Pearls of Wisdom

2011-01-28T21:51:00.004-05:00

i figured that i should probably update here since alot has happened. my journey has changed alot since i last posted. first of all, i am now divored and have been for some time. after i got divorced i started dating and much to my surprise, ended up pregnant! i am still in shock that it happened, but i am greatful everyday that i was blessed with a healthy pregancy and will have a son in about a month!

beautifully said.

2009-05-26T23:05:00.001-04:00

i would die for that by kellie coffey

goin public

2009-05-26T22:37:00.002-04:00

i have been thinking about making this blog public for a while. i would constantly go back and forth and way the pros and cons. i have finally decided to go public. pcos is rare and basically unknown. if my story can help more people learn about this disease than it is worth putting myself out there. time to get up close and personal with the world....especially if i plan to write a book about all this.

third time is a charm??

2009-05-18T18:15:00.005-04:00

im onto my third round of clomid....

last month i was on 100mg and had one follicle grow enough to produce an egg for ovulation. once it was close to the right size, i had to have a trigger shot of ovidrel, to make sure it releases. the shot was in the stomach and i was freaked out, b/c they expect you to do it yourself!! well, i did not do it, i made my mom. it actually wasnt to bad. it burned but that was it...for a couple days at which point i started getting crazy hot flashes!! i have been getting bad ones because of the clomid, but these were worse. i actually went and stood in the walk in freezer at work a couple times. it felt wonderful! anyway, two days after the trigger shot i had an IUI. jeremy's sperm numbers were great, actually rated the highest you can get (because im sure that's just what you needed to know) so it seemed we had a good chance. i was supposed to wait 13 days after to test and it. took. for. ever!!!! longest two weeks of my life. i tested a little early because i couldnt hold out and got a BFN. (on the forums this stands for big fat negative, i much prefer big fucking negative. its more appropriate.) so then i was waiting to test again and got my period so no need to test. to put it very mildly, it sucked!

so i went in today to do my baseline ult which was good. i also start my clomid tonight to try again. next appt is on the 29th

im thinking of writting a book about my experiences. what do you think?
i would need a very good editor! i suck at grammar :-)

mobile

2009-04-20T18:42:00.008-04:00

i fell completely in love with this mobile and had to buy it the other day

by: FrancesMartin

luckily it will go with anything, which is how i convinced myself to buy it. we are still planning on doing a bird and music theme, so its perfect!

onto the 2nd round of clomid...

2009-04-20T18:06:00.004-04:00

- well, the first round of Clomid didnt do anything. i had about 6 ultrasounds so they could monitor, and nothing developed. i was on 50mg so this month they increased it to 100mg to see if that does anything. i go in on the 23rd for an ult and then we will go from there.

- the metformin is still going pretty good. i've been on the 1500mg for a while and it's pretty much stayed the same. i only feel nauseous a couple times a day as opposed to all day. my bedtime is no longer 6:30pm (most nights). i have more energy at work. i still dont feel like myself, bt its getting better.

- the plus side of all this is that i am losing weight! i have been trying forever, but PCOS makes it harder to lose and easier to gain. great. but metformin is fantastic for helping most women w/ pcos lose weight, and im one of the lucky ones. i have lost 20 pounds so far and i hope to lose at least another 20.

- ive been thinking alot about baby names and i started a fun poll where you can vote on my choices. here it is:

listening: the shins

baseline and clomid

2009-03-11T17:39:00.005-04:00

I had my baseline ultrasound today. everything looked good apparently and i was given my clomid prescription to start tonight and take for the next five days. this should make me ovulate. then i have another appt on the 20th to first, see if it worked. then if it worked, to check whether the follicle(s)are good and how many there are, since there is a higher chance of releasing multiple eggs. in the case that we have a lot of eggs release, we will just skip that month to avoid having a bunch. we may want kids, but we dont want sextuplets! no thank you! : )

metformin update: i am now on 1500mg and its not horrible. the first couple of days were pretty bad, but now the side effects have evened out and i hardly notice them. i still have to be careful what i eat b/c a lot of stuff makes me sick, but it's food that i should be avoiding anyway: high carb, greasy, fatty, or sugary things. i am also still pretty tired most of the time. but compared to what i was feeling this is wonderful!

