Today is a big day for us! We are going to Rockford for "Orientation" where we will meet with the team that hopes to help us have a baby!!! I am excited, nervous, nauseous, and apparently unable to sleep!!! Recently I have felt that Facebook wasn't really the avenue I wanted to use to share our journey. It is a good way to let people know that I have an update, but I don't want to fill the Newsfeeds of my "friends" with things they don't care about, and though this issue is what I think about every day for most of the day, I am sure many people would love to scroll through their Newsfeed and not hear about all things infertility!! SO, that is how Team McVey came to be. I am not really sure what this blog will become, but for now. I will give a glimpse into the background story of our journey and hopefully someday soon I will fill it with pictures of new members of our family!!
About 11 months ago I made it Facebook official that Team McVey was battling infertility. At that point close friends and some family knew that we had been trying to start a family, but the majority of people heard, "No, we just aren't ready yet." when they asked us if we had children. Also, very few people knew just how long we had been trying to conceive. At first, it was easier to say that we weren't ready than to face the questions people might ask or to hear people say, "Just relax and it will happen!". And honestly, due to the fertility issues of others in my life I continued to tell myself that it just wasn't the right time and that God knew that other things needed to work out with those families before it was time to grow our family. But, time passed... I was patient... Other families had their babies and we were still not any closer to starting a family. A friend urged me to see a doctor in Peoria, not because she knew we were trying to conceive, but because she knew that I didn't sleep...Couldn't sleep... No matter how hard I tried!!! After a near panic attack I went to see this doctor. Thankfully, my sister Jaclyn went with me because I was a nervous wreck!! After just a few days, I got a call stating that I was a MESS!!! Low levels of this, deficient in that... They put me on a gazillion supplements and told me that not only would I feel better, they were sure it would be the answer to our 3 years of infertility! I was so excited!!! I couldn't believe that glorified vitamins were going to be the answer to all of the heartache!! They said we also just needed to start natural family planning and we would be pregnant in no time. Except there was a problem... Somehow the nurse heard 3 months of infertility, not 3 years... It wasn't until more than 6 months later, at an appointment for serious shooting pain down my leg that made me fall over and vomit, that the mistake was recognized... The nurse said something close to, "Well, though 10 months seems like a long time when you are trying to start a family, infertility treatment is not covered until you have been trying to conceive for at least one year." I looked at her in shock and said, we have been trying to conceive for over 3 and 1/2 years. At that point things started to move very quickly. I was sent for an internal sonogram and they began running more blood work. They said that they would call with results as soon as they knew anything. Meanwhile, I was supposed to be on a trip to Branson with friends so the next day I jumped in the car with a friend and took off for our vacation. A few hours into the drive I got a call... "Julie, we are going to need you to come back into the office for a biopsy, the lining of your uterus is abnormally thick. It could be endometrial cancer. We need to rule that out." Wow!!! It was 3 days before my 32nd birthday... Not exactly what I expected to hear and the words that came out of my mouth weren't what I expected to say, "Well, I am on my way to Branson right now, so it will have to wait until I come back!" Then, since I was still driving, I told my friend that I needed to pull over for a moment. I tried to calm myself down, and I called Mike to tell him what was said. I have no idea how he felt getting that call... I think he reassured me with a "I'm sure it's nothing!" type comment. I probably will never know how he felt that day or in the weeks and months that followed. At that point he became my moral support and he became the guy who always insisted that everything would be alright and that everything happens for a reason. I on the other hand decided that I was going to have a AMAZING time on my vacation and I wasn't going to think about this until I got back!! My friend that was with me in the car, Catrina, was the only person on the trip that knew what was going on. It wasn't until a couple months ago, after two surgeries and multiple biopsies, that I even mentioned it to other book club members. I didn't want pity, I wanted to make memories!!! And that is what I did!!! I continued to take my temperatures and chart them throughout the trip, take my meds like I was supposed to, etc... But I also had an amazing time and it even took us over 12 hours to get back because we had so much fun on the way home!!
Back to reality - This is when I really started to panic!!! Once we got home I had a biopsy scheduled
They said it would be slightly uncomfortable... Um NO!!! It was horrendous!!! After 6 attempts at the biopsy they determined that they would be unable to complete it. They sent me home with medication to dilate my cervix and told me to come back the next day. I felt icky, the medicine was doing it's thing, or so I thought! Nope, my cervix wouldn't dilate!!! 2 more attempts were made and they still had no luck. So, surgery was scheduled... Remember, they still thought I could have endometrial cancer, a biopsy had to be done!! So, on August 12, 2013, I went in for surgery they opened my cervix, completed a D & C, did a dye test to make sure my tubes were not clogged, did a laparoscopy and saw a couple spots of endometriosis. The doctor removed them and then she said she wondered why she couldn't move my uterus to see the other side of it... She then realized that everything in my abdomen was stuck together by severe endometriosis. She couldn't even find my ovaries in that mess. So, she closed up and met me in post-op. At that point she told me that she had done all she could and that it would be her recommendation to move forward with another doctor. A doctor that was said to be the best robotic surgeon the Midwest had to offer. Then I went home with pain and weight restrictions and a lot of fear. That was when I decided I needed to make our infertility issues public. After all, I couldn't lift more than a coffee cup for weeks and I couldn't wear pants for months... And only my students believed that I just had surgery so the doctors could look in my tummy and see why I got sick so often! (Although severe endometriosis explained a lot of my severe pain and vomiting that I suffered from!) So, it was at that point that I announced to the world that we had infertility problems. It was such a strange moment. It was like I was admitting failure. It made me feel horrible, abnormal, nothing like I thought it would... But then an amazing thing happened... So many wonderful people began supporting me, praying for me, wishing us well on this journey! The negative people trailed far behind the positive forces that our supporters built around us. I went in for my second surgery on October 30, 2013. I knew people were praying. I knew people were supporting us... I was convinced I was going to die!!!! I showed teachers in my building where I kept everything because I was convinced I was going to die... It was SO morbid!!! SOOOO morbid!!! But, it is really what it thought. Then, when I came out of surgery I was on oxygen and everyone was talking about me, not to me, and I KNEW I was going to die!! They wouldn't let Mike come see me. They told me not to talk because I needed the oxygen... Yep! This was it... DYING!!! I just knew it! ( This is humorous now, but at the time, I was TERRIFIED... This was not how it was after my first surgery!!!! Why wouldn't they let Mike see me, why did I have oxygen, why wouldn't they let me have ice chips?!?!? I didn't even ask for water because I knew they would say no, but ice chips?!? Really!!!)
More of this journey will follow, but I have to be up in just over 3 hours so that we can go to Rockford!!! I am so jealous of Mike's ability to fall asleep so quickly!! Hopefully someday my body will learn his tricks! :)
Keep writing! :)
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