I'M PREGNANT!!!

I'm pregnant! I still cant believe I'm saying those words. But it definitely feels right this time. After a very long year and a half of trying (and believe me, i know and appreciate that for some people it takes many many more years on top of that) I really feel good about this.  My hopes were crushed a year ago when a great doctor with a less than soothing bed side manner told me that my eggs were old.  I guess my "I'll show you" trait kicked into high gear. But it has taken some work to get here.  Let me recount the past.....if anything, just for my own personal need to capture a piece of the past that will be long gone in memory before I know it......

October 13, 2007 - I marry the wonderful Brian Nutt. My knight in shining sports jersey's, the man of my dreams, the father of my future children. I love him so very dearly! We got off birth control (I say we because it's definitely a "we" experience).  We decided that since I'm a bit older, it might take us a bit longer to conceive, so we don't try to get pregnant, but we don't try to prevent getting pregnant either.  

Summer, 2008 - Okay, married life is great and we want some little Nutt's running around. So we start focusing more on actually trying to get pregnant. 2008 was a great year, we went on 2 different cruises with 2 of our closest friends, Jeremy and Amy, and we did a LOT of fun things and made major amounts of memories.  One of the best was on 08-08-08, when Amy found out she was pregnant on the first day of our 2nd cruise.  Now it was definitely on....the quest for baby was about to really take off at this point.

September, 2008 - Remember that not so easy on the ears doctor? So we went to a fertility center and got the bad news that my 36 year old eggs were old and that I should just plan on jumping straight to a round of Invitro Fertilization. Oh, and he said I should use donor eggs, since those would be more viable. Seriously??  This was unacceptable. After my shock and awe passed, the sadness waned, and the ticked off set in, I told the doctor that I wanted him to treat me like any other young active female that was having trouble getting pregnant. So he did. He checked my tubes, uterus, and insides and he found some issues. I had a couple of cysts and some mild endometriosis.  Surgery in December of 2008 rid me of these issues and I really felt like we were on our way to a clear path of fertility!

March 3rd, 2009 - All of a sudden, mid cycle, I have some bleeding and severe cramping. Because we are actively trying to get pregnant, my first thought is to take a pregnancy test. So on my lunch hour at work I went to Walgreens and bought a cheapy.  It's positive! Wow!  Is this normal? I've never been pregnant before so I'm wondering if all the bleeding and cramping are normal. Of course it wasn't.  I called my doctor and they wanted to see me right away, like, that afternoon.  After a blood test to check my HCG levels and an ultrasound, the immediate and confirmed diagnosis was Ectopic Pregnancy.  I, unfortunately, had a tubal pregnancy. My first question, yes it was naive to even think it, but on some levels it could be possible sometime in the future of science, was "can you just move it down to my uterus?".  Okay, it was a little outside the box, but again maybe someday it will be possible.  I didn't realize that tubal pregnancies can be deadly if not taken care of immediately. So thank goodness it was discovered early. They gave me an injection of Methotrexate, which strangely is a cancer fighting drug, to terminate the pregnancy. Then I went through a month of misery, and when I say misery I mean a month of extreme heavy bleeding, moodiness, and discomfort.  Then it was gone and our journey to fertility began all over again.  

When I finally got my normal cycle back in April I was really excited. Brian and I discussed trying a round of Artificial Insemination so we discussed it with the doctor. He wasn't too thrilled because he said that since I already had one tubal pregnancy, the chances of having another one were higher and the only way to avoid that completely was by doing Invitro.  That was out of the question, due to financial reasons, so i insisted that we try the Insemination first.  He agreed and set us up to speak with the IVF Nurse.  In May I went to a required educational class and we signed all the releases.  Now I just had to wait for the first day of my next period and we would schedule me for the procedure.  Yipeeee, i thought, we were on our way!!!

June 3rd, 2009 - The first day of that months cycle. For some reason I was 3 days late starting, which really didn't make sense then. Looking back from today it makes much more sense, and God is so good when it comes to not giving us what we want in THAT moment, for something greater in another moment down the road a bit.  Because I was 3 days late starting my cycle, when I called the IVF nurse to schedule the Insemination procedure, she said that my window of opportunity was June 9, 10, 11th.  However, it just so happened that I had a business trip planned to San Francisco that had me leaving the early morning of June 9th and returning the late evening of June 11th.  See where I'm going with this?   I was so upset at the time, thinking I would miss this months window of fertility and have to wait another whole month to schedule it again.  (Little did I know at the time that He had a plan for it all.)  

Well, Brian and I didn't let our window of fertility go to waste. When i returned from my trip on the night of June 11th, Brian had a romantic, candlelit evening waiting for me upon returning from the airport.  I was still fertile that day, you know!  :-)

July 3rd - Friday. I was several days late starting this cycle, which bummed me out since i really wanted to schedule the round of artificial insemination. I decided to take a pregnancy test just for kicks. The cheapy I used had a really faint line that was supposed to indicate positive, but I wasnt sure I believed it. Seeing the negative response so many times, i was kind of programmed for letting out a disappointed sigh. So we went to the store and bought the expensive digital tests. After a few minutes of the flashing hour glass, it stopped and read Positive (as seen in the picture above). I kept looking for the "Not" word that should have surely preceded the "Positive" word, but it wasn't there!  I started to smile and went outside to show Brian. He smiled from ear to ear in excitement and disbelief, himself.  We went to Wendy's so I could get a large chocolate frosty to celebrate (my favorite!!).

Here I sit, on July 7th, seven days past what should have been the start of this months cycle, and positive as positive can be for pregnancy.  I went to my fertility doc yesterday. I kept the appointment that i had already made planning for the insemination procedure.  I told them that there was a change of plans, as I seem to have gotten pregnant on my own.  They were very excited for us and said that it happens that way a lot.  They took a blood test to check my hormone levels. My HCG levels are low, but that should just be because it's so early in the pregnancy. My progesterone is low too, which at this point is a bit more concerning since that dictates my uterus ability to hold onto the implanted egg. The doctor prescribed me some vaginal suppositories of progesterone creme to remedy that. I go back on monday, July 13th, 2009, to have my blood drawn and my hormone levels checked again. I'm hopeful that they are where they should be for a normal healthy pregnancy. 

I must add....mid June I started going to my chiropractor 3 times a week for adjustments. I've read that chiropractic care can aid infertility and my friend Amy has some friends who got pregnant after chiropractic treatments. So I thought I would give it a try myself.  Apparently the nerves that come off your lower spine are the ones that feed your reproductive organs, so if that part of your back is out of alignment in the least, then fertility difficulties might occur. After a year and a half of trying to get pregnant, then less than a month seeing my chiropractor regularly and now I'm pregnant, i've got to believe that it's more than coincidence.  I'm continuing to see her for maintaining that healthy alignment and I would encourage anyone having fertility issues to give it a try.

Anyway, in my heart i feel that this time is different. I haven't had any unusual bleeding or cramping. And although too early to really tell for sure, it just feels different. Maybe that is what I need to tell myself, at least, so I don't dwell too much on what COULD ultimately happen this early. Or, maybe I'm just really in tune with what my body is saying and it wants me to know that everything is alright this time. It feels right this time. I pray it's right this time.