metformin rollercoaster

2009-03-03T11:16:00.004-05:00

so i have been on metformin since january and i have a love/hate relationship with this drug, mostly hate. he started me on 500mg and i slowly worked up to 1000mg 2x a day. i was warned that i needed to start and increase doses on my days off because it would make me sick. sick is the understatement of the year! i didnt feel human. i was exhausted and spacey, not to mention the severe digestive issues. i wasnt hungry b/c when i ate i was horribly sick, but then when i didnt eat i was still really sick b/c i have to take the met with food. i felt like a zombie, i missed work, i didnt socialize at all, i went to bed at 6pm and slept til my alarm went off the next day. i finally called my doctor after i broke down and cried in my closet for an hour b/c i didnt want to go out to dinner with my parents. he said that i should be feeling better at this point and told me to lower my dose to 500mg 2x a day for a couple weeks and if i still feel fine, than add another 500mg at night so hopefully i am only sick at night. so far i have been on the 500 2x a day for a week and all i have to say is WOW! i feel so much better, i still get sick with certain foods and am tired most of the time, but i at least feel human again!

now there are good things about this drug, or i wouldnt be on it at all. right now i am on a high dose b/c we are trying to get pregnant but i will probably stay on a small dose of it later. it helps with glucose levels and food cravings, as a preventative step against diabetes. also, last month i had NO pms symtoms of cramps!!! thats a HUGE plus for me. i am normally in bed crying for a day they are so bad. it also generally keeps hormones in check that are messed up by PCOS.

i've been having baby dreams

2009-02-20T17:04:00.003-05:00

1. i was in a store staring at cribs holding a baby. the end.

2. jeremy and i were in the hospital room holding our baby and i was freaking out b/c we didnt have a name. it was a boy and we went through our list of choice (which were all real choices) and i screamed after all of them "that's not his name!" i even tried calling him the nicknames of some of them, including Oli (my favorite!) and didn't like any of them. the dream ended with me saying "fine then he wont have a name!"

3. jeremy and i were in the hospital again, this time with twin boys and had named them: Aiden Jon and Keiran James. which are actually on our list of choices.

dreams are weird.

a lot has happened...

2009-02-15T18:56:00.008-05:00

well there have been quiet a few changes and we have decided to put the adoption on hold for right now. even though i am sad about this, i know that it is definitely something we are going to do in our future. i feel so connected and drawn to Ethiopia, i could never completely walk away from it.

new developments:

after A LOT of talking i figured out that i was in complete denial about being ready to give up on being pregnant. denial is a very tricky thing. i fully believed that i was fine and ready to move on, but after a "therapy session" with my mom and a lot of crying i realized that i was scared of trying and either still not getting pregnant or miscarrying. so i agreed to get a second opinion from a fertility doctor. i went back to the wvu center for reproductive medicine and met with a doctor who i really liked. i had gone there for an open house and really liked all the staff, so i went back. he went over all my past tests and thoroughly went over my results and what that meant for us trying to get pregnant.

what i learned on my first visit:

- my hormone levels are elevated, but not as high as an average woman w/ PCOS
- my diet has been helping my symptoms and weight (yea!!)
- i am not ovulating at all (which i knew)
- i may have a septum and have to get an HSG to see if i do. (if i do, i would have to have surgery to remove it for a successful pregnancy)
- i started metformin, which is a diabetic drug but it helps with the severe hormone imbalances caused by PCOS and may help with ovulation. the downfall- it makes me really sick!

* bottom line: im not in-fertile, im sub-fertile. which means i am capable of getting pregnant, it is just going to be harder than normal.

my second visit:

- had the HSG - very painful!! but NO septum!!!!
- on my march cycle i will be starting clomid to further help ovulation

the great news- aside from the ovulation drugs, my doctor thinks that we will be able to get pregnant on our own pretty quickly. so we shall see...

if it doesnt work we may consider an IUI, and we know IVF is still out.

bird band

2009-02-15T18:37:00.007-05:00

when i first saw this print by falldowntree i was tempted to plan a baby room around it...

upon further thought, it could actually work very well. i love the colors and it is gender neutral. i love it.

i have always loved this bedding from target:

we could also hang our instruments on the wall as an added touch of theme and color. plus it'll be great storage for them!

i am not a fan of themed nurseries where they all have the same pattern, but it is hard to come up with an overall color scheme and idea that isnt over the top and is also gender neutral.

so far, i am in love.

im in love with a sheet...

2009-01-06T14:33:00.004-05:00

from babygap.

its ridiculous how much i want it. i am having issues not buying it right now, especially because it is on sale. call me crazy, but i think i may have to buy it. do you know how hard it is to find brown, not-cheesy, animal themed anything?? and its 100% organic cotton.

yup. im buying it.

