Part 4

Through all of that pain and heartache I was able to get through the rest of 2014. Not exactly in one piece, but I was still trudging. 

In December things got hard again. Each month after the miscarriage I would hope and hope and hope to see that positive test. But I was let down again and again. That much hope and let down is not good for a person. I was nearing my breaking point (I thought I had passed it a long time ago, but it just kept getting worse and worse). 

Christmas was hard. I (we) tried to be excited and happy, but it fell flat. We debated on even putting up a tree before we decided to try it, to see if it would lift our spirits. And maybe it did. But really, there wasn't a huge difference. Honestly, I felt like we just made it through the holidays. We put on a happy face and just faked it. A few days after Christmas when I was let down once again, I was nearing nervous breakdown status again. We headed to Island Park for the week and I sobbed (angry sobs) all the way up there, and most of the time that we were there. I wasn't feeling like I was even okay anymore. Now, more than ever, I needed that miracle. And guess what, it finally came. 

Mid-January after a lot of resisting ( I had given up taking pregnancy tests a LONG time ago) Kolton finally convinced me to take a test. And it was positive. I couldn't believe it. When I showed it to Kolton we both just looked at each other, not even daring to hope or really do more than give a small smile to each other. We were not celebrating and we didn't even really dare be happy or excited or make any plans at all. I didn't even try to count months to figure out when I was due for a looong time. We knew the disappointment and heartache that could easily follow this good turn and we weren't going to fall into it again. So we moved forward trying to feel nothing. But as days and weeks passed we started to feel good. Especially once we passed the dreaded 6 week mark (when I had miscarried before). 

My parents had been on a few vacations in January and I hadn't seen much of them. The first time I saw my mom in a few weeks she followed me into the bathroom while I was touching up my makeup and asked if I was pregnant. I denied it for a full 5 minutes before she broke me. She said she could just tell. I was happier. 

A few months later, Kolton was talking to Dave Spencer when he asked if we were expecting. He said that Michelle had noticed something different about me at Parent/ Teacher conference which had been not very long after we had found out. 

Now I am 18 weeks along and happy. It feels so good to be happy again, I had almost forgotten. I've always been a pretty positive and naturally cheerful person and it feels good to find that part of myself again. Because it was gone for a long time. We are doing good. I have been pretty sick which is hard and frustrating, but I finally came to the conclusion that I've been sick because it helps me not to worry. Being sick is a good sign that things are progressing normally and it really is comforting. I feel like I may have felt her a few times, but I don't really know yet. Nothing too regular or definite. 

So far our story has had a happy ending (or beginning, really) but my heart aches for those people who haven't received the blessing that we have. I hurt for them and pray for them always. This was the hardest thing I have ever gone through and for anyone that is currently going through it, I think of you constantly. Just know that you are never alone. 

And that's the end of my story for now. Hopefully I get telling some more upbeat and positive stories now that I've got that off my chest. Life is good! 

Part 3

The strengthening process that I talked about really did take a long time. I still felt broken and shattered, even though I was able to get back into my normal routine. I specifically remember one Sunday. My cousin played an arrangement to "Master the Tempest is Raging" in Sacrament Meeting. As she played I was overcome with emotion. I opened up the hymnbook and followed along with the words and felt that the first two verses in particular really described how I felt at that point in time. 

1. Master, the tempest is raging!
   The billows are tossing high!
   The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness,
   No shelter or help is nigh;
   Carest Thou not that we perish?
   How canst Thou lie asleep,
   When each moment so madly is threat’ning
   A grave in the angry deep?
   • 
     
2. Master, with anguish of spirit
   I bow in my grief today;
   The depths of my sad heart are troubled—
   Oh, waken and save, I pray!
   Torrents of sin and of anguish
   Sweep o’er my sinking soul;
   And I perish! I perish! dear Master—
   Oh, hasten, and take control.
3. Thinking about this song and how much the words really applied to my life at that point in time had me in tears the rest of the day. I taught the YW lesson and bawled through the whole thing. I think the girls were a little weirded out. They didn't know what was going on with me and truthfully no one did. A miscarriage isn't exactly something you broadcast to people. It's something that is kept quiet. I didn't tell my very closest friends for a really long time. So we were just privately mourning throughout the entire fall. Those were really bitter and bleak days. Even though I had been strengthened, it was still painful. And it hurt all the time. There was a ragged hole in my chest that didn't heal. And if I didn't know any better, I would think that there was literally a hole there because I felt it. It had ragged edges and was just there and wouldn't heal. Every time I cried during those months I could feel it and I would huddle up and clench my shoulders together to try to stop it from getting bigger. 
4. One thing that helped me get through that fall was the poem "Good Timber" by Douglas Malloch. I would constantly (multiple times a day) repeat the following lines to myself.
5. The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.






Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Part 2

Seeing that positive pregnancy test was a miracle. I remember it perfectly. It was September 19th and the best day ever. But even though seeing that little positive symbol made me over the moon happy, I wasn't completely over the moon happy. I had this teeny, tiny foreboding feeling that I quickly pushed away. I felt it was really a miracle that I was experiencing. The first month I quit seeing the doctors, I got pregnant. My due date would coincide exactly with the end of the school year. It was all perfect. 

