without success. I told her we started there but didn't have success and found a dr in NYC. I asked if she went there and she proceeded to say, "I'm so mad at Dr.K!" 

she told me they conceived with IUI. She used injectables and it worked the first time. She told me they had 13 mature follicles at trigger! She told me she was originally pregnant with 6 babies. She told me she had to travel to NYC for a fetal reduction.

Could her pregnancy have been more difficult and emotional? I think one of the hardest things to have to do would be to reduce after wanting and trying so hard to get pregnant. Her pregnancy started emotional, continued to be that way with bed rest, hospitalizations, and the loss of one of her twins, and ended that way with her surviving twin spending 13 days in the NICU. I hate that people have to go through anything like that. Infertility is tough enough.  

Join the Movement

This week marks National Infertility Awareness Week. It's not something I can just let pass by without recognizing. Infertility is the hardest thing I've ever faced. Its tested me in ways I had no idea was possible and showed me things about myself I may never have realized otherwise. It showed me how important it is to be a strong advocate for yourself. It's revealed to me my deep tenacity and persistence. 

W and I started trying to get pregnant about 8 months after we got married in October of 2009. I wanted to try sooner but there was no convincing him otherwise. We started trying in June and 2 months later we were sitting face-to-face with a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE). After a diagnosis of PCOS, the loss of my left fallopian tube, a devastating miscarriage at 8 weeks, 2 IUI's, 2 chemical pregnancies, 5 fresh IVF cycles, 19 embryos, 2 RE's, 1 Reproductive Immunologist, and  2 1/2 years of treatments, we finally found out we were pregnant with twins. It's been a crazy ride, but already it all feels worth it. It made me a stronger person and cemented my marriage in ways I thought was only possible after 30 years of marriage. 

I'm not Facebook public about our struggles, but I've recently reached out to a few people individually, and that is a huge step for me. 

W works with a girl named Meghan who got married a few months before us. She and her husband have been trying to get pregnant since that time. I know she's been pregnant more than once, only to lose those pregnancies. When I was also struggling I hinted towards our struggles to her a few times, but was too afraid to really reach out. Once we started talking about telling our different co-workers about our pregnancy W began worrying about telling her. 

One day recently we were walking the dogs and decided to walk a little further to her house to tell her the news. We wanted to tell her individually so that she could process the information without others around her. I know how hard it can be to hear a pregnancy announcement with other people around who don't understand. I really wanted to be sensitive to her feelings because I've been there so many times before. 

We also told her that we struggled for a long time and used fertility treatments to get pregnant. I offered my knowledge and anything else to her in case she wanted. She didn't say much at the time but has definitely reached out to W multiple times since then. We are planning to have dinner with them sometime in order to share our story. I know it's not a huge thing, but I would love to help her if possible. I started on this journey feeling so alone and have since felt like I'm in good company. I'd love her to feel that way too. 

I also received a congratulatory Facebook message from my cousin this past week. For one of our first trips to see Dr. Br.averman we stayed on her incredibly uncomfortable pull-out couch in NYC. I know her husband had a variocele repair surgery last year and W pointed out the ovulation tests to me that were in her bathroom. She seemed really casual about trying to get pregnant, but I know how easy it is to play it off to others. It's not that casual when you are having surgery to help or using ovulation tests. 

I responded to her message and said that we really struggled to get pregnant and finally found an amazing doctor near her. I told her I was happy to share everything if she ever wanted to chat. She responded that she is going to Thailand this summer and they weren't going to worry about things until after that, but would love to pick my brain about things. She said she would probably be calling me soon. 

I know these aren't giant steps for others, but they are for me. I'm very personal and really had difficulty sharing my story with others while we were making every effort to get pregnant. I was afraid of the looks of sadness and didn't want other people's sympathy. Maybe I was crazy in feeling this way, but my experience of telling a few people close to me almost always resulted in that reaction. It really scared me off from reaching out and telling others. 

I'm opening up and starting to share what we went through with people who aren't super close to me. I really want to help others. I want them to know that they aren't alone. Finding friends who were also struggling with infertility was so huge for me. It's great to still have these people in my life because they best understand pregnancy after infertility. I really don't know what this journey would have been like without them. 

Blogging has also been huge for me. There are so many people that I watched struggle and then become parents. It was a huge inspiration for me to know that if it happened for others, it could happen to me. I appreciate and love each and every comment and positive note people leave me on my blog. 

My blog started as a way for me to vent and get things off my chest. I never thought I would connect with so many others going through many of the same struggles. I know there are people who haven't reached their goals and I really try to continue to support them as much as I can. I think about them often and hope they are successful. 

So, I'm evolving in my thoughts and actions as my journey advances. None of us should have to feel as alone as I did when I first found out pregnancy was going to be so difficult to achieve. I'm trying to connect with others and hoping to make a difference, however small it ends up being. No matter what, infertility will always be a part of who I am. 

http://www.resolve.org/infertility-overview/what-is-infertility/ 

http://www.resolve.org/national-infertility-awareness-week/about.html