The Struggles of Infertility

After many different tests, the doctors could not find one thing wrong with me. One of the only explanations that our doctor could give us was that my body was not producing enough progesterone once I was pregnant. This was the one thing they couldn't run any tests on seeing as I wasn't currently pregnant (nor had anyone monitored my levels close enough in the past 2 pregnancies). Progesterone is a hormone that your body produces once you are pregnant. Your body produces progesterone by a cyst on your ovary called a corpus luteum. Once you are about 10 weeks along, the placenta starts producing the progesterone. Their possible reasoning for me miscarrying was that my body was not producing this hormone which meant the baby stopped growing/developing.

So, the doctor put me on progesterone around September/October. The trick to taking this medicine is all about the right timing. You can't take this medicine daily throughout your cycle or it will act as a birth control. Every month, I would wait until about the 10th day of my cycle and begin testing to see when I would ovulate. I would use ovulation test strips to best predict when I would ovulate. (I would also look for symptoms for ovulation.) Once the test turned positive, I knew I would ovulate in the next day or so. Then, you have timed intercourse and about 4 days later I would start progesterone. I would stay on progesterone until the end of my cycle. Once I was at about my 30 day mark, I would take a pregnancy test. If it was positive, I stayed on the medicine to help the baby develop and provide that hormone that my body was lacking. If it was negative, I stopped the progesterone and then my cycle would start over again. This was an extremely frustrating process seeing as after our second miscarriage, my body was totally out of whack. I would have some cycles that would last 28 days and some that would last 36 days. This made it very hard to track anything.

There is a lot more to it than just the basics of following directions. After months of repeating this over and over again, and getting one negative pregnancy test after another, it became very emotionally draining. You start to lose hope and wonder why you are putting yourself through this. We never had trouble getting pregnant the first two pregnancies. It was such a blessing at the time that I sadly never thanked the Lord for. I do remember praying and telling the Lord, "Please Lord don't let me get pregnant again if this child will not be carried full term and be healthy. I just can't take it anymore, and there is no way that I can handle losing another child." Another thing that people don't realize with infertility struggles is the toll it takes on your body. With just the 2 weeks of taking progesterone, it makes your body think you are pregnant (even if you aren't). You get every symptom that comes along with pregnancy. There were some months when Adam and I were convinced we were pregnant-all to see another negative pregnancy test. I can't even explain how hard it is on your body, your marriage, your emotions, and much more.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so the you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."   James 1:2-4

From about September to January, we repeated this process every month. Then, we hit our breaking point. On my birthday, (in January-a year after we found out we were pregnant the first time), we scheduled a doctor visit to view our other options for getting pregnant. During that visit, they put us on a very specific plan of medicines and instructions as to what this month was going to look like. Our doctor was concerned about the length one my cycle being all over the place and how late I was ovulating. He decided it was best to put me on medicine to regulate my cycle, produce stronger hormones, and better prepare my eggs to make it easier to get pregnant. Basically, they were controlling my whole cycle to assist in the process and up our chances of getting pregnant. At this point, we were willing to do anything to have a successful pregnancy. We prayed over and over again asking the Lord to bless us with a child and to heal my womb. We kept praying and hoping that the Lord would hear our cries and know our deepest desires to one day be parents.


"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4

We had the most proactive doctors and nurses that you could ever ask for during this hard time. If there was ever one thing that didn't work, they always moved on to the next thing to try something new. There was no doubt in his mind that we would one day be holding a child in our arms. And what a blessing this team of specialists were (and still are in our lives). God used them in so many ways during this season. They were proactive and reassured us and comforted us and lifted us up. During this season, it helps tremendously to know that your doctor and nurse are wanting this for you and cheering for you along the way.

Right after our appointment, we started our first month of fertility treatment with fertility medicines. Let us be the first to tell you-most of it is not covered under insurance, and it is not cheap by any means.  I was put on a pill called Letrozole to help regulate my cycle. I took this orally for about 5 days. Somewhere in that time frame, some of my medicines would overlap. I was also on Gonal-F which is a fertility drug that is a follicle stimulating hormone. Basically, it is a medicine to increase the size of my egg follicles to get them ready for ovulation. Adam would give me a shot in my leg every night of Gonal-F (rotating legs). We usually did this for about 7 days in a row, and I did not enjoy this process. I am not a big fan of shots so this was not very fun. During this 7 day span, I would go in about twice a week for a blood sample and ultrasound. This was to see if my eggs were progressing and preparing for ovulation. Once they were big enough, I would do what was called a trigger shot. (You ovulate from the side where your eggs are most developed.) This medicine called Ovidrel was a fertility drug that makes your eggs release-resulting in ovulation. This was by far my least favorite part of the process because Adam had to give me this shot in my stomach, and it was very painful. After Ovidrel, the doctor would tell you when to have timed intercourse. Then, 4 days later I would take Progesterone as I had been previously in months prior.

