Sooooo…..here’s my story.

I grew up in San Jose and lived a rather sheltered and idyllic life. I wanted to move out of state, however, so I chose UNR for college. Once I got used to the conspicuous absense of greenery, I grew to love Nevada. Then I grew to love Kile, who lived in the same dorm building. Aww…

We got engaged in February of 1997 and were married in August of 1998. Since Kile had gotten a job working for the university, we decided to sit tight. I also developed myself a big case of baby fever. So out went the birth control pills. It took a few months… but I was still involved in finishing up some last few classes for my degree so I didn’t really notice that it didn’t happen right away. Five months later, Valentine’s Day to be exact, my son was conceived. Looking back, I was so blissfully ignorant about the whole thing. I knew there was a risk of miscarriage but at the same time, I didn’t really think that would apply to me. I fully expected to have a happy, healthy baby at the end of nine months.

And I did! Well, mostly healthy. See, I had to be induced at 40w2d due to the onset of preeclampsia and the little bugger didn’t like the eviction notice we gave him so they had to go in after him. And he didn’t really like that either so instead of letting us know with a healthy squall, he tried holding his breath. And for his trouble, he got a one way ticket to the NICU. He was easily the healthiest baby in there but it was still hard. That first day was a jumble. I’d had general anesthesia and didn’t even get to see the little guy until five hours after the fact and then with him in NICU, and me confined to the bed, well, you do the math.

But if Mohammed can’t come to the mountain, the mountain will go to Mohammed. So I managed to get into a wheelchair (Kile remarked, rather alarmed, on my grey pallor after having to get out of bed with the incision) and we went to see my boy. I went down there several times a day every day. It was like crack, I just couldn’t get enough of that precious baby. I had the nurses call me when he needed feeding so I could hoof down there to breastfeed. See, this setup had the added (only?) benefit of getting me up and out of bed and healing quicker, so that was a plus.

We got to take him home, apnea monitor and all, the day I was released. I remember being terrified that I’d have to leave without him. But I also remember being very nervous about taking a baby out of NICU to our decidedly less safe home. But all went well. We were one, big happy family.

Around his 8 month birthday, we thought we’d try again. I figured another five months, six at the most. In January it had been five months so I went to see my general practitioner and got a prescription for prenatals. I started to learn about temperature charts, mucous, ovulation timing, etc and so forth. But all of the knowledge and all the kings men (wait a minute…) couldn’t get me pregnant again. I charted my buns off to no avail. The following spring (for those keeping score at home, this is over 18 months since we started trying) we visited a reproductive endocrinologist. And you know what? I wasn’t even ovulating.

I. Wasn’t. Even. Ovulating.

GAH. So he wanted to get me started on 100 mg of Clomid. I wanted to run and hide. So who won? I did. I hid. I wanted to believe I could will myself to ovulate. That maybe he was wrong because it did seem like he’d made the diagnosis awfully quickly (albeit after an internal ultrasound). It took nearly a year to pass before I admitted to myself that I needed help to conceive. So we go in and have some tests done. Would you believe it was my thyroid all along?

Or that’s what they tell me. So I got slapped on some thyroid hormones as well as Clomid and just for shits and giggles, progresterone supplements for the second half of my cycle every month. And they ain’t the kind you take by mouth, if ya know what I mean. At this point, I was willing to do anything. So purchased my meds, endured the mood swings, got probed bimonthly at the RE’s office by Shannon… so much fun. We were on our very last round of Clomid, now three years since we started trying to conceive and on vacation in WYOMING of all places when I got pregnant. Just like that. Heck, we even had an appointment with the RE for the next week to talk about the “next step”. But just like that, we didn’t have to.

To say I didn’t worry would be lying. I worried so much, especially in those early weeks and months. I would hold my breath before ultrasounds, mentally preparing for if there wasn’t a heartbeat. I was nearly 20 weeks before I started to calm down and accept the facts. Part of it was feeling incredulous. I wasn’t as naive as I was the first time. I knew how many women out there desperately wanted a baby and were trying so hard. And how was it that I got to be pregnant and they didn’t?

