Alex’s Motherhood Story Part 1 Infertility

Family

4/21/2021

Below is Alex’s motherhood journey. Alex’s journey was not any easy one. I hope Alex’s story blesses your heart and gives you hope if you are on a similar journey. I will be sharing this story in 3 parts. This is part 1 Infertility.

I met Kyle the in 3rd grade,

But we didn’t really connect until after college.

A friend of mine had invited me to watch a softball game, so I decided to come and watch. I saw Kyle playing the field and I kept thinking to myself “How do I know him”? And then I remembered, “Oh yeah, we went to school together”.

After the game, He ended up coming to dinner with us. We clicked almost immediately.

2 weeks into dating, he told me “I’ll be marrying you!”

He proposed to me 5 months later and I obviously said yes. We were married in June 2013, about 9 months later. We knew we wanted to have kids. As a matter of fact, I wanted 6 littles. Not sure why I wanted 6 but I did. When Kyle and I got married I was 23 and he was 24. We were just starting out careers and we were living in a 1-bedroom apartment. We knew we wanted kids, just not quite yet.

However, 6 months into marriage we had a pregnancy scare and I thought to myself

“Oh no, we are not ready, this is too soon,”

So I went to get a blood test… it was negative. After the pregnancy scare, we found ourselves sad. I guess we were really hoping we were pregnant. After that we decided to start trying intentionally to get pregnant around November 2013.

I made the appointment to see the doctor and to tell her I was ready to start trying and stop my birth control. She told me that — everything looks great, I am healthy, and to have fun trying. And we did. 6 months later, still nothing. We visited our doctor again and went ahead and did tests and bloodwork. Just to make sure everything was okay.

When the test came back it was determined that I have Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

PCOS is a hormonal disorder that causes polycystic ovaries, irregular and painful periods, excess Androgen, weight gain, among other things. PCOS can also lead to infertility. The cause of PCOS is still unknown and there is no cure. Treatment is really just symptom management.

After my PCOS diagnosis, my doctor told me I could still have a baby but would need more help to achieve it. We started treatment and medication.

6 months later, still no baby.

Kyle got tested to make sure everything was good on his end, and all his test game back normal. I even had a fallopian tube test. Which, by the way, was extremely painful. I was praying that after all of this we would finally get some answers… but everything came back clear. Beyond PCOS, everything was completely normal. I was feeling extremely frustrated by this point.

Trying Clomid was our next step in the “trying to get pregnant” journey. So Clomid helps to make you ovulate. During my first round of Clomid, I had to go in for the ultrasound to make sure I was ovulating eggs and that the Clomid was working. Unfortunately, during the ultrasound the doctor found a significant amount of scar tissue in my fallopian tubes. At the time I didn’t know what that meant, but my heart just dropped, and I had this intense worry deep inside me. The doctor came in and the next words out of her mouth hit me like a ton of bricks…

“ Alex, it looks like you have Endometriosis.” Wait…What?

On top of PCOS I have endometriosis. I was shocked. My only option was to have surgery to try to remove some scar tissue.

January 2016, I have the surgery.

The 2-hour surgery suddenly became 6 hours.

The Doctor spoke with Kyle, my mom and mother in law while I was in recovery. The news was not good. Kyle was devastated and heart broken. I don’t know how he did it, by Kyle put on a brave face and helped me get through my recovery physically and emotionally. He was and has always been my rock. My love for him grew even deeper during this journey and I am so grateful to have him as my husband.

When I woke up from surgery, I was in the most excruciating pain ever even on morphine. Waking up, I was a bit delusional, but I remember asking Kyle “Did they get it all? Did they fix it?”, Kyle rubbed my hair and told me to relax. Kyle knew that I was not in a cognitive enough state yet for me to process knowing everything. He gently refused to answer me and continued to love and support me. Later that day, he explained that the doctor will be in tomorrow morning to explain everything. I knew deep in my gut that something was wrong. When Doctor came in the next day, she began to tell me what had happened during my surgery and what they found.

As she is looking at me, I can see the pain in her eyes.

She begins to tell me that they did everything they could, but my uterus and fallopian tubes have extensive damage. And my ovaries were buried in scar tissue. They tried to remove everything they could. But one ovary could not be saved and there was no way to make my fallopian tubes functional. This news hit me like a ton of bricks, my heart sank. I was angry and frustrated. What was supposed to be a step into the right direction ended up causing me more pain and emotional distress for me and Kyle. We were in such a state of grief and disbelief.

Our only option to get pregnant was through IVF.

2 months after surgery, we went to see a fertility doctor to learn about the IVF journey. We were informed that there was probably only a 45% chance of becoming pregnant and the first round would cost $18K and $10K for each additional try. We did get a second opinion, but they said the same thing. Things were looking bleak. I was angry and grieving the fact that pregnancy wasn’t in the cards for me. My emotions were all over the place.

I wanted a miracle.

I have always wanted children; I felt this was my destiny? Why is this happening to us?” Anytime there was a call to the alter at church, we would request prayer for a miracle. I cried every single church service, begging and praying for something miraculous to happen. I knew in my heart that God was promising me a child.