Needless to say, when you are on 4 different fertility medicines, it can make you a little crazy. I was so hormonal and emotional about everything. It caused my mind to only think in monthly cycles. It controlled so much of our lives that it was so hard not to be consumed by it or to only focus on getting pregnant.

After the first cycle with medicines, we found out in February that it didn't work. So, we started all over again. This time was very similar but with slight changes to increase our chance of getting pregnant. The doctor upped my dosage of my Gonal-F injections, and we tried a couple things differently. Everything else stayed the same. Well, in March we found out that we were not pregnant. I remember asking the Lord, "God, when it this suffering going to end? Have we not endured enough pain yet?" I never got an answer which is probably confirmation that the Lord was still at work in the midst of our trials.


"But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction." Job 36:15

I had grown to absolutely hate pregnancy tests! I was so tired of seeing months and months of endless negatives. Usually, I would wake up before my alarm to pee. So, I would wake Adam up, pee on the stick, have him look at it and tell me the result, which was negative. Then, I would cry myself back to sleep for about an hour until it was time to get up for work. This went on for months and months. After we found out we weren't pregnant in March, I told Adam that we could try this one more month, and then I needed a break. I was completely drained emotionally and couldn't handle the disappointment anymore. Adam became very frustrated by the whole process because there was nothing he could do about it. It was something he wanted as well. It was hard for him to sit and just wait and have no control over the situation. I think it became especially draining for him to see me that way because for months I wasn't myself at all. He wanted so badly to be able to fix things but neither of us had any control over the outcome.  It was all in the Lord's hands, and we had to learn to completely surrender everything to the Lord (including our desire to control things).

"Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, 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

We went in for our doctor's appointment to review the instructions/make changes for the month of March/April. Everything pretty much stayed the same again except he upped the dosage a little more of Gonal-F to make sure my egg follicles were completely ready for ovulation. During this month, I had a lot of time to reflect and relax because I was off from work for a week on Spring Break. It was nice to have all of my doctor's appointments during this time. I didn't have to take off from work and people weren't constantly wondering why I was absent so much. It was a relaxing week and I just  enjoyed my time off by spending time with family and friends. It was very refreshing and just what I needed.

One Sunday in March, our pastor preached a sermon that really stuck with me. It was the kind of sermon that you hear and you feel like God is speaking directly to you. Actually, I did not just hear him speaking to me but literally shouting at me, "Becca, are you listening? This message is for you!!!" The sermon was about surrendering everything to the Lord. Not just surrendering your job and your marriage and picking what you want to surrender but surrendering it all to Him. The scripture that day really resonated with me. It was one of those verses that I just kept coming back to. The verse was:

"Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up." Hosea 6:1

Wow! From that moment on, I felt like saying, "Yes Lord, I hear you loud and clear and I finally get it!" It's like the lightbulb came on. I was in such a good place with everything that month. If we were pregnant, great, and if we weren't pregnant, that was fine too. Either way, we were going to trust the Lord's plan and his timing because it wasn't in our control. I understood that the Lord had brought us through this long and painful season because he was tearing and striking us down, so that he could heal and bind us back up. This was his way of disciplining us and making us better followers of Him. This was his way of exposing our weaknesses and areas where we didn't fully trust him. He was exposing our sin but building us back up in His Son's image through this suffering. This was His perfect plan, and this was how he was going to get the Glory. We both just had such a peace during this time because we finally had surrendered it all to Him.

During the waiting time, I had an amazing dream one night. It was a dream that without a doubt was from the Lord. I knew it was a dream from the Lord because of how vividly I remembered it, and the feelings that were tied in with the dream were so real. I dreamt that I was driving my car and stopped at a stoplight. While stopped, I turned around to see our little girl in her carseat. She was grinning from ear to ear. I told her how much I loved her, and then the light turned green. I vaguely remember what she looked like. I'm pretty sure she had blonde hair like me. She was the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen. As I drove home in my dream, I remember feeling this overwhelming sense of joy and gratitude because the Lord had blessed us immensely. I kept thanking the Lord for this amazing gift. I was so anxious to get home to Adam, so we could just spend hours soaking up our sweet baby girl. It is almost hard to describe the emotions in this dream. It seemed completely real. I almost feel like I am doing this dream an injustice because I truly can't explain every detail. When I woke up, I told Adam about the dream and how real it was. (I never remember my dreams so this was a miracle in and of itself.) We talked about how cool it was but we also didn't want to put all our hope in a dream. It gave me a glimpse of hope that we might be pregnant. But at the same time, I didn't want to be disappointed again. I wanted to type/write this dream down so that one day if it was true, then I could tell our little girl. (Side Note: I am not saying that we are definitely having a girl. I'm just stating facts from my dream.) Either way, it was a beautiful dream and I'm so glad the Lord used that to speak to me because...