The "story"

I am going to share with you a letter I had to write to a foundation about B's and my journey through IF. This will also give you ICLW ladies a little more info about me... I am not sure I have given this much detail yet! So... Here is it!

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Hi. My name is Anna May. I am 30 years old and live in ... ... ... . I have lived here most of my life. I moved away for college and for the first 4 years of my marriage. I met my husband Bryan when he joined my brothers’ band. I was smitten from the very first moment I saw him. But, I was only 15, and he was 21, so he didn’t even notice me.

Fast forward six years and I ran into him at a worship conference the band was doing. We talked, exchanged numbers, and the rest is history. A year later, we were married. I have always wanted children. I remember at the young age of four praying for God to let me have a baby (my mom was pregnant with my sister, and I wanted a baby too)! I have prayed that prayer my whole life. And even now, I am a nanny because I love children so much.

When I was 17, I was at my doctor for some pain I had, and ended up having surgery to remove a large cyst off my right tube. I remember going numb in the doctor’s office when she said “you will probably never have children… at least not easily.”

Well, it has been 13 years since that day. My longing for children has only grown stronger, and my doctor was right. In 2007, my husband and I started trying to have a baby. We were so happy in May of 2008 when we found out we were going to have that baby! We in the process of closing on a new home, complete with a small bedroom close to the master already painted as a nursery. On the day that we closed, I found out I was miscarrying. I was devastated. Bryan was devastated. But we just kept trying... to no avail. In January of 2009, we decided that we needed to stop trying to get pregnant because our marriage had suffered the traumas of infertility, miscarriage and life in general.

During 2009, I was having increasing pain despite being on birth control pills, and decided to go to my doctor (not the same doctor from when I was 17). He found large cysts on my ovaries via ultrasound: a dermoid cyst on my left ovary, a large endometrioma and one other simple cyst on my right ovary. When the surgery was over, I remember distinctly the doctor telling me that I was covered in endometriosis, and he removed what he could. The words “I would have taken your ovaries because they were so damaged. But since you do not have kids yet, I left them.” Again, I was devastated. Stage IV endometriosis… finally a diagnoses for the pain I had lived in for years. Finally, a reason why I wasn’t getting pregnant.

During the years my husband and I took a break from trying to get pregnant, we worked on our relationship. It wasn’t always pretty. It wasn’t ever easy. But we stayed strong. We moved forward. And in November of 2011, we decided it was time to try to bring a baby into our family again. Bryan and I both knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But, we were hopeful. We were excited. We were moving forward.

Six months after I got off the pill, I was experience an oh so familiar pain. I could tell I had a cyst. I knew my endometriosis was back in full swing. I went into the doctor’s office for a fertility consult, and he ended up doing an ultrasound to see what was causing the pain: bilateral 8cm endometriomas. In June of 2012, I went under the knife again. Removing a very large endometrioma cyst from each ovary. My doctor said “I do not think you will be able to get pregnant naturally. You need to move straight into IVF after your ovaries heal.”

I would not accept this answer. I needed someone else to look at my records, review my history… and every doctor I talked to told me the same thing… IVF.

My RE has been amazing. He has been caring and empathetic towards our situation. He told us that he thinks we will be able to get pregnant; it just will take a lot (IVF). He is willing to work with us on this journey. It is an expensive process, and I just found out my hours are getting cut in half, which makes the stress over the financial aspect that much more prevalent. But I know that there is a plan bigger than us. And I know we were meant to be parents.

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And that is that... I still hold on to the hope that I will get that miracle BFP... I have taken 3 (read: THREE) pg tests in the last 2 months... I am on the pill for my IVF cycle. Why in the world am I taking pg tests. (BFN). But I have hope. I know that God is in control of this. He is good, and he knows the plans...