Looking back

I have just spent the last half hour re-reading my blog posts surrounding our journey of infertility and with our miscarriages. Tears formed in my eyes as I was taken back to some of those dark, lonely days. Yet here I sit - almost 35 weeks pregnant - spending my days nesting getting ready to greet this new little person.

For those of you who know us well and have journeyed with us these last 4 years we have tried to add a new member to our family, you will know how hard it has been for us. You may have seen the tears, angry outbursts, hopelessness, and grief. You may have listened as we tossed and turned the different options for growing our family around from IVF to foster care to adoption. You may have held our hand as we lost another little life to miscarriage August last year.

I want to take this moment to say thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Honestly it has been such a long journey and I still have days where I can't believe we are here, about to welcome a baby into the world.

Thank you for the meals you cooked us.

Thank you for the play dates with James to give us some rest.

Thank you for listening even when you had no idea what to say in response.

Thank you for crying with us.

Thank you for encouraging us.

Thank you for distracting us when we needed time out.

But most of all, I want to say to those who are still on the journey, to those who are still waiting for their 'rainbow' baby or even their first baby, to those who have suffered loss through miscarriage, still birth and child loss - I want to say to you that I love you so much and my heart is so full for you. I have felt your pain. I have walked where you walked - perhaps not exactly the same steps but a similar journey just the same. I just want to be able to love you in any way I can and yet often I have no idea how, despite having been there myself.

I want to encourage you not with empty words and promises that it gets better or that eventually you will receive your long waited for child. The harsh reality is that sometimes this just isn't the truth of it. I want to encourage you to discover who you are in the middle of the journey. While looking back at old blog posts I found two that brought to light how I spent time doing this just before we found out we were pregnant this 4th time around.

One post I wrote was on Identity. It looked at where we get our identity from which is particularly relevant when we feel like failures due to our lack of being able to conceive and carry a child to full term. Another post was about Reflecting and making changes. I encourage you to have a read and perhaps take this time to really evaluate how you are doing and where you are going. I'm not talking about increasing your self image or trying to justify things. I'm hoping that you will be able to discover more about who God made you to be and who you are in Him. I'm hoping that you will draw closer to Him and get your needs met by Him and not by the flimsy things of this world that can fall away in an instant. I'm hoping that despite what heartache you are currently going through that you will find rest in this time of reflection, that you will find space to grieve and space to process. I'm hoping that by doing these things and taking the time to really look at your life that you will be able to come to a new understanding and a new hope for whatever the future holds, knowing that God's plan truly is the best possible for you no matter how much we want things to be different sometimes. It made me laugh seeing a post two months before we discovered we were pregnant this time around that I had written about putting a pause on our fertility journey and how because of what I had been doing by reflecting and looking at identity, that I was ok with taking this time out. I am not in anyway suggesting the dreaded "just stop trying to get pregnant and it will happen". I know this isn't helpful and don't believe it for a second! I just find it a blessing that when I took the focus off ME and put it on HIM that I became better equipped to walk the path we had to walk.

I pray that you will find some rest and peace dear ones. I pray that things happen for you as you dream they would. But most of all I pray for you to be able to still find the joy and blessing that life is even in the midst of the trials and pain. I pray that you will find there is still life to be lived and that it doesn't have to be taken over by your pain. There is a release waiting for you, a God who wants to carry that pain and burden if you will let Him. So take a leap and let go. Face it and then allow Him to comfort you as you mourn and deal with the hard times. I hope that soon there will be a time when you can look back and see your journey through different eyes, as a journey that built your character.

We also rejoice in our suffering, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. 

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 5:3-5

*I love reading your comments! Thanks! *

Our Children

Today is a special day. Today is the day we were due to have our little baby we lost at 6 weeks last August. It has me thinking about our children.

March 25th 2008, the due date of our first child. I spent the day crying and writing a letter to our precious little one who we named Jessie when we miscarried on the 12th of August at 9 weeks pregnant. We had spent 7 months trying to conceive and were thrilled to find out we were expecting a baby! Sadly a few days after we found out I spent a day in hospital while our baby slowly passed from my body. I hadn't had any symptoms of pregnancy and with my cycle being all over the place we didn't know we were pregnant until I was nearly 9 weeks.

