This sounds like a simple enough question, but amazingly enough it’s not a simple question at all.
This week DH and I decided that it is time to head back to the RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist). This in turn has made me do a little soul searching and reflecting on the past few years. For instance what has led us to this decision and how did we get here? Well if you will humor me I will attempt a brief rundown of what has led us here.
Let’s start at the beginning December 1997, I was 16 going on 17 (and now I digress in to a little music from the Sound of Music) and I met my husband, being the only girl in an all boy computer class. I was a junior in High School and he was a senior. He was clearly the brains in the class and was kind enough to let me cheat off of him because I had no fricken clue what I was doing. Fast forward to the end of that school year, Nick and I were still going strong, and had joked about kids and marriage and all of that. Now I look back and think “really? Were we really talking about marriage that young?” Anyway at the time I swore that I wanted nothing to do with kids and did not want them for any reason. We continued to date through college and marriage became a real possibility, we were then married in September of 2004.
This brings us to the sad part of our tale… The year or so of total and utter hell.
On mother’s day 2004 my mother told me that she had a brain tumor but that they were able to get rid of it as it was a benign tumor. Well I thought ok this is odd, it tore me up to think that my mother, my rock could ever be sick. Little did I know this was the beginning of the lies and the charade. I went on with life, Graduated from College with my BA in Telecommunications and went on to get married. Then on Mother’s day 2005 while out for dinner at Giuseppe’s Italian Restaurant I watched as her face fell and she tried to hide the effects of a stroke. (One very important thing to note here is I am an only child, of two only children, and while I wouldn’t say I was sheltered, I would say that I was protected. My mother would go to the ends of the earth to protect me and she knew that this information would kill me. So she lied and hid as much as humanly possible from me. Me not quite wanting to grow up ignored the signs.) My Father seeing what was going on had quite an urgency about him as he had my husband pay for the check and he went to run and get the car. I had no clue what was going on and thought all of this behavior to be quite odd. As we rushed down Nicholasville road I knew something else was wrong. We were heading to UK, a hospital that both of my parents would NEVER use because it seemed that any family member who went in, never came back.
After we got mom in to triage they started to ask questions and mom was not willing to speak with me in the room. So in an effort to get her help I left. I sat in the waiting room with no clue as to what was going on, fearing the worst. About an hour later my Dad came to me in the ER waiting room and told me my worst fear: That my mother who had been a lifelong smoker had stage 4 small cell cancer. That what we were seeing was the beginning of the end. That they had been lying to me since March of 2004 when she was diagnosed. (I must add that I have never in my life wanted to punch someone as bad as I wanted to punch my father in that moment.)
I went back and saw her and they released her that night and we went home. My father then poured me a shot of whiskey and I downed it like nothing before… trust me it didn’t help. That night my mother assured me that she was not going anywhere for a very long time, she was wrong. About a month later I moved in with my mother for the last week of her life at the Markey Cancer Center here at UK. I honestly could not believe that this was happening to me. Me a child who quite frankly had never had anything bad happen to her in her life.
This is when I fell in to a deep dark nasty depression. I had nothing to live for, not my father (who I tried to help as much as I could but I think he was in a much better place then I being that he much longer to come to terms with it.), not my husband who tried to help and God only knows why or how he stayed with me, not my dog Jack who was 16 years old, or my new puppy Ziggy. I refused to talk to a professional I couldn’t come to grips with the fact that I couldn’t deal with this myself.
Well about a month or so after Mom died my dog of 16 years passed away of old age. This would have been overly traumatic had I not just lost my mother. I was numb to anything that was going on.
Let’s move on to about a year later. Nick and I decided that it was time to try for kids. We were successful on our very first try! I got a positive test right away! I thought things were looking up for us. Only to find out that my grandmother on my mothers side was diagnosed with Small Cell Lung cancer as well also in stage 4. She died 11 months after my mother from the exact same thing. I also found out about a week or so after the funeral that I had an EPF (early pregnancy failure.)
I stayed in a funk for about 2 years. I got up, I went to work, I came home and slept. That was my life. Well I then was on a mission to help my family grow! There are so few of us to begin with, my depression evolved in to obsession with getting pregnant. I did research tried every home remedy went to OBGYNS the whole nine yards. My routine became go to work, come home and obsess and research how to get pregnant. I had a few miscarriages, and then went to see the RE Dr. Murray was wonderful she was kind, compassionate and full of hope! We did test, after test and discovered that I don’t ovulate regularly. This is nice in that I have about 2-3 periods a year. Not so nice in that I have no way to time and check my cycle!
We went through a few rounds of Clomid only to discover that I have a naturally thin uterine lining (this makes it hard for the little buggers to stick!). In the end I came away with I was getting old (27) and that we should work towards getting pregnant now! I was done with it all.
Enter in New Kids on the Block!
Now on January 27, 2008(my 27th birthday) People Magazine leaked a story that they were getting back together. Now my first thought was a chuckle and I moved on not giving it much thought. Then I went to NKOTB.com… where there was a little teaser and my interest peaked. Then the website came up, and the official announcement went out. This my friends was my release! I was able to relive my childhood! To think back on happier times! I went on road trips with just the girls, girls who I had never met before but would go on to become my friends. I had never done an all girls road trip this was a whole new liberating experience for me… before the thought of being on a Chicago Subway at 3am would have terrified me! But you know what I lived though it! So I went on 7 NKOTB trips over the next year it was one of the best times of my life!!
Which brings us to now, and how I got to where I am.
I went and saw the RE on Wednesday. He is so very hopeful that this new round with the Gonal F with be the trick and seems to think that we will have luck and be pregnant by December. This is my Christmas wish.
If you have stuck with me this long, I commend you! Well done!!
I hope to blog more on my NK adventures and my progress with growing our family.
I know some of this post is disjointed, it just like me is here, there and everywhere.
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