And I’m BACK!!… with some news!!!

Hi everyone! I can already tell from typing those first two words that this is going to be not only an exciting post for me, but also an emotional one. Where to begin???

This post is going to be quite different for me, but I promised to share with you all why I have been MIA lately. I first would like to apologize if I have taken a little bit longer than normal to get back to you and for not being as active on my blog, Facebook, and Instagram. I have kept busy working and creating some new products, but I had to step back a little and take care of some personal things.

Well… I am about to get real personal with you all!

I have always made my life outside of teaching pretty private because I didn’t think many of you would really want to know what goes on outside of my teaching world. However, I have learned that I am not the only one that has struggled with this and wanted to share with you all my personal journey with infertility. 

I can honestly say that I have always wanted to be a teacher since I was a little girl. What I remember even more is that I wanted to be a mother before I ever wanted to be a teacher. I can recall people asking me when I was very young what I wanted to be when I grow up and my answer was always… a Mom.

My husband and I have been married for 7 years this month and we had made a plan shortly after we got married that we would start a family once he was almost finished with chiropractic school. 

That time had finally come to start a family…

How hard can it be right?? We had in our heads and were completely naive in thinking that we would get pregnant the very first month of trying or maybe three months at the most! Well, month after month went by and it just wasn’t happening. Soon month after month turned into a year with no luck at all.

How could this be?? I can’t begin to describe the rollercoaster of feelings each month that we did not get pregnant. It seemed as though everyone around us was getting pregnant and so many were not even trying. Don’t get me wrong, we were over the moon happy for all of our friends. It was just hard to not feel alone and like I was the only one not able to get pregnant. It left me constantly asking myself, what is wrong with me?

After a year of trying, I had in my gut that something may be wrong. So my husband and I went to the doctors to get a checkup and to run some tests. We both got tested and they all came back NORMAL. 

That was a relief! So obviously we were just trying to hard and needed to relax. We told ourselves that we would definitely get pregnant now… WRONG! Over the next 8 months I think we tried every advice from family/friends and everything we could find on Google (ohhhhhh the internet) to get pregnant and it still was not happening! 

Now what??? Tears would fill my eyes and roll down my face every month and I started to feel like we should just give up. My tears soon turned into me venting to my husband:
Maybe I just can’t have kids. 
Maybe I am not supposed to be a mother. 
Maybe we just need to buy some land and fill it with animal babies.
(Jokingly) Maybe you should find a more fertile wife who can give you lots of children. 

I know it sounds crazy, but it was so hard not to feel that way. I hated that it wasn’t happening and I wanted my husband to get to be a father just as badly as I wanted to be a mother.

If it wasn’t for my husband I think I would have either stopped trying or taken a very long break because I just didn’t think I could take it much more emotionally  His constant support and encouraging words that it was going to happen was literally the only thing that lifted me up and pushed me to the next step. 

We decided to go see a fertility specialist. I couldn’t believe that we were at this step, but knew it was the right step to achieve our dream. The fertility specialist had a lot more testing than what we had done at our OB/GYN. 

We had very extensive testing done with the specialist and everything came back completely normal… again. I also underwent a procedure to make sure my tubes were open and he said they were perfect. The specialist sat my husband and I down to tell us the final results… UNEXPLAINED INFERTILITY.

My heart sank into my stomach. To be honest, I didn’t know if I should be happy or sad. I was happy that my husband and I were healthy. At the same time, I was sad because I thought to myself that maybe if something was wrong with one of us that would be the answer. All we would have to do is fix what was wrong and I would get pregnant! Unfortunately that was not the case.

My husband wiped my tears and looked me in my eyes to tell me that it was time to start some treatments. As he looked at me, tears began to fill up in his eyes and I could just see how badly he wanted a family. We were told how much time, emotional energy, and physical energy these fertility treatments were going to take. We took a deep breath and I told myself that we are starting a new journey to get pregnant and that I would have my best friend by my side every step of the way. We were ready to go!

