We struggled to get pregnant with our first daughter. After we had her, I suffered with infertility for 4 years, including a miscarriage, before getting pregnant with our second daughter.
Four years of charting, test sticks, lab tests, doctors visits, counting days until peak, and counting down the days to the end of the cycle. Month after month I stared at a strip and inspected it in different lighting and angles for 2 pink lines.
Years of wondering if this was the end of biological children I could have. Researching adoption, only to find out it costs more than a brand new minivan! Years of hope followed by despair.
Fertility Doctor
We were meeting with our local fertility specialist trained by the Saint Paul VI Institute. Click here to find one in your area!
The Saint Paul VI Institute specializes in “research, diagnosis, and treatment of women’s reproductive and gynecologic healthcare within a pro-life ethical framework.”
It uses the “best principles of medicine and offers superior treatments to women and challenges mainstream medicine, which relies on contraception, in vitro fertilization, and abortion.”
“The Institute networked a natural system of fertility regulation — the Creighton Model FertilityCare™ System (CrMS) — with a women’s health science — NaProTechnology. These provide effective, morally acceptable, and sexually healthy options for women and couples.”
Despite detailed charting and corresponding labs, supplements, and progesterone I could not get pregnant. One of the medications the fertility specialist recommended caused me significant side effects. We decided to take a break.
Miscarriage
On the cycle we took a break, I got pregnant. I was away at the wedding of a dear friend in Colorado when I found out. When I got back into town I went to the doctor!
My pregnancy test was negative on his rapid test. They collected my blood for hcg (pregnancy hormone) level and the waiting began. Surely I was just so early it wasn’t showing positive on his rapid test yet, right?
First phone call, my levels were low. Second call a few days later, my levels FELL more. I was told over the phone, alone in my bed, that I was going to miscarry.
Pain that followed
The next week was filled with immense physical and emotional pain. I couldn’t hold back tears. I was completely helpless from stopping this baby from dying inside my body.
I couldn’t look at other children without intense emotions for quite some time. Friends and co-workers were getting pregnant, seemingly all around me.
They were busy building large families and I didn’t know if I would ever have more than one child. I had not only had a miscarriage, I also have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, or PCOS, which makes it difficult to get pregnant and is a common cause of infertility.
I was mourning the loss of a child AND infertility. I was unsure if I could even go on to have another child.
Closure
We did a few things that brought us some semblance of closure. We chose a technically gender neutral name for the child- Julian Marie. Julian of Norwich is a female anchoress and Julian the Hospitaller is a male saint. We chose Marie for dedication to the Blessed Virgin, but also it is used in male names such as St. Jean-Marie Vianney. And we also had a funeral service specifically geared toward babies who died from miscarriage. I also wrote a post about burial after miscarriage here.
Hope
To our great delight, four months later, after working more with our fertility doctor, I became pregnant. We had our second daughter!
After each pregnancy, during which I gained weight, I then put on more weight while breastfeeding.
I was sad to learn this is true for some women who aren’t lucky enough to shed the baby weight from breastfeeding! Being overweight makes the PCOS worse and a nasty cycle can start.
I decided to try the keto diet because I had read that it helps with fast weight loss and infertility.
Keto is a low carb, moderate protein and moderate fat diet. It puts one in a state of nutritional ketosis and helps the body burn fat. The food you are allowed to eat is fun!
I started really committing to consistently eating keto earlier in 2020 when the baby was just over a year. I was ready to celebrate my birthday a few months later by meeting with my fertility doctor and starting charting and checking hormone levels again.
I was not able to conceive without the help of progesterone with my youngest daughter. I continued to require progesterone injections twice weekly throughout the pregnancy. I figured this would be the case again. I needed to lose the weight and get the hormones straight!
Surprise
Well, imagine my surprise when what I thought was just a longer cycle was actually the start of a pregnancy. Because of my previous miscarriage, I always check a pregnancy test on the day I expect my period just to be sure. I did this for this cycle as well…negative.
Something just didn’t seem right. I repeated the test a few days later and there were two pink lines! I could actually see two pink lines without a magnifying glass or flashlight. They were just there staring me in the face. I was delighted and surprised!
If you have ever been through the loss of a baby through miscarriage, you can imagine that the immense joy I felt was also mixed with significant apprehension about the days to come- testing hormone levels, checking pregnancy tests daily to confirm that line isn’t getting lighter, and anxiously anticipating the first ultrasound visit when I hopefully get to confirm a heartbeat.
Of course if the baby survives the first trimester, I will still always be more on guard than I was with my first pregnancy. The pain of miscarriage is never forgotten.
And there you have it! The journey begins for baby #4. Please keep us in your prayers!
Saint Gianna and Saint Gerard – Pray for Us!
Update 6/4/20 – We lost baby number 4 due to miscarriage. I share more on this story and miscarriage in general in this post
