I feel like it is finally time to share my story. I waited a long time and didn’t want to share my pain in blog form although I read so many other people’s blogs for encouragement. This may seem like way too much personal information, but I have found that God can use lots of personal information to really touch and help others, so here goes…
Andrew and I started dating in 1998 and knew pretty much within a few dates that there was marriage potential! The Lord blessed us and in March of 2002, Andrew proposed. We were married that July. Our lives weren’t perfect by any means, but the Lord blessed us in spite of ourselves (that’s how I like to phrase it). Marriage was good, but our focus and lifestyle weren’t. In 2004, the Lord got our attention through some scary events and we rededicated our lives to Him. The series of events that followed are so cool to look back upon because He clearly had his hand in all of it! We bought a house in Woodstock (kind of randomly–because it was a cheaper area) and visited Woodstock First Baptist. The next week, Kelli and Chanel Rivera (now some of our best friends) came to visit us and invited us to their Sunday School class. We became immediately involved in the church and God brought us a large group of our best friends EVER! We suddenly had our eyes back on the Lord and an awesome Christian support system of friends.
I was ready to start trying to get pregnant in 2005, but we knew that we simply needed more money. We prayed about me going back to finish my master’s degree (which I had started in Athens, but slacked and procrastinated). I was accepted to Kennesaw and finished my degree in December 2006. I got my big raise (well…. big to a teacher) in 2007 and we began trying for a family. Nothing was happening. I think that this had always been a huge fear of mine in the back of my mind. I was 29, we had waited a long time, and what if something was wrong with my body? I had always had TERRIBLE periods and I knew that I had a family history of issues. I was premature, my mom then had a miscarriage, and then I had a little brother who was premature and didn’t survive longer than 3 days. My mom always called me her “miracle baby.” Would I have a miracle baby?
In October of 2007, I had the worst period of my life (and that is saying something since I had been on narcotic pain killers for cramps for years). I was on the way to an in-service day meeting (on a teacher work day) and had to just drive myself home in terrible pain to run to the bathroom. I passed a huge blood clot with tissue. The nurses at my doctor’s office told me that it could have been a very early miscarriage (or “chemical pregnancy” as they called it). We will never know for sure… I was devastated, though….but still had no reason to believe that I couldn’t get pregnant again.
The next month (November 2007), my period was late and I didn’t give it a second thought. I assumed that my cycle might be off from that incident in October. My friend Kelly finally told me to take a pregnancy test and it was positive! We were thrilled! We wanted to wait until Christmas to share the news with our families. We saw ultrasound pictures at several different visits, planned our future in our minds, and surprised our families with cheesy wrapped packages of baby items at Christmas. On January 2, 2008 I began bleeding. We went to my doctor and the ultrasound showed a good heartbeat. We tried to relax, but by January 5, I was in so much pain that we went to Kennestone Hospital’s Emergency Room. They performed more ultrasounds and there was no heartbeat this time. That night I miscarried our baby at about 8 weeks. We were CRUSHED. That baby was REAL to us. We had planned things out in our minds about that baby. We were parents! How could it all be gone? We had seen it! We did not take our eyes off of the Lord. We prayed for strength not to “blow this trial” and prayed that we would handle this trial correctly to be a witness to others. I think that some days we succeeded in that and some days we failed–me especially.
At that point, we were heartbroken and it was very difficult to have so many pregnant friends (I think there were about 9 friends of mine who were pregnant and due around the time I was supposed to be). We still had no reason to believe at that point that we would have trouble getting pregnant again. Little did we know that the emotional roller coaster was just beginning. Every month we hoped and every month I started my period. Each day that I started my period was like mourning my lost baby all over again. It was a neverending cycle of hope, expectation, and disappointment all over again. A friend’s wife at work gave me a book called, “Taking Charge of Your Fertility.” I am usually NOT an alternative medicine or herbal medicine kind of girl–I like modern medicine and drugs–HOWEVER, I was willing to try ANYTHING at this point. I began the recommended cycle “charting” in March of 2008 and continued from that point on. Through the charting, I found that I ovulated unusually late (day 21-23 each month of my 28 day cycle). I learned that a fertilized egg needs 12-16 days to implant properly and mine never had that. This was the first of our infertility discoveries–I had a “luteal phase defect.” I took this information to my doctor and he decided to begin an infertility workup. I also found out that my body does not make nearly enough progesterone. My wonderful doctor is not satisfied with simply treating symptoms–he wanted to make sure that these were not part of a bigger issue/concern. If I passed the other infertility tests, we would begin taking Clomid to solve the LPD and progesterone issues. I had an HSG test (which was miserable–dye injected into my uterus that was supposed to empty out my fallopian tubes) and Andrew had a sperm analysis. He was fine–I was not. My left tube was blocked and there was no explanation for it. It seemed that everything became another roadblock. Again, I am thankful that my doctor wanted to know WHY. He scheduled me for an exploratory laparascopy (surgery) to see why my tube was blocked. We had SUCH a hard time in the midst of all of this–I was depressed, Andrew didn’t know what to do for me, and we were so frustrated. On the date of what was supposed to be my due date, I had a pre-op appointment for surgery. That was very hard. Staying positive and TRUSTING God’s will was tough–the toughest thing I’ve ever been through.
