How My Body Responds to Hormones

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! 

Why IVF?

Hopefully you've read the Our Journey So Far and About the Womacks sections in the tabs above for some background about our story.  It is the beginning of February...on Tuesday of this week Jonathan will turn 31 years old.  At the end of May we will be moving from the West Indies back to the USA.  And in June we will begin the process of IVF for the first time.  There are many many unknowns, yes.  But I've felt the need to answer a few questions that I know SO many of you might be asking.  Especially if this is the first time you've heard that Jonathan and I have decided to go this route.  It's not a "justification"...more just a sharing of information.  So that you can help pray for us and support us along the way.  There is nothing more valuable to us than the love and support of our friends and family.  In the coming months we will need you all more than ever.  To help encourage us when the going gets tough, to help hold us up when bad news comes or painful procedures are necessary, and to hopefully share in the unimaginable joy that will be hearing that our dreams have come true finally.  

IVF huh??  Shouldn't you try less invasive procedures first?  You guys are so young!

Well my friends, we actually *have* undergone several less invasive measures.  We have had 1 failed IUI, 2 additional natural cycles with the help of Clomid (a drug to help stimulate my ovaries to produce multiple eggs), 1 cycle with Letrozole (a less aggressive medication to stimulate my ovaries which is actually an oral form of chemotherapy for breast cancer recovery), and one round of Clomid with the intention of IUI which failed 3/4 of the way through the cycle.  I have had more blood drawn in the last 5 years than I can even remember.  Jonathan's soldiers have been evaluated and found to be more than ok.  I was misdiagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome...the blanket diagnosis for women who have irregular cycles with no other explanation).  Blood work just this past March revealed elevated Prolactin (that's the hormone your body produces when you're breastfeeding that signals your body to stop ovulating while you're caring for an infant).  That is the reason I was not ovulating without a trigger shot, so I've been taking medication which has restored my ovulation since June 2013.  Yet we are still not pregnant.  Yes, we are young...sort of.  A woman's egg count decreases and her risk factors increase exponentially after 35.  I am *only* 29, yes.  We want at least 3 children.  You do the math!  Not to mention, if it can't happen without help anyway, what does it matter what my age is?  Bottom line is that IVF was not a snap decision for us.  We have arrived at this decision after many years of trying and failing.  Many cycles of help from specialists.  Many many hours of prayer and consideration.  God *has* called us to be parents...it is our heart's desire...and right now we feel Him giving us the go ahead for IVF, and we've seen evidence of His provisions there...

Speaking of provisions...isn't IVF outrageously expensive?  You guys are in med school...how are you affording this??

I don't really like answering this question.  Or rather, I really don't like it being asked.  But the short and sweet answer is that we have been *planning* this.  And by planning I mean we have been making sacrifices as necessary to be able to sock away enough savings to be able to pay for this procedure.  So no...we aren't taking out credit cards or "going broke".  God has provided for us in unimaginable ways in the past 8 months and we are being purposeful about our money management. It's a sacrifice yes...a constant one until we write that check in June.  But one we are more than willing to make in our quest to become parents...

Have you guys considered adoption?

Yes.  Most definitely.  We have seriously considered it for a long time.  Spent many hours in prayer about it.  Asked for prayer about it.  Consulted with friends who have adopted.  We are actually watching some dear friends of ours go through the process of adopting a child here in Dominica *right now*.  We have considered whether God's plan for us to become parents was through adoption.  The hard and fast truth about it is that we don't feel the calling.  We both feel strongly that the decision to adopt really has to come from a heart for adoption.  We feel it isn't right to adopt a child because you want a baby.  You have to be called to do it.  Called to make the choice to bring a child into your home either from an otherwise bad situation, abandonment, or just the choice of birthparents.  We think adoption is beautiful.  And we *do* have a heart for orphans and impoverished children.  But if we ourselves decided to adopt it would be because we desperately want a child.  Not because we have been called to adopt.  So for us, right now today, adoption is not the right choice.  We are trying to follow the plan!  

Ok, but what if you've put all your eggs in one basket and then this doesn't work...then what?

Well...per the title of this blog we are Thinking Positive.  But we are fully aware of the fact that a round of IVF by no means guarantees us a pregnancy.  And so yes, we will have spent a huge amount of money  and invested emotionally in a procedure that failed yet again.  If that happens, we will need your prayers and your encouragement.  We will need you to hold us up.  It won't be the end of the road for us though.  Assuming we are successful in creating a number of embryos in this first round, we will freeze the ones we don't use in this first transfer.  If this cycle fails we will try again when we've been able to come up with the funds to make it happen.  There we go with those sacrifices again!  The ultimate answer to that question is that we ask for your positive thinking too...and also for your support throughout our journey...wherever the road to Baby Womack leads...

Doesn't IVF put you at risk for multiples?  Will you be the new Octo-mom??

Lord let's hope not!  But yes, multiples is a "risk" that comes along with IVF.  The doctors at OU know what they're doing.  They know their stats and they will help us make educated decisions throughout this process.  We trust their judgment and we know that they are a practice of ethical and morally upstanding doctors.  The most likely multiple situation is twins.  Anything beyond that is not a likely scenario, but yes, it is certainly an outside possibility.  Jonathan and I have discussed this facet of IVF a lot and we feel confident that if twins or triplets are in our future, then so be it.  We will continue to trust that God will continue to provide as he has thus far.  I heard a woman speak at UBC several years ago about her infertility struggles.  She said "I prayed and begged God for children for years and His answer was wait.  I shook my fists at him and asked Him why.  And then unexpectedly I had two sets of twins within 2 years of each other.  And it was then that I realized that I wouldn't be able to be a mother without fully relying on Him.  I planned and He laughed.  And now I have 4 beautiful children!"  That speech has been in the forefront of my mind ever since.  If I am to be a mother of multiples, I have confidence that my God will hold my hand through it.  However if we do end up with multiples...you *might* get called in as reinforcements my friends... ;)

Jonathan is getting ready to start a residency soon right?  Where does the whole medical school thing fit into this scenario?

Funny you should ask that.  Even within the last 10 days God has closed doors and opened others in this realm.  This was a major concern for us too.  Not so much the residency thing, but more the clinical sciences situation.  Jonathan is nearly finished with his basic sciences, but he still has 81 weeks of clinical rotations to complete in the US before graduation.  God has graciously reworked our original "plan" and made the process of IVF and pregnancy even more possible given our new schedule.  I know that's probably a fairly vague answer, so suffice to say, for now, that between May 1st and September 15th God has provided an awesome window for us to make this happen.  And beyond that we already see Him paving the way...

What can we do to help?  What do you guys need?

Right now today, we need your prayer and support.  We need your positive thinking!  We need your words of encouragement.  We want you to be involved in Project Baby Womack however you see fit.  Whatever that looks like for you.  When the day comes that we bring our sweet baby (or babies!) into this world, we will need you like crazy.  We will need your hands and feet.  We will need your compassion.  We will need your joy and excitement!  What we need from you is to join our army of support.  Wait patiently with us!  Ask us how the process is going!  We need you to help hold us up.  We want the volley of praise to be HUGE when God sees this through.  When He works his miracles and sends us our angel(s) we want you all to be a part of the roar of gratitude sent His way!  And we want to be able to tell our children that they had a multitude of people praying for their arrival.  It takes a village y'all...

In closing, if you have questions...ask!  We won't be offended.  Honestly, I'd rather you go ahead and ask instead of speculate or assume.  I've been guilty of that myself in the past.  So just ask and I'll answer.  Jonathan and I are boldly proceeding in the direction we feel God is leading us...come along with us for the ride!