Folks, let me tell ya. Infertility and fertility treatments and unbalanced hormones have done a number on my 29 year old body. My unbalanced hormones have done a number on my poor 31 year old husband too, bless his little pea pickin' heart. If you are one of the millions who's hormone levels are normal and you are able to handle fluctuations or synthetic hormones like a champ, count your blessings. Mine has been a different story...
I went on birth control (NuvaRing) starting in March 2007. Three months before Jonathan and I got married on June 2nd. If you look at my studio bridal portraits (taken in January before we married), you see one Rachel. If you look at our wedding pictures you see a similarly sized Rachel who's breasts have grown to twice their size. If you look at pictures of me from the 4th of July in that same year (32 days after our wedding), you might not even recognize me. See for yourself...
Here's my bridal portrait without retouching. My shoulders are thin, my neck is slender, the top of my dress fits like a dream...
One of the pictures from my wedding. My waist has stayed about the same, but my boobs are now two times bigger and my face is noticeably rounder...
And then there are these lovely pictures. I realize I am sans makeup and not in a gorgeous wedding gown, but geez. When these pictures came out I was shocked. 32 days after my wedding, I was 10-15 pounds heavier. And it got worse from there. By December I had gained a full 33 pounds since the start of the year. 33 pounds!!! Needless to say I stopped the birth control after the start of the next year...
Thankfully in the last 2 years I've been able to lose nearly all of those 33 pounds. 5-7 of them are still hanging out in my midsection, but it took some SERIOUS work and the better part of 2 years to get it off...
But weight gain is not the only thing I deal with when it comes to unbalanced hormones. During our fertility treatments, I went bonkers (I KNOW Jonathan is looking forward to going through *that* again this summer!). I am prone to some pretty irrational mood swings. Lately I've also developed some weird hormonal symptoms involved with ovulation (since I'm finally ovulating regularly for possibly the first time in my life...). I get horrible lower back pain and mood swings when the estrogen in my system changes (which it does around ovulation). I am really irritable and easily saddened. And my poor ovaries (maybe this is because they are awake and working for the first time in a long time!) ache. Makes my hips really sore.
Not to mention, taking this Cabergoline "scrambles my brains". I take one quarter of a milligram of medication once a week. Every Monday. And it makes me feel slightly dizzy, I have trouble when I go from a crouching or kneeling position into a standing position. Sometimes I feel like I might pass out when that happens. When I say it scrambles my brains, I mean for instance that sometimes I will be engaged in a conversation with someone and I will all of a sudden not be able to follow the conversation. I have a hard time recalling names (which gets interesting on Mondays in Kindergarten!) sometimes. All these symptoms reduce in severity throughout the week, which is nice, but it's a price I have to pay. Ovulating regularly increases our chances of conceiving naturally (which we are still hoping might happen anyway...wouldn't that be glorious??!) so a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do...
I'm willing to pay all those prices and even more if it means I get to be a mommy. A dear sweet friend of my SIL Nicole has been SO supportive of us. Nicole and I both have suffered miscarriages. Nicole has actually suffered two. How she survived emotionally, I can only attribute to the grace and power of God. Her strength is inspiring to me! But sweet Emma Claire made this statement:
"I'm praying that God would be moving and forming and "tinkering" in just the most perfect of ways... To prepare for the most perfectly perfect miracles in each of you. Miracles that you will love now-even more than had they come with ease. Miracles that will do big things for our big God. Miracles that we KNOW will come in His most perfect timing. Miracles that we're thanking and praising God for in advance... Because they're coming."
Which reminded me on this Monday morning that having to go through what I'm going through to become a mommy, really is going to make me appreciate my miracles more than I would have. I didn't want to believe that at first. With the loss of our first pregnancy (which we achieved in our first month of "trying") I cynically asked God why He thought I wouldn't appreciate my baby enough to let him stay with me here on earth. It's not that I wouldn't have appreciated him then. I totally would have...I did and I do. But it's true that after all of this, the implications for me are different. The impact on my heart and on my life will be much bigger...
Sometimes just envisioning that positive pregnancy test gives me an adrenaline rush. Makes my heart race. Gives me butterflies. I think I might need to be resuscitated on the day that that happens, because I seriously might black out! So many years of trying and failing, so many many tears, so much pain, so many vials of blood drawn, shots administered, ultrasounds performed. So many hours pinning baby things to my Pinterest boards. So many nights drifting off to sleep envisioning my sweet babies in my arms...
When they get here it will be glorious. Breathtaking in fact. But in the meantime...hormones SUCK..
That is all!
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