The next 8 months I went through a lot and I mean A LOT of fertility treatments. We started with not as invasive treatments which ALL unfortunately did not work. Then, we moved to much more invasive fertility treatments at the beginning of this year. I can’t even begin to tell you the amount of shots my husband and I have had to inject in my stomach and some other areas daily. 

Let me tell you, I did NOT feel qualified to be injecting shots!! I am not a fan of shots (who is though?!?!) and cried every day the first 2 months of taking them. You would think that one would get use to a few shots every day after a couple weeks, but not me! It took me a couple months to toughen up! It was very very very overwhelming and scary, but we knew that all we wanted was a family and that we were willing to do whatever it takes. Even if it made me cry, have bruises everywhere, become emotionally unstable, and exhausted! Let’s just say my husband deserves the best husband of the year award to deal with me during all of this!

I had a couple more big procedures with this more invasive fertility treatment that we started in January. 

It is now April and time to get blood work done to see if I was pregnant. I remember the drive to the doctors thinking about what our next steps are going to be after this. I told my husband that after today maybe we should take a break because my heart can’t handle much more disappointment. 

He reassured me that this was our journey. He said, “no matter what life throws at us, whether its having a kid, fertility treatments, adopting, or never having children, as long as we have each other that is everything we need.” I completely agreed. He said, “I am not even close to being ready to give up so you better not be either.”

When my name was called to get my blood drawn I hesitated because I didn’t think I could go through this again. We were told that they would call to let us know the results that afternoon, but I already had in my head that I was not pregnant. I just didn’t want to be let down again.

My husband and I decided to stay together all that day. He knew I was going to be a complete mess and devastated when that call came through and that he would need to continue to be my rock to lift me up. 

The phone rang. I hesitated again and just looked at my husband. He looked at me and said, “You can do this be strong”. I put the phone on speaker for my husband to hear and all I remember is hearing the nurse say… YOU’RE PREGNANT!!!

I screamed with excitement and I sure did turn into a mess, but a different mess this time! I was crying with shock, excitement, more shock, and almost disbelief!! I even asked the nurse if she called the right person!! My husband was a mess too! We were jumping up and down like little kids in circles, crying, and gave each other one of the biggest most wonderful hugs that I will never forget! I ended up calling the nurse back shortly after we stopped crying because I think we both blacked out and didn’t hear anything else that she said!

One of the first things we did was drive to the store to purchase a pregnancy test because after 2+ years of trying to get pregnant I have never once had any glimpse of a positive test. I don’t even want to begin to count or tell you how many tests I have taken!! My husband says that we should have bought stock into pregnancy tests at this point!! 

We got home, I took the test, and it was POSITIVE!!! I swear it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen! As gross as it may be, I will be keeping that test forever!!!

I had blood work done a few more times to make sure my numbers were doubling every couple days and they were!!

We are currently 14 weeks pregnant and have officially entered the second trimester! The first trimester was pretty rough. Lots of exhaustion, nausea, food aversions, but I LOVED every minute of it because I knew our dream had come true! I would take all of those shots and all of those symptoms again in a heart beat. It has been worth it all!

I am so incredibly blessed to have a super supportive husband. A HUGE shout out goes to my husband Chris. Without Chris’s support and all of the times that he let my cry on his shoulder and bring me back to reality during this journey. I couldn’t have done this without him. He has absolutely been my rock. We’ve grown even closer and stronger through this, even though it’s been extremely stressful emotionally and physically. Thank you my love, there’s no other person I would want to be on this journey with!

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I hope my story will help others find encouragement and to not give up.

I am now getting my energy back and am feeling much better! Since I am finally feeling like myself, I am very excited to jump back into my blog posts, Facebook posts, Instagram posts, and to share with you lots of new resources. I have a lot of things I am working on and can’t wait to share with you all!

Baby Miller will be arriving in December 2017 🙂