2008-12-16T20:34:00.002-05:00

my mom and i were looking at cute baby things on etsy, and she got me this blanket. it was on my wish list! im soo excited!

i need africa more than africa needs me

2008-12-05T17:29:00.007-05:00

i love this video. i think that we as americans can get caught up in the fact that we are so much better because we have more stuff. that isnt(and shouldnt) be the case. yes they need water, health care, food and many other things that we have. but we need a lot of things that they have: faith, joy, work ethic, the ability to make the best of what we have and be content, the ability to not need stuff to make our lives "better".

we have more stuff. they have more spirit.
i know which i would rather have.

need shoes?

2008-12-02T15:33:00.003-05:00

buy these because children around the world need them too!

lengthy shadows on unfamiliar towns

2008-12-01T19:27:00.010-05:00

week 28:

well, we crossed another month off our waiting list. i can't believe that its december already. we are going to start doing phone interviews to pick an agency in february, so we are getting closer. today my thoughts drifted toward ethiopia a lot. i feel that for the most part the time has gone fast, but on days that i am not busy it just drags on forever. i will just sit and read blog after blog of adoption stories, and while i am always happy to read their stories, it makes me yearn for mine. i know that our time will come, but sometimes it feels so far away.

while i have been bored and thinking of my future children, i surf etsy for fun kids things. here are a few of my recent finds:

i LOVE this pattern by: smallwish

and i love this doll by: lkdDesigns

things that we were able to cross off our to do list:

- we finally got our dining room table
- we got a new tv stand
pictures will come at some point, but they wont be delivered for another 6-8 weeks.

listening: david ford
reading: notes from the hyena's belly

wanna make a ray of sunshine

2008-11-14T19:42:00.003-05:00

jeremy and i have been talking a lot about twins and sibling groups. we have come a long way on what we have decided. when we started the discussion we were both opposed to twins b/c it would be harder and didnt even want to consider siblings since one would be older. then the more i thought about it, the more at ease i felt about adopting twins. i talked to my aunt and co-worker who both had twins and they both told me to do it. they said that obviously it is more work, but there are more rewards too. and we liked the fact that the child would have a built in support group that had gone through the same process as them, looked like them and could relate to them better than anyone else could. jeremy was still unsure, but has been feeling a lot better about it, especially after i admitted that even though i want to do this, it still scares the crap out of me!

after we decided that we were open to twins, my thoughts shifted towards not only being open to twins but a sibling group as well. this scared jeremy even more, b/c they would be different ages and we would have to learn how to parent each of them differently. after talking about it a lot, we decided that we would be open to it as long as the oldest child wasnt older than 3yrs. so we'll see how that actually pans out when we apply and learn more about the process.

i am to the point that i dont think i would want to accept only one child, but i would also hate to turn down a child just b/c there is only one.....so much to think and pray about!

but for now, my tea and book are waiting for me!

listening: the weepies
reading: notes from the hyena's belly: an ethiopian boyhood

and so right here i stay

2008-11-11T22:31:00.010-05:00

i had today off and spent too much time online. good news is that i bought almost all of my christmas presents and found some other really cool things.

water for christmas is an organization that i stumbled upon today. they are raising money to drill wells in counties that dont have fresh water. i wish i could copy the picture that made me cry, but i cant take it from the site. it's a picture of the little girl that is on the main kenya page, but not the picture they have. it is of her drinking out of the bottle looking at the camera with bloodshot eyes. it makes me ache. just go the photos and media section, they are all equally moving.

i also found these cards made by jimma banana art.here are a couple of my favorites.

i'm sure i will be buying these in the future for many different occasions.

on the adoption front: week 31

* we are still reading and researching (i just bought more books!)
* we are 99.9% sure we are adopting from Ethiopia. (would be 100 if i wasnt scared to jinx it)
* we are about 95% sure we are going to use CHI as our agency
* our CHI application is almost ready to be sent in
* started writing my autobiography for the home study
* we are open to twins, and are deciding if we are open to a sibling group

listening: joshua radin

Selam

2008-10-30T22:12:00.018-04:00

we are at 32 weeks until we can officially start our paperwork and i have been thinking about it a lot. i have also started trying to learn Amharic. or at least a few words. i have spent countless hours watching adoption videos and reading blogs. i even decided on a name for my blog, it means peace in Amharic which is the primary language spoken in Ethiopia. it just to fit. it's so strange that i continue to go back and forth on whether or not to try the IUI, or go straight to adoption. every time i think about having to try un-natually to get pregnant it stresses me out, and i switch gears to adoption and i calm down and feel at peace. that should have been my clue a long time ago, but i am just a tad stubborn. :-) anyway, aside from my mom still wanting me to at least try the IUI, i feel really good about just going straight to adoption. we may even be able to start some of the process before june, it just depends on the agency. im going to start interviewing and pick an agency after the craziness of the holidays wears down.