We found out we were having a boy… took a little while. I was very lucky that my general practitioner has an ultrasound guy in the office so I could have as many peeks as I’d like. He was quite the shy little guy. That or ornery. We picked out the name Jackson. Jack. We couldn’t wait to meet him. My son was excited to have a sibling and we were excited to have another baby, finally. We started to buy things, clothes, car seats… the usual trappings. We had a scheduled c-section for March 29th, at 39 weeks. On March 23, at 38 weeks, around 7:30 in the morning, Jackson was born, still. It was a cord accident. You can read more about his story here.

Jackson was buried on March 31, 2004. We still visit his grave, of course, though admittedly I don’t go as often as I used to. Hurts too much.

So now we’re back to the drawing board. I truly dread walking into the RE’s office and having to face the people who got me pregnant the last time. Because they’ll feel bad for me and I don’t know if I can stand that. And what if Clomid doesn’t do the trick this time? Or what if they want to go straight to IUI? What if?

So that’s me in a nutshell. Now let me out!!

Edit: (08/13/2005)
Wow, I really should update this more often. I got pregnant again. Yeah, I went back to the RE’s office, hanging my head in shame. It took only three rounds that time. That’s improvement, right? Everything seemed to be going well, other than some pretty severe cases of nerves and worry-warts. We had an appointment at 11weeks 1 day and saw the Blessed Heartbeat. A sigh of relief was heard across the land. We went back four weeks later only to find the baby had passed at 11weeks 2days. Now tell me that isn’t just the cruelest thing you’ve ever heard?? I had the d&e at 15 weeks, 3 days on August 5th, 2005. Right now, we have an appointment to see the RE *AGAIN* on September 2nd. Third time’s the charm?

Edit: (09/15/2005)
Okay, had the appointment with the RE. The long and the short of it is, the RE was both pissed at our loss and concerned about the “whys”. He wanted to rule out any connections between the stillbirth and the miscarriage. So I’ve had blood tests done for antibodies, clotting disorders and antithyroid antibodies. Haven’t heard any results on any of those yet, but I expect them to come back normal. I also had a water ultrasound done to check for uterine abnormalities and that was perfect. Honestly, I just think I have shitty luck. However, I don’t go back to the RE until October 26th. I’m guessing that’s when we discuss our course of action although I’m 99.9% sure it’ll be another go with the Clomid. Which is why its frustrating to have to wait that long. But oh well. That’s my luck, right?

Edit: (02/25/2006)
Yeah, definitely past time for an update. I went on Clomid, as I expected. But the lucky part? I got pregnant the first try. We were able to start Clomid at the end of October and a week before Thanksgiving, I found out I was pregnant. And? Now at 18 weeks and change, things are going great. We’ve rented a doppler to listen to the heartbeat everyday (and we do) so we’re a lot calmer than we would probably be otherwise. There’s talk of a c-section at 37 weeks this time and I doubt I would argue too much with that. So July it is! Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Edit: (9/26/2006)
The baby has arrived! William “Liam” Ellis Porter was born July 7, 2006 at 2:00pm in the afternoon. He weighed a grand total of 4 pounds and 15 ounces. What a shrimp! But he was (and is) healthy as can be and is growing, growing, growing! At his two month appointment just shy of 10 weeks of age, he weighed 12 pounds and 6 ounces. So he’s definitely caught up! We’re unable to breastfeed, he wasn’t ever latching correctly. Come to find out he has a tongue tie! We’re going to see about getting it clipped. In the meantime, I’m pumping exclusively and at least he’s getting pure breastmilk. Obviously, it’s doing him well! Wow, there are a lot of exclamation points in this paragraph. The long and short of it is: I’m pretty happy right now. I’ve finally gotten what I’ve been working for for so long. Now it’s time to focus attention on other aspects of my life, such as being a mommy to a newborn again and losing some weight and getting myself back into shape. And that promises to be quite a journey too! Oh, and I changed the name of the blog too. Inconceivable is now Slackermama!