August 22

Nothing much new to report. We're just hanging out waiting for some news of when DH will travel. Since not everyone who reads here knows our story, I figured I'd share it.

A couple of years after DH and I were married, I was browsing around online and somehow came across Cathy Harris' website. I think I spent the rest of the day in front of the computer reading about the children who had come home from Ukraine. I shared the website with DH and we decided right then that we would adopt one day. At that time, we were actually thinking we'd only adopt and never have bio children. I was working in an early intervention clinic and had seen some VERY scary situations and I was terrified to ever get pregnant or have children.

Anyway, in November 2002, I discovered a lump in my throat. I found it while putting on a turtleneck. I tried my best to ignore it until my OB visit later that month. The NP there said she thought it was just a funny shaped trachea. Still..... I knew my body and knew it shouldn't be there. My beloved grandmother was diagnosed with cancer the same month, though, so I pretty much ignored my issue to focus on her. Several months later, DH demanded I go see someone. My GP decided something wasn't right and sent me for an u/s, which showed some sort of solid mass. I was then referred to an endo who did two fine needle aspirations on it which both came back abnormal. All this was happening as my grandmother (my favorite person in the entire world) was getting sicker and sicker. She passed away on April 16, 2003, and one week later I found out I had to have surgery. I had a partial thyroidectomy in June and found out that the lump was benign, but the hell of the experience and losing my grandmother made me realize how fragile we are and how life can change in the blink of an eye. For some reason, this made me want to have a baby, so in Feb 2004, we began TTC.

I became pregnant in April 2004 and had a very healthy and uneventful pregnancy. My wonderful, amazing, beautiful boy was born at 41w2d in January 2005. He is the most incredible thing in my life and DH and I feel so so so incredibly blessed to have him. When I was 3 months pregnant, my DH was diagnosed with Celiac disease, so we knew that it could cause fertility issues. It hadn't when TTC DS, but we knew it could at some point in the future.

We're an attachment parenting family, and DS breastfed around the clock until he was 14 months, when I decided I needed more than two hours of sleep at a time, so I started the process of slowly nightweaning him. After he nightweaned, I finally got my fertility back and we decided to TTC #2. I had a chemical pregnancy the second month trying, had an early miscarriage the third month trying, and had a chemical the sixth month trying. I asked for some testing (mostly prolactin and progesterone) and somehow ended up with the RE from HELL! He ran the bare minimum of tests and told us we'd need IVF to have a baby. He also told me I had to stop nursing, so as much as it broke my heart to do so, I weaned DS. He was 20 months, so I was proud of our accomplishment, but I really really hated not making it a full two years. I actually got pregnant the month before our IVF consult, while taking progesterone suppositories to assist in holding onto the pregnancy.

We had an ultrasound at 6 weeks and were surprised to see TWO fetal poles (one had a flicker of a hb and the other didn't yet, but measured on target). We were nervous, but cautiously excited. At a 7 week u/s, one of the babies was no longer developing. We were sad, but still hpeful for the second one. Still, when the one stopped developing, it caused a subchorionic hemorhage, so I was put on restricted activity (mainly no lifting, no running, pelvic rest, etc). At a follow up u/s at 10w4d, we saw that our other twin had passed away at 9w5d. We were devastated. I opted to have a D&E, because I just needed to get past the physical so I could deal with the emotional. I had it the next day, ironically, the day before my birthday. That was definitely the worst birthday in recent memory...

Anyway, after the D&E, I bled for weeks. then, I finally got my first AF, and then I just kept spotting. I finally requested a follow up blood test, and my levels were dropping SO slowly. They thought I may have retained tissue, and kept testing. Finally, TEN weeks after my miscarriage, my HCG dropped to zero. At that point, I was ready to move onto adoption, but DH wanted to give it one more try. Honestly, I think emotionally, we were both ready, but we were both TERRIFIED of the cost. We had gone to an informational meeting with an agency we were interested in, but we just couldn't quite do it yet. We decided to give it one more shot, but G-d had other plans for us...

After two months of TTC, I asked for some more bloodwork. At that point, we discovered I had a VERY high prolactin number, and I was told I had to have an MRI to rule out a growth on my pituitary gland. That was a very tough day. It was that moment that DH and I looked at each other and said, "this is NOT what G-d wants us to be doing right now". It felt like each time we tried, something got in the way. We called the adoption agency the next day and we had our intake visit that week and started our process right then. The really crazy thing is, my MRI came back normal and when they retested my prolactin levels, they were totally, completely normal! It was almost like G-d knew we needed one little thing to push us in the direction we were meant to be going.

So, that's where we are now! If you've been following, you've seen that things have been moving very quickly and very smoothly so far! We just believe it's a true indicator that we're following down the path we're meant to travel. When we were trying to conceive, EVERYTHING went wrong. Once we made the commitment to adoption, everything started to go right. I truly, truly believe our children are out there waiting for us to come bring them home. It took some time and a lot of heartache to start to find our way toward them, but we're there now and I couldn't be more excited! I think that was how I knew we had definitely made the right decision. TTC was miserable for both of us and we were bickering with one another and we were both just unhappy a lot. Once we stopped trying and started our adoption, it was like we had new energy. We were excited, we had something to look forward to, and we just moved forward together. Even DS is excited! If you ask him where we're going to go on the plan next year, he says, "to Russia to bring me a brother and a sister". It's so cute!

So, that's my story! Hope it wasn't too long or awful to read!
:)