i think that part of the reason i kept going back to IUI was that i thought i "needed" to carry/birth/nurse a baby, but now that i think about it, that feeling was just the natural way for me to say i want to be a mother. being a mother is really all that matters. i know as soon as i look into my child's eyes, it will be love and nothing else will matter. im so excited about this, i can barley contain myself!

i have also been looking at cute baby things online, so here are a few things that i love:

i want one of these sooo bad! they are expensive, but also genius! a person of any age can sit in them depending on how it is adjusted. its wood not plastic. plus its cool looking!

plus, i just now discovered that they make a crib that is a bassinet size, crib, small bed, larger bed, then it splits into two chairs! and they make a changing table that then turns into a small desk, a larger desk or a shelf. these people are pretty genius. or i get really excited over little things.

anyway back to other things. i found these shirts that i love and would have to get them for gotcha day.

my new diet

2008-10-24T21:05:00.007-04:00

so i have been wanting to eat healthier/lose weight for a while, pre-pcos diagnosis. but then, i learned that diet has a profound affect on my symptoms and can really help keep them under control. so i have been trying really hard to stick to it.
these are the 10 rules that my handbook says to follow:

1- eat more often: 3 meals, a bigger lunch than dinner with snacks. dont go more than 3or4 hours w/o eating, stop eating at 7or8pm
2- eat whole foods: fruits, veggies, whole grains, oats, brown rice - no artificial flavor/color or preservatives
3- reduce sugar: this includes honey, which makes me sad!
4- use the glycemic index to control sugar levels
5- drink more water
6- cut down on salt
7- eat good fats: olive oil, nuts etc
8- eat complete proteins: helps maintain blood sugar levels
9- get plenty of antioxidants: red wine and dark chocolate! woo hoo!
10- eat phytoestrogens: flax seed, legumes, soy beans etc

most of this is diet stuff that i have known, and i have wanted to do for a LONG time, but i love food, especially white food. which is not good. so all in all i am doing pretty well. my book says to add one of the ten rules every week or so. that way you can slowly get the routine down and dont "deprive" your body of foods that you want all at once. it isnt too bad, b/c when i get a sweet tooth i have dark chocolate, which i am supposed to eat anyway for the antioxidants. hehe.

i have been following this for about three weeks and i have been doing pretty well. i really need to go shopping and get more things that i can eat to make it easier. i dont own a scale, so i dont know if has done anything to my weight, but i have been told i look thinner. yea! and on the health front i started my period! i never thought i'd be excited about this, but after not having a period for four months, this is a great start to getting my body healthier. not to mention, ovulation, which obviously helps the baby-making issues. according to my book, my doctor and other studies infertility related strictly to pcos is majorly reduced with a healthier diet with herbs/supplements(which i haven't added yet) and exercise pattern. only time will tell. i just have to stick to it!

final thoughts on IVF

2008-10-23T18:56:00.003-04:00

i am confident in saying that we are not doing it. at any point.

i went to an open house at the wvuh reproductive medicine office and got a lot of information. most of it i will never use b/c we know that this is not our only option and we arent going to force it, but it was nice to talk to someone about options. i was supposed to have an appt with a fertility specialist, but i never got referred, so i used this opportunity to ask all my questions. i learned that IVF is not our next step, we could try an IUI. I had heard of this procedure, but didnt really look into it b/c i didnt know anything about it. we may go this route b/c it is so much cheaper than IVF! i had no idea that it was so cheap, considering that IVF is so ridiculously expensive. so, i will be going back at some point to figure more out, and decide if we do want to try this or not. we'll see.

What is PCOS?

