The Story of Our Miracle - The Back Story

By now, I thought I’d be in the thick of sleepless nights, dirty diapers, and newborn snuggles with our due date being almost a week ago, but instead our little one is taking his sweet time joining us here. The nursery is done, everything is sterilized, and the waiting game feels pronounced without the distraction of the holidays and college football. Over the past few days, I’ve felt a shift in needing to find an outlet to focus on, and it’s been on my heart to document this journey for a while. And I guess there’s no time like the final hours, huh?

So let’s go back to the beginning really quick. Because if there’s anything I’m learning, it’s that the stories God writes and weaves together are full of moments that seem unremarkable at the time, but allow us to see His hand when we take the time to pause.

Almost 3 years of “not yet…”

I’m going to try and make this very long story short, I promise. Warning - this does contain some medical testing/female anatomy talk so skip to the next heading if you don’t care about that.

2020 was a year of chaos for everyone, but was the summer that Spencer and I decided we wanted to start adding to our family. He had just gotten his agency assignment, I had a new job at the church, and we were trying to sell our house and move into a new house in the middle of a housing inventory shortage - perfect timing right?! We didn’t think much of anything, and lived our life until the spring of 2021 after we both had pretty rough cases of the original strain of the VID-19. I started to feel like something might be wrong, but due to how new everything was to doctors, no one really could give me any answers. I was just told, wait until it’s been a year, and come back then - but everything’s probably fine.

Spoiler Alert: everything was not fine.

After a year, I went to my doctor who ran a couple tests, and said they weren’t sure what was going on, and they would recommend going to the fertility clinic. I felt deep down there was more to the story, and knew that a move in that direction would not be covered by any insurance, so by a miracle, I was given a recommendation for a naturopath who had a special interest in fertility. Even bigger miracle - she was in network with our insurance AND a believer!! We dug into in depth blood work and testing, trying to get to the bottom of any underlying imbalances and problems that might not show up on conventional testing. Ultimately, I was in a way better place health wise after making some lifestyle and diet changes, but it didn’t quite answer the question of why I couldn’t get pregnant.

Finally, an answer.

In a last attempt to rule out any structural abnormalities, we did an in depth ultrasound, where a very skilled technician, by miracle, found an endometrioma on one of my ovaries. These cysts are typically very hard to see and diagnose correctly, but without that scan, we could have been in the dark for much longer than we were. This finding led us to a diagnosis - finally, after almost 2 years of being told I was “just too stressed” or “overthinking things” - of silent endometriosis. This means that I wasn’t presenting with the typical symptoms of the disease, and because of that, it had spread to many parts of my body. At this point, my options were pretty limited to either trying a regimen of natural interventions, or pursuing surgery to remove the endometriosis lesions.

I’ll be honest, I was devastated.

While I was thankful to know a reason we were struggling, to hear those words brought the gravity of our situation into focus. There was a very real possibility that we would not be able to have biological children, and that reality caused lots of tears and angry prayers to the Lord. But we moved forward, and God continued to open doors for us. We found an incredible endometriosis specialist here in Portland, were able to get an appointment pretty quickly, and had surgery scheduled within 6 months of my original diagnosis. When you compare that to the average timeline of 3-6 years for a woman to be officially diagnosed and treated for endometriosis, this truly was a miracle (and also a testament to the advancements needed in women’s health, but that’s a rant for another time.)

My surgery in September of 2022 went extremely well, and the surgeon was very hopeful about our chances after the procedure. In yet another miracle, we were able to start working with the fertility clinic at OHSU within a month after surgery, and had a great team and plan going forward. We completed an IUI (intrauterine insemination), which is a less invasive fertility treatment, at the beginning of November, and on November 21, 2022, with shaking hands, I showed Spencer our first ever positive pregnancy test. Unfortunately, a little over a week later, on December 1st, our first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, and was deemed a “chemical pregnancy.” I have many more words and thoughts to honor that angel, however I will save that for another post that I will eventually link here one it’s written.

So now what, God?

At this point, it’s been almost two and a half years. Two and half years of celebrating siblings’ and friends’ pregnancies, while we wonder if our time will ever come. Months of countless painful and expensive tests, treatments, and procedures, which seemed to end us back at square 1 each time. Minds full of questions, doubts, and the underlying fear and lie from the enemy - maybe God just doesn’t want you to be parents. We limped our way through the holiday season, and jumped back into 2 more rounds of IUI in January and February of 2023.

Both ended in just one line on the pregnancy test.

But here’s where it gets cool…

And in the interest of not having this one post be 20,000 words, I’m going to save what happens next for the next post.

Don’t hate me.