Surgery results were not good. I lost my left tube in the surgery because it was so damaged. I was diagnosed with moderate to severe endometriosis. My doctor cleaned up everything that he could see during surgery, but we were faced with the risk that every period from that point forward could allow the endometriosis to grow back. My doctor was very “real” with us and told us that he would give us 3 months on Clomid to see if we could get pregnant post-surgery, but after that we needed to start looking at more aggressive options such as Lupron injections and fertility specialists (which we knew we could not afford). We kept praying and reminding ourselves that “God is in control!”
The first month on Clomid was rough. I experienced a lot of side effects (especially nausea) and I actually ended up in the emergency room at Northside Hospital 3 weeks post-surgery. The Clomid had given me ovarian cysts that were so painful I thought that something had burst or gone wrong from my surgery. My progesterone was still low in blood tests that month. My doctor decided to let us try Clomid for 3 more months (4 total) since I only had 1 tube and we needed to increase the progesterone supplements. Luckily, I did not react as violently to Clomid the next times we tried. I still got the cysts, but I had pain medicine to make it through. We prayed and prayed and the viscious cycle began again. September, October, and November passed and I had periods. We began to give up hope.
In December of 2008, we went to a Newsong concert at our church. Holt International Adoption agency spoke at the concert’s intermission and I cried uncontrollably as I heard the man’s testimony onstage of how he was found in the slums of Korea by the agency as a baby, saved, and adopted by a Christian family in the United States through Holt International. Andrew and I prayed that night and felt the Lord leading us towards adoption rather than continued infertility treatments. I was sick of my body being a science experiment and we were emotionally drained. We entered a new level of faith and trust in the Lord that night. We felt totally at peace that God would provide us with a child somehow and some way! We spoke to the adopted man who had spoken onstage and he got teary-eyed and told us that he shared more than usual that night because he felt the Lord leading him to do so for a specific couple that was there. Was it us? That was December 9–that date becomes important later in my story! It turns out that was most likely the night that our miracle baby was conceived–when we FINALLY gave everything over to God and breathed a sigh of relief that we had to trust His plans for us–we were finally at peace and prayed for a baby HOWEVER He wanted to bring it to us!
Over the next week as we began to get discouraged by the research we did on adoption. It was much more expensive than we had anticipated–almost double the cost of in-vitro which we had written off for cost. How would we have a child? As we began to get frustrated, the Lord gave us some encouragement from above. I had been attending an infant loss/miscarriage Bible Study at church. I went that Wednesday night and shared about how the Lord was working on us. We prayed and prayed for God to bring us a baby. Then I walked over to the youth building to visit kids and friends. A dear friend approached me out of the blue to ask permission to “share our story” with a pregnant college student considering adoption for her baby. We felt that this was the Lord encouraging us not to limit His power! Money was not an issue for the creator of the universe! If He wanted to send us a baby, he would do so in any way! We began emailing with this girl and were immediately impressed with her and excited about the possibility.
Then during Christmas break, something strange happened. I bought a pregnancy test for CLOSURE. I knew that December was the last possible month to try to get pregnant and I honestly think that I needed to close this chapter of my life and move forward. To my surprise, the test that I took on December 23 (almost Christmas) was positive! I was not even excited at first–I was in total shock and denial! I took about 5 more tests to be sure, but was terrified. What about the adoption? What if I miscarried again? I had to trust the Lord to handle all of it, but I honestly didn’t believe it at first. I think my first words after taking the test were, “Are you freaking kidding me?!” I didn’t believe it was real until we went to the doctor. He was in shock as well! You could tell that my doctor considered us a success story. I was SO uneasy, though. January 5 (anniversary of my miscarriage) came and went. I had some bleeding the second week of January that went away and turned out to be nothing scary. After the first ultrasound when we saw that all was well, we told the birthmom that we had been in touch with about my surprise pregnancy. We prayed that God would reveal His will to us through her response. She seemed to have her heart set on finding a couple who could not have children rather than continuing to consider us. I had become attached to the idea of her baby, so that was hard, but we just continued to TRUST in God’s will. We prayed for our baby and for His will for hers. Weeks went by and every appointment was good this time! I was taking progesterone supplements and having my blood levels monitored frequently (and being spoiled by having an ultrasound every 2 weeks at first). It seemed to be working.
As my belly grew, I began to believe that I was really pregnant. I know that sounds strange, but after all that we had been through, it seemed too good to be true! On April 6, we found out that our baby is a BOY! We decided (after much deliberation) on the name Preston Emmett Nix.
I felt the first kicks or “fluttering” at around 17 weeks. Around 22 weeks, I felt daily movement and really began to feel confident that all was well. As I sit here typing, I am watching my belly move from his precious little karate kicks. 
We are blessed beyond belief!
Now we are 29 weeks and counting. God is SO good! I will try to update this blog now… it was just too good to be true to write it all down until we were much farther along. I have recently read my friends’ pregnancy blogs, though, and I wished that I had been documenting all of this all along. More to come… Miracle Baby Preston is on his way! PRAISE OUR AWESOME GOD!!!