2008-10-11T11:11:00.001-04:00

some of you may be wondering what it is that i have been diagnosed with since it is still a pretty uncommon disease. this is a very personal subject with some embarrassing confessions, but i feel as a women with a hardly-known disorder, i need to do my part to make it known.

i have been reading an excellent book that breaks down all the different things it involves. first of all it is a complicated disease b/c there is no strict formula of symptoms or causes since they still dont know what causes it.
the book definition- a metabolic disorder that disrupts your hormones, typically giving you higher-than-normal levels of certain sex hormones and insulin.

time to get personal- my symptoms:
- infrequent, irregular, and very painful periods
- fertility issues since ovulation is rare
- acne on face, back, chest
- weight gain- specifically around my stomach
- excess hair- chin,stomach, thicker arm/leg hair(b/c of too much testosterone)
- many cysts (which are empty egg follicles) on both of my ovaries
- hidradenitis suppurativa (boil/cyst in armpits, groin, and on bra line)
- severe mood swings
- hot flashes
- depression
- insulin resistance
- extreme fatigue
other things it effects in the future- high cholesterol, increased risk of stoke and heart attack, high risk in developing diabetes, increased risk of uterine cancer

so, as you can see it's just lovely and there is no cure, but you can do many things to keep symptoms at bay. i will be posting about that later i'm sure

more thoughts on IVF

2008-10-11T10:22:00.000-04:00

i feel like im back and forth so much on this and i cant get a handle on it. now my thoughts are that i dont want to try at all and just move on completely to adoption. i feel really good about this almost all of the time. but then i get emotional about carrying and birthing a child. i also think i will really miss the breastfeeding bond. i have been reading books and a lot of them say you can still breastfeed but i think they still have to be very young and with international they would be at least 6mos by the time we got them, so i dont know if it would work or not, and we would most likely have to supplement with formula. i think it would be worth a shot though for the bonding.

also i have been reading so much on PCOS, and i think before i would be willing to get pregnant i need to get my own body in order and that may take a while w/o medication. i am going to try a strictly natural approach to this (more on that later) so i dont think i could willingly put a growing human into an already messed up body and expect it to thrive.

so i think we may just adopt all the while staying on a healthy path and then see what happens. alot of books even say that if you get your body in shape the chance of naturally getting pregnant goes way up. and the huge blessing in all of this is that we found it now, and not later. we are still so young and luckily have a lot of options when it comes to waiting and trying to get pregnant later on.

reading: the ultimate pcos handbook
listening: feist

in the meantime...

2008-09-21T13:47:00.000-04:00

not a lot has happened with anything. except that i am going slightly crazy with the waiting aspect of this. i just feel like there is no point to the waiting, since the ONLY reason we are waiting is b/c we both have to be 25 to adopt. so i have been trying to come up with things that we can do so i feel like we're moving the process along. i've been reading a lot of books (all listed on the sidebar w/ links)

the next books i want to buy are 1. there is no me without you - it's supposed to be really good 2. and a book on Ethiopia, maybe this one: A History of Ethiopia

we also have a ridiculous list of to-dos that i want completed before i would feel confident having our home study done, and also things that we wouldnt have time to do with a kiddo running around. i was hoping to try and take on one big project a month, so i wouldnt get overwhelmed but i would still feel productive. so far we have, hung most of our artwork and bedroom curtains, and did some major goodwilling. next i hope to paint our bedroom furniture before it gets to cold to have the windows open.

i have also gotten obsessed with looking at baby things online. i cant help it. and it doesnt help when my mom wants to do it too. she went from being unsure that we're ready to overboard excited pretty fast. also, i am an over planner, and its just what i do. i am already in love with so many products. cloth diapers are going to be my weakness, i just know it. and adorable homemade etsy toys and things. i leave you with a few current favorites:

by: Puzzimals

from: Ethiopian Reflections

on a lighter note

2008-09-15T12:06:00.001-04:00

my last few posts have been a bit of a downer...so im going to post FUN baby stuff

i made my first baby purchase from etsy a couple weeks ago and i love it! we arent going to specify a gender when we adopt so i was trying to find something neutral that also represented africa and i fell IN LOVE with this and had to have it....

by: klarson

also, i was her 100th sale so she send me a burp cloth that i LOVE, it was on my wishlist and now i have it!

i have also been reading 20 things adopted kids wish their adoptive parents knew and i really like it. some of the subjects are hard to think about, but she gives you ways to work through everything with book suggestions. my reading lists keeps getting more and more ridiculous.

reading: 20 things..
listening: the duhks

thoughts on IVF

2008-09-11T12:35:00.000-04:00

jeremy and i have been talking and talking through this whole process and what we are going to do if we cannot conceive naturally. my first reaction was always that if it didnt happen w/o drugs then i didnt want to take any. this was a little harder for jeremy to agree to. so we continued talking and i realized that i wasnt as ready as i thought i was to say that i didnt want to try any other way. i think we may try to do IVF, but at the most only 2 times, if not only just once. at my follow up today she said that she doesnt think that i am ovulating often and will need to be on medication to help with that, in addition to any of the IVF meds.

the high chance of miscarriage still really scares me though, but i am trying to not let that be the only reason i dont want to try this.

at this point we just wait and see what the specialist has to say

adult decisions suck!

results and another lab

2008-09-11T12:20:00.001-04:00

i had my follow up today...