 It was a happy two weeks. I was feeling better than I had in a LONG time. It was Spud Harvest and I was freezing carrots from my garden. I had been feeling uncomfortably, painfully crampy all day and when Kolton came home for a late lunch I went to the bathroom and saw a tiny bit of blood. I fell apart and we jumped in the car and sped to the doctor. It was a silent, scary ride. We got right in and as soon as they started the ultrasound Shannon said, "Oh! There's a heartbeat!" Immediately we felt super relieved and were able to leave the office with smiles. 

Over the next few days I kept bleeding. And it progressively got worse and worse. One night I woke up at 2 am in a cold sweat and sobbed to Kolton about what would happen if we did lose the baby. I was eventually able to calm myself and go back to sleep. 

I went to the doctor again a few days later because I was still bleeding. Again, there was a heartbeat and I felt hopeful. But at this appointment the doctor insisted on drawing blood to figure out my blood type. I thought this was odd but went with it. When I got home that night I was in serious pain for the next few hours until I finally miscarried. But even then we weren't sure. I was exhausted and quickly fell asleep but Kolton was awake and worried. The next morning we went to the doctor first thing to confirm what we really already knew, but hadn't really accepted. 

From that point on, I felt anguish. Just pure despair. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed through the next two days. I couldn't get off the couch. I couldn't eat or sleep and when I tried to get up to do something to take my mind off of it I couldn't even stand up straight. So I just laid on the couch, miserable. Nothing anyone could do or say made me feel better. Kolton was upset too, but I was just in a whole other league of misery. I don't even like to think back to that time because it just makes me cry and wonder how I did it. And I didn't know how I was going to do it. I honestly wanted to die. I wished for it because I had no idea how I was going to make it through this. 

On one of those first nights Kolton was outside dealing with his grief in a productive way (doing yard work) and I was in the house still unable to do anything. I remember laying on the bathroom floor and trying to pray. It came out as more of an angry yell, "Why did you do this to me? What have I done to deserve this? How am I going to move on? How will I ever be okay again?" I poured my soul out to Heavenly Father and let Him just how unhappy I was with Him. I blamed him for taking away my baby. And I just didn't know why. 

As I was lying there, I was slowly able to calm down and stop the tears that hadn't quit flowing for two days. I felt a teeny, tiny bit of peace and I was able to pick myself up off the floor and take a tiny step forward. From that point on, each day got a little better. It was imperceptible at first, but looking back on those days, and weeks, and months I can see how it got better. I was able to go back to school and go to a friend's baby shower which I knew would be painful and had thought would be impossible. 

I know, without a doubt, that I had the help of my Heavenly Father to pass through this trial. This experience reminds me so much of the story in Mosiah 24. The people of Alma are being persecuted by the Lamanites and cry unto the Lord. Here's a small part of that chapter:

 13 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage.

 14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

 15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

I can relate so much to this story. I can testify that I felt that strengthening process. I had this huge burden placed on me and it was more than I could bear. But as I continued to pray to Heavenly Father he strengthened me. He didn't take my burden away like I wanted Him to, but He strengthened me that I was able to bear it. This didn't happen overnight. It took a long time, but eventually I was able to be okay again. Not great, not even fine, but okay. 

Here I am.

Here I am, ready to write the longest and hopefully not too super depressing post. But I've been feeling like I needed to share my story for quite a while now. And that's why the posting has basically stopped. I can't write anything until I've written out what I need to. 

So, in light of our big, happy, life-changing news...

I feel like I have to share a little more about how we got here. Because it was not an easy journey. And while I wouldn't wish it on anyone, I want to share so if anyone else is going through the same thing, they can maybe find some peace through reading my story. 

So we started talking about baby stuff in November of 2012. I went off birth control and we weren't necessarily "trying" but we definitely were not not trying. I figured it would happen within a couple months but those passed with nothing. Finally I started using ovulation predictor kits and never got a positive result. My biggest regret is waiting a year to see a doctor, but I felt like that's what was required. My second biggest regret is going to see the doctor that we chose. I wrote about that here

But after my surgery I was feeling much more peaceful. I felt like we had found the cause of the problem and miracle! I ovulated on my own (without any meds) for the first time ever! I was feeling good until the specialist we were seeing put me back on medication (Femara). I didn't feel right about this but figured he was a specialist and surely knew more about this than I did. Anyway, that stuff did a number on me. I can't remember how many rounds exactly that I did but it turned me into a psycho crazy person. I was moody and weepy and honestly just a real mess. 

One night in early August I had what I don't know what to call other than a nervous breakdown. I had been running to Rexburg about every other day for a couple days to do ultrasounds to track when I ovulated. Finally Shannon told me that I hadn't ovlulated that month and probably wouldn't. I felt like we were back to square one and had made NO progress, actually we had taken steps backward in the past few months. I was an emotional wreck all day long. I remember making about 15 loaves of zucchini bread trying to calm myself. It didn't work. And when I got in a baler that night and my mom called, it all came crashing down. I can't even explain it. I was sobbing and couldn't breathe (hyperventilating) and just a complete mess. My mom finally came and pulled me out of the baler and took me home to Kolton who, sweet soul that he is, had no idea what to do with me. 

That night and over the next few days we decided that we were DONE. No more doctor's visits, no more blood draws, and definitely no more medications. We were taking a complete break from everything until January. For the first time in a long time, I felt completely peaceful. Everything was good. I knew that it was right. And guess what else? I got pregnant.