James and I at Taylor Dam in New Zealand, the place Nick and I had gone to cry after we miscarried 2 years earlier.

In August we will celebrate James' 5th birthday! He is our second child even though many consider him to be our first. We will always remember our Jessie even though we never got the chance to know if we are remembering a boy or girl. Of course instead of explaining all of this to most people we just answer with "yes, James is our only child". Sometimes it's just not worth it to get into an explanation with a stranger.

Our big school boy :)

James has been our blessing and our bright spark. We love him so terribly much and are so thankful to have his smiley little face in our lives. He brings us so much joy even amidst the trialling times of parenting. James my darling, I love you!

We recently named our little one we lost in August Bailey. Today we would have been due to have this little one and celebrate his or her arrival. Again sadly we miscarried at 6 weeks. I didn't have any symptoms except extreme nausea but that had continued on from the fertility medication I had taken so I'm not sure if it was pregnancy related as my hormone levels were not very high.

Today we have reason to celebrate as well. In November we will welcome our 4th child! We are incredibly blessed to have conceived NATURALLY with no fertility assistance as we had put off trying while I was in the beginning stages of my year of study so we wouldn't be due before my school year finishes. Sometimes for all our plans God knows a better way and better timing and we will be due the day my oral presentation of my literature review / thesis is due! I am not sure what's going to happen with study yet but we will figure that out. Unlike all my other pregnancies (including James) symptoms this time have been very present! All day nausea and some dry retching (ugh), breasts that feel like they've been hit with baseball bats, extreme tiredness, and crying at the drop of a hat (or Nick saying he didn't like the nursery colours I picked out - he was joking but I burst into tears!) My blood tests have all come back very strong and this in conjunction with my strong symptoms encourages us that this little one is going strong.

At just over 7 weeks, I have had people wonder why we have told some people this early - especially when we have had two miscarriages in the past. Nick and I talked about what we wanted to do and in the end we decided that we really appreciated the support and understanding we got from our family and friends during our miscarriages. It would have been hard for us to go through that alone. Another reason, and my main one, is that we consider this baby to be a real, live baby even from this young. We will celebrate our children no matter how long we have them. If you knew that your child was only going to live until their 1st birthday, would you remained worried, ignoring and not acknowledging that child with your family and friends, trying not to be excited and thankful for that year? Or would you cherish each moment, each milestone, each day you get to spend with that child. For us we are choosing to be positive and to cherish these days. After all, none of us know how long our children will be with us anyway.

So please, whilst I appreciate your concern for our 'premature excitement' - keep it to yourself. We have decided to celebrate this little miracle every day we have him or her with us - both in the womb and once they are born. Celebrate with us!

Time for a break

Sigh. Another month. Another failed attempt to make a baby.

But this month is different. This month, I'm ok with the failure. I am a little sad but honestly ok.

You see this year I have made the decision to go back to study. I have one more year to go until I will be a practising counsellor! This last year has been on hold since I got pregnant with James and now that he is starting school, it's time to realise my dream. I made this decision after going through the fertility stuff this month so didn't know if I would be tackling both baby and study at once. Now I know I will be able to concentrate on my study. So we won't be doing fertility for the next 3 months until I wouldn't have a due date during my study. 

I am becoming more and more surprised though that the further I get from our second miscarriage, the more ok I am becoming about not getting pregnant again. I don't know if it's God working on my heart or just changing expectations. I am just getting the feeling that perhaps I won't have any more 'natural' children. I still want more kids, don't get me wrong on that. It's just that I'm starting to feel more drawn and open to foster care and adoption. I've always had a heart to adopt and Nick and I were foster carers in New Zealand before we moved here. With the proposed changes to foster-to-adopt and adoption that Tony Abbott is making, this is becoming more and more possible for us. 

So I'm ok this month. I am looking forward to studying this year and hope to bring some insights from what I am learning to my blog posts. 

*Thank you for your comments! I really enjoy reading them!*

Tamoxifen

We have had a couple of cycles now without taking fertility medication. I would say months but my cycles are longer than that! Last one was 7.5 weeks! sigh...

We wanted to give my body a chance to recover and be drug/hormone free after we miscarried baby #2. It does worry me occasionally that I am taking medication designed for women with breast cancer!