* blood work was normal except my testosterone level which was high(typical for PCOS)
* ultrasound showed cysts on both ovaries
* she ordered an oral glucose test
* according to my temp charts she thinks that i am not ovulating regularly
* she is going to refer me to a fertility PCOS specialist

i love this campaign...go here to see the rest of the posters

labs are done

2008-08-29T17:44:00.005-04:00

i had my two blood tests yesterday and today, they werent that bad, but i hate needles!! after my blood work today i had an ultrasound, which didnt go so great. i was able to see the screen and as they located both of my ovaries, there is was the "string of pearls" of at least 10ish cysts, on both sides. the right side seemed to have more and they were bigger, which makes sense bc that is the side the i have more of my cramps and issues with ovulating. so i have a follow-up on thurs the 11th to discuss everything.

i case you were curious, a comparison of a normal(left)and pcos(right)ovary.

thank god for good doctors

2008-08-20T12:06:00.000-04:00

i had my ob/gyn appt today to find a new doctor and hopefully be taken seriously with my concerns and possibly ease my worries. welp. ease my worries, not so much, but at least she took me seriouslly. i really liked her, and she was very thorough so i felt good about the appt and found a doctor! as for the diagnosis. she thinks that i have pcos and i have labs and ultrasounds scheduled for next week. so we'll see how that goes. she also thinks that i may not be ovulating, so she gave me some charts to do for her with my temps. now i just have to wake up at the same time everyday so they are more accurate. one step closer to an answer.

another course

2008-08-15T16:05:00.000-04:00

well...you know how i said that we thought that Taiwan was our first choice, with Kaz as our second. well that changed. it is currently Ethiopia as our first choice and Taiwan as our second. the agency that we like at the moment is children's hope international. i have read so much information on agencies its unbelievable. there seems to be good and bad said about all of them. but the bad that was said about CHI, was not really that bad, things like a long wait i can deal with. i am much more concerned with ethics.

deciding on a country

2008-08-10T18:05:00.002-04:00

we have been reading and reading about different countries and different ones grab us for different reasons. we had to eliminate alot of counties just because we're only 25 and you have to be 30 for a few. you also have to be married for five years for a few so those were out. jeremy and i each have a copy of 10 Steps to Successful International Adoption: A Guided Workbook for Prospective Parents and we read them separately and then compared notes. i think that this is such a good idea because our lists were different and we were able to consider more countries for different reasons. our current top choice is Taiwan and i hadnt even thought of it. but now it just feels so right. and Kazakhstan is our second choice. so we'll see.

6 months +

2008-08-10T17:29:00.000-04:00

so we've reached the trying to conceive for more than six months. we are on our 7th cycle.... we've kinda tried for about 9, but i only count 6 b/c those are the ones that we charted. cycles are crazy, so i dont even know if the timing was good. so medically speaking i should only count 6...

in other news i have a OB/GYN appt coming up on the 20th with a new doctor. hopefully we'll be able to discuss everything and she can ease my worries, since 6mos+ really isnt reason to worry. i think it has to be past a year before they recommend getting it checked. also, i really want her to check for PCOS, since i feel that i have it, and i have never been checked for it.

the seed was planted

2008-08-07T16:37:00.003-04:00

before jeremy and i got married we always talked about our future family and the fact that we wanted to adopt. i loved the idea of being able to help a child that was in need and give them a family that they might not have had otherwise. we knew that we wanted a big family and we would play by ear how many we biologically had.

i was also well aware of the fact that infertility issues run in my family and it was a very real possibility that we would have trouble conceiving. my grandmother had PCOS, although I think it was diagnosed later in life an she was able to get pregnant. and my only aunts both had PCOS, and endometriosis. in addition to that one of my aunts and grandmother had 2 miscarriages and the other aunt had 3, however each of them went on the have healthy children (only one through IVF) also, i have recently learned that both of my aunts had to have hysterectomies by the time they were 40. so naturally all of this stuff freaked me out!! i tried not to worry about it too much at the time because we werent ready to start a family yet anyway.

so we went on with our lives and planned our wedding and enjoyed our marriage, all the while i had this nagging feeling about infertility and a pull toward adoption