The Good & The Bad

I write this for the sole purpose of using it as our family journal. (I appreciate all those who care enough to read it anyway, but don't feel like you have to read this one if you don't want to know a whole lot about health stuff.) Because it's our family journal I try to keep things upbeat, but I'm also realistic, so this post is more realistic than upbeat. This is the story of our newest little addition so far.

Let me first say we cannot begin to express the gratitude we have for being sent this little guy, but I just hit the half way point of this pregnancy and it has been a serious adventure already. Sadly when I hit the 20 week mark I thought "Oh no! I can't handle another 20 weeks like this" but I will & I'll live. I'm gonna start WAY back. When my parents left on their first mission Klint & I talked it over and decided that we wanted to wait to have our next baby until they got home. We had our hands pretty full with our 2 little monkeys at the time and figured letting them get a little older & giving us time figure out how to handle life wouldn't hurt. At that time I had a very strong impression, without even asking the question, that not only were we supposed to have another baby, but we didn't need to have one right then & it was okay to wait. At the time I thought it was a very interesting unsolicited answer, but it was an answer for sure so I tucked it away peacefully & went on with life. About 8 months before my parents were due to come home I decided I didn't want too big a gap between kids so we decided it was time to have another baby. Then things got interesting.

I started having noticeable physical irregularities & started having ovarian cysts rupture. After about 6 months of weird & painful things happening & still not being pregnant I decided I'd better go to the doctor. Because we had moved I went to a new doctor that was closer. Within 15 mins of being at my first appointment & explaining what was going on to the Nurse Practitioner I was seeing she said she thought I had Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) a condition where both ovaries are covered with cysts & you rarely, if at all depending on the severity of your case, ovulate so getting pregnant can be very difficult. She ordered some blood work & an ultrasound and within a week I was officially diagnosed with PCOS. The months of frustration and pain & now staring down another potential challenge was a pretty big blow for me. It kind of emotionally rocked me & I was very deflated & depressed. I decided at that point that I couldn't handle dealing with it all. I had had my answer a long time before & I knew that my Heavenly Father had another baby for me, but I couldn't handle all this just yet, so we decided once again to deal with one thing at a time & wait a little longer.

We waited until after my parents had come home & then decided it was too long to wait for my parents to come home from their second mission so we figured we should start the process of getting pregnant again. I went in & started getting on the different meds I would need to try. Once again it was frustrating & depressing for me because they made me feel pretty sick, but I knew this time that this was something I needed to do, so I couldn't let myself give up. Once again my answer was in my head that Heavenly Father did in fact have another baby for me, but this time I felt like it was time to do the work to get him here. In July I found out I was finally pregnant mostly because I started doing a lot of being sick & throwing up. We were very happy, but things hadn't been normal. I was having some bleeding & pain so I headed into the doctor. They were concerned that I could have an ectopic pregnancy so they did blood work & ultrasound & we were all relieved that it wasn't ectopic & things looked fine. They told me to take it easy & the bleeding should stop. The sickness got worse & soon I could hardly leave the house so taking it easy was all I could do anyway. The bleeding however, was starting & stopping about every two or three weeks and was more often coming with pain as well. I had 4 ultrasounds in 18 weeks & they would all say they couldn't find a reason, but I still needed to take it easy. It's been hard to do, but I did my best. By the time it hit 17 weeks & was still having bleeding & the pain was getting worse the doctor said I had to stop working & not be up more than about 2-3 hours. To put it mildly that was EXTREMELY hard for me. I had never intended to stop working at all, but after thinking it over we decided that it was worth the sacrifice to quit working. I decided that while it would be really hard to give up my career for my children that I needed to do it. I decided I could make this sacrifice for my kids for the next few years. So sadly I left my job.

I am, now at 22 weeks, scheduled for another ultrasound tomorrow because I am still having quite a lot of pain & some spotting. So far, thankfully, this little boy is still doing well. He seems healthy & is very active which is a huge relief. I'm still on bed rest & it is hard, but I am grateful that I can still be up a little each day & even more I'm still grateful every day for this little boy. I still know that my Heavenly Father has meant for him to be in our family & that I was given that answer a long time before I needed it because I would need to look back on it so many times for reassurance when I'm feeling stressed. I'm grateful that my Heavenly Father knew that I needed that answer before I knew to ask for it. I have left out a lot of details, like I'm on my 3rd doctor (I'm gonna stick with this one for sure), and I'm still dealing with nausea & was even in the hospital with an intestinal infection a week ago, but I still know this is going to be worth all the stress & challenges I have/will go through. So that's it, the real life we're in right now. The good & the bad, but I'll take it.