As you may remember, our fertility specialist wanted us to go to daily injections as our next step. We talked and talked about it and in the end I just am not ready for that step yet. It is costly (although not as much as an In Utero Insemination - IUI - or In Vitro Fertilisation - IVF). It also means taking regular trips up to the city to Hollywood Private Hospital here in Perth for testing and more injections. Nick would also have to undergo further testing.

So my Doctor decided that there was one more drug we could try before that step. It's called Tamoxifen. I take the tablets in a similar way to the Clomoid except twice a day - days 2-6. It works out to be 20mg a day. I have now finished taking the first course of medication and am very happy to say that I had NO SIDE EFFECTS!!! Wow! This is huge for me considering I ended up so sick with the Clomoid - especially that last round where I was on double dose.

I am also thrilled to report that I have now lost 12kg! What started as weight loss due to being so sick with the Clomoid and during the early pregnancy before the miscarriage (and lets face it - the 3-4 weeks afterwards that it took for my hormones to get back to non-pregnant levels), has continued and I am only 4kg now away from my goal! I had a goal of 16kg to lose. I am also excited that I am only 2kg away from being a BMI of 25! This is the recommended weight range for someone my age and height. Losing 4kg will put me in the middle of the recommended weight range.

I have managed to do this largely to eating smaller meals and eating healthier foods. When I say smaller meals, I don't mean starving myself! I realised while I was sick that my body didn't need to eat as much as I had been eating at meal times in order to be satisfied. I think I had been overeating by eating a large meal instead of having the smaller portions recommended. Now I eat about 1/2 - 2/3rds of the size meal I used to eat. It's still a decent sized meal and I find if I try to eat more I actually start to feel ill from overeating. I'm guessing perhaps my stomach has shrunken back to it's normal size from being stretched by larger meals? I have no idea if this is biologically correct but that's what it feels like :)

It has definitely been helpful to have our Thermomix. I have to give it a shout out - we are just eating so much more healthily than before. I cook from scratch making my own pasta sauces etc so we don't have the preservatives and other bad bits. It takes me as much time (or often less) as it would using a pre-packaged sauce/packet to cook and also uses all fresh ingredients which makes it taste just so much better! I'm so pleased to be able to get more fruit and vege's into James as well.

One final thing to note. I am feeling good. I mean REALLY good. Leading up to our miscarriage and dating back years now that I think about it, I was feeling so stressed, run down, depressed and anxious. All this fertility stuff really does impact your whole life. Since losing baby #2 (yet to be named) I have really focused on 3 things which have made all the difference in my life as so many of you have mentioned that you can see the difference.

1. Spending more time with God. Reading my Bible if not every day then very close. Praying. Meditating on His Word. I feel refreshed in my spirit and soul. It's truly been like living water to a thirsty person. I am so thankful that what started out as something I really needed to encourage myself to do is now becoming something I really look forward to and can't wait. I am getting such a hunger to read more of God's Word, even though I am working my way through from start to finish as part of a 30 by 30 goal and am currently in the "boring" books such as Leviticus and Numbers.
2. Gratitude. Thankfulness. Appreciation. I have been thinking about these things so often and most often in relation to Nick and James. I am so thankful to have a loving husband who cares for me, loves me unconditionally, looks after me when I'm sick, is romantic and passionate, loves our son to bits and will do anything for our family including working so so hard so I can stay at home with our boy these last few months before he starts school. I am so thankful for our amazing son James who has finally come out of the grumpy, angry, frustrated 4 year old stage where we were having mammoth tantrums 2-6 times a day and is the most caring, considerate, quick to say sorry and apologise for his behaviour, funny, energetic, compassionate, playful and just so huggable! Gratitude. Being thankful for what I do have and looking forward to the future.
3. Getting healthy. In body and mind. Spending time relaxing when I am worn out rather than piling more things on my plate. Eating better. Trying to be more active with James. Taking more care in the way I dress and look. Going to sleep earlier. Keeping house better.

I look forward to seeing if we will have a baby to announce at New Years!

International Pregnancy and Child Loss Month

We lost our first precious bundle at 9 weeks pregnant. We lost our third baby at 6 weeks. It was a traumatic and horrible experience. Unless you have been there yourself, it is hard to really grasp the depth of feeling and trauma.

This is a song I found written by Pink about her miscarriage. Stay strong everyone.