I just wanted to pop in here and give a little update on our quest to get pregnant! For those new to our story, I will give a little background (this will just be the facts….I could write a novel on the emotional and spiritual journey through all this!) Caleb and I have been married for 4.5 years. When we got married, I starting charting my cycle to avoid pregnancy but then after about 6 months, we decided to stop preventing because we didn’t actually mind if we did get pregnant! About 6 months later was about the time when the Lord completely changed my heart about adoption and we started that journey in January, 2013. (That is again, another novel!)

Adoption was our first choice of how we wanted to have kids but we have always wanted biological kiddos as well. So when a year of “not preventing” passed and we hadn’t got pregnant, I wasn’t too concerned because we were in the middle of our adoption, and at the time, that was pretty exciting!

Well, here we are in 2016, and 4 years has passed. I’m not sure where the line is drawn between the terms “not preventing” and “trying” but we have lived both of those out in the past 4 years! About 2 years ago, we started to get pretty concerned as to why I wasn’t getting pregnant. A few friends had referred a specific infertility doctor to us so we made our first appointment.

I’m pretty sure I cried through most of that first appointment. It just sucks. It sucks to have to be there. It sucks to even utter the word “infertile”. Like, who gets to decide that? I couldn’t believe that I was sitting in that office.

Our doctor explained the series of steps that we would take. Testing. Probing. Hoping. Planning. More testing. He talked about the magical age of 35 and how we need to do as much as we can to get pregnant before I turn 35 because “your chances of getting pregnant drop off a table after that birthday”. I remember sitting there at 32 years old thinking that I had so much time.

Now I sit here, almost 35 (in 5 months) in shock at how fast the last 2.5 years went. It just makes me giggle at how much life planning I do (and keep doing)! If life had gone according to my original plan of what I wanted in my early 20’s, I would have 9 kids by now! That was my hope for so long. I wanted a family of 11! I am so small and my plans are just so silly and I’m grateful for that because I serve a HUGE God who is in full control….and that is a great thing.

Here is the truth….1 in 7 women deal with “infertility”. That’s A LOT! But we rarely talk about it. I’m not sure why because I know that I need community and people who ‘get it’. Maybe we don’t know how to talk about it. Maybe it’s just too painful to hear coming out of our own mouths. Maybe saying it out-loud makes it so much more real when all we really want is for it to disappear. I’m not sure what it is for each person battling it, but I’m here, thick in the battle, ready to share!

So now for the update on our quest to get pregnant:  First, (about 1.5 years ago), I got my fallopian tubes checked for blockages. That came out clear. Then I had to get a blood test…clear. Next, Caleb had to get checked for healthy swimmers….clear.

We are now to the last step before we decide on big words like “IVF”. I am currently on Chlomid, a drug that helps women to ovulate and sometimes drop multiple eggs. We started it in January and it didn’t work. We can do this up to 6 rounds and that is really all the body can take.

So here’s to round 2! We are really hoping and praying that we get pregnant within this next 5 months so that we don’t even have to think about the next steps. We would love for you to join us in prayer for that specifically.

To be honest, I would be shocked if we got a positive test. After 4 years of negative tests, it just seems impossible, but I know that God loves to do preposterous things that we can’t even imagine!

***update from just a couple hours after this post was originally written – I forgot to mention that we have also been going down a naturopathic route for fertility. If you know me, you know that when it comes to health, I prefer the most natural methods possible, and this is no different with our fertility issues. I have been seeing a great naturopathic doctor for a few months and have seen great improvements with my hormone levels and adrenals. Next step will probably be oils and acupuncture. At this point, we are trying both Western and natural routes to see which works first!