The Story of Our Miracle - Here’s Where it Gets Really Cool
If you missed the back story, you can read the whole thing HERE. But to summarize, after 2.5 years of negative pregnancy tests, a miscarriage, and failed fertility treatments, we’re faced with a decision in March 2023. Our clinic is willing to do another round of IUI before moving onto more drastic measures, but I knew that my heart and mental health just needed a break. So we decided to pause for the month of March with no fertility treatments.
During that month, I had some sweet moments - I got a tattoo in honor of our angel baby and infertility journey, my best friend from college came to visit with her family, a friend from high school stayed with us while she was in town, and it felt nice to just have a month of somewhat normalcy.
April rolled around, and the plan was to do our last IUI, but due to an issue with the pharmacy, and some weird physical symptoms I was having, we decided to take one more month off, and instead to do an ultrasound to make sure everything looked good from the miscarriage and failed treatments to give us the best shot possible with this last treatment. At the appointment, I was told that there was something that didn’t look quite right, and it was a good thing we hadn’t done the treatment because it wouldn’t have worked.
I’m going to put that on its own line.
The doctors said, even if we had done a treatment in April, we wouldn’t get pregnant that cycle.
We scheduled a follow up for the following week to discuss yet another procedure to get a more definitive answer of what was going on. The day of that ultrasound was one of the worst days I can remember. I had a massive panic attack when I got back to work, and felt so defeated and ready to give up. It felt like everything was falling apart - work, friends, family. Had God just forgotten about me? I could sense something had to change, and maybe was about to change, but I wasn’t sure what it was, or what to do.
Rainbows on rainbows
This whole month, I started noticing people posting pictures of rainbows on their social media. Normally, this isn’t something that would stick out to me, but for some reason I really took notice. In the infertility community, the term “rainbow baby” refers to a baby born after miscarriage or loss - hope and beauty after a storm. However, I hadn’t seen one for myself…. Until the night before my appointment was scheduled to talk about my upcoming procedure. Spencer and I were driving home together, and I was upset over something else going on, and looked up to see the faintest rainbow. I took a picture because it felt very significant in that moment, and we drove home for Life Group.
After everyone left that night, I had this overwhelming sense that I needed to take a pregnancy test.
Now, this was crazy for multiple reasons.
1. The doctors told us it was next to impossible I’d get pregnant this cycle WITH medical intervention - and we hadn’t had that.
2. I was extremely early in my cycle to where a test probably wouldn’t pick up if I was pregnant, even if I was.
3. See number 1.
After arguing with myself for about 20 minutes, I finally decided to just take a test to shut myself up so I could go to bed.
You probably see where this is going……
Miracle.
No medical intervention. Nothing special or different. Only God’s perfect timing and grace.
The next morning, I called the clinic to say, “hey I’m supposed to come in for this appointment this afternoon, but….. I have multiple positive pregnancy tests.” I had 3 different people call me back trying to wrap their minds around this information. BECAUSE IT SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED! I had bloodwork drawn, and my pregnancy was confirmed. I knew we had a long way to go after our early loss, but each day tried to focus on the miracle that was the pregnancy, and leave the whole journey in God’s hands.
Now, it wasn’t completely smooth sailing after that, but that’s a story for the next post :)