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"\r\n.\r\nKara's Story\r\n.\r\n.\r\nMy husband and I got married in October 2011. We talked about having kids early, but I also wanted to run one Marathon before having kids. We agreed and September 2012 I ran my first Marathon, the end of September/beginning of October we started trying to get pregnant. I honestly thought I would get pregnant right away, my sister did so I just thought I would! Months and months went by and no pregnancy. In April 2013, I finally mentioned something to my doctor who suggested I get some blood work done. Everything came back normal for my body and we were told to just continue to try. Finally, in July 2013 I became pregnant. I was about 40 days out from my last cycle and my breast hurt SO bad so I decided on a Monday morning in July, I would take a pregnancy test. To my surprise, it was positive. My husband was working nights as a Police Officer and was not home yet. I called my mom crying because I had no idea what to do at that point. I remember the song on the radio that was playing in my bathroom as a I danced around and got ready for work impatiently waiting for my husband to get home from his shift and trying to decide how I was going to tell him. When he finally got home, I was finishing eating my bowl of Lucky Charms, pulled the test out of my pocket and immediately started to cry. He hugged me the tightest I’ve EVER felt. I went off to work happy as could be, he went to bed. \r\n.\r\nExactly one week later, I woke up with severe back pain and knew something wasn’t right. I called my husband (still working 3rd shift), it was around 12:30am. He was able to leave work and come home to me crying on the toilet because I had started to bleed. He called the nurse line, we decided it was best for me to come in right away in the morning. We both didn’t sleep much that night. I remember it so well, we slept with our heads down at the end of the bed where your feet go instead. \r\n.\r\nThe next morning we went to the doctor (at this point, I was about 5-6 weeks pregnant and didn’t even have an appointment set with my OBGYN yet). The doctor who we met with, we thinking we were miscarrying but wanted to make sure. I did blood work, and that Wednesday, July 29, it was confirmed, we lost our first baby. \r\n.\r\nI was so ashamed. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Just over a week ago I was sitting in church listening to K-2 singing in the front &amp; tears swelled up in my eyes longing for one of those little children to be mine. The next day I found out I was pregnant and now it’s all been ripped away from me. It felt so unfair and confusing. I felt like it was my fault, like I did something wrong and I wasn’t able to keep our baby alive. I believed I was a complete failure for losing our baby. \r\n.\r\nMy husband took a little time to try and heal. In the meantime, we bought a newer vehicle, a house we imagined bringing our baby home to, and of course a puppy. She was the best thing we could’ve done for me – it’s like she knew what I was struggling with. She’s a chocolate lab and her name is Remington Rose (middle name is named after my best friend’s middle name). Remi kept me busy and for sure needed me. Did I mention her and I share a birthday? It was truly meant to be. \r\n.\r\nMy husband and I continued to try and in the fall of 2014 my doctor FINALLY suggested I get a sonohysterogram. It was determined from the way I reacted to it (turned pale white, hurt like hell and wanted to vomit) that I most likely had endometriosis. We were told we could try on our own for a few months, but then should discuss surgery. At this point in trying to become pregnant, I was slowly accepting that I have become one of those “infertile women” that you hear very little about. I was so embarrassed. My body was not working the way it was supposed to to the point I now was having to consider surgery. We tried on our own for a few months and never got pregnant. Surgery was scheduled for December 19th, 2014. I spent that Christmas having to take a nap during the day because I was so exhausted from surgery, and from trying to handle all my emotions. Let’s not forget, holidays are ALWAYS hard on couples who are struggling to have kids. We don’t get the luxury of getting to pick out cute Christmas dresses or outfits, we don’t get to go Christmas shopping and buy gifts that our kids asked Santa for &amp; we for sure don’t get to see our kids’ faces light up when they get to open those gifts on Christmas morning. We get to wake up to silence on Christmas morning. \r\n.\r\nAfter surgery, my husband and I decided to get a little more aggressive with our journey. We decided to try IUI (intrauterine insemination). The first go around was February 2015, I was put on Letrozole, no pregnancy. The second go around, we tried Clomid. My body was apparently way to sensitive to it &amp; we had to cancel that cycle due to to many mature eggs. We definitely tried on our own that month also, no pregnancy. I was put back on Letrozole with Follistim and the trigger shot ovridrel and we tried another IUI, no pregnancy. We decided we needed a break. The season was changing from spring to summer and decided it was best to just relax for a few months and do a little selfcare. We booked a trip to Mexico in October and said we’ll come back to the infertility heartbreak after that. A few weeks before we left, my anxiety about EVERYTHING started to really eat at me. I had a birthday in September which means another year older without a baby, the holidays were coming up as well as jumping back into the pills, shots, bad news, doctor’s office/waiting room etc. I was put on an anti-anxiety medication to help ease some stress. \r\n.\r\nWhen we got back from Vacation, we decided to just start trying again on our own. I bought ovulation kits with high hopes that’ll work. We rolled into 2016 with no baby yet. That summer, I had a friend reach out and tell me about a fertility specialist on the other side of the state in Appleton who does amazing work. She had stage 4 endometriosis and became pregnant one month after surgery with him. We decided to give him a shot. After figuring out insurance and our financial status, we decided to give him a shot. We met with him early November for initial appointment and physical, and he immediately wanted me to come in for surgery for endometriosis that grew back (the only thing that keeps endo away is birth control, menopause, or having a baby…or so I thought). My second surgery was scheduled for November 22nd, 2016, just 2 days before Thanksgiving. After that, my doctor wanted to make sure both tubes were open. We did another sonohysterogram declaring that only one tube was open, left side strong side. At some point from my last surgery until now, my right tube closed. In early February 2017, we were back to doing IUI’s, but this time with a specialist. I had so much hope and confidence in him, he really knew his stuff! He did not put me on Letrozole (said I did not need it), but just Follistim and the trigger shot. A one month cycle consisted of a day 3ish of my cycle ultrasound to make sure I didn’t have any cysts and things looked good, a few more ultrasounds days/a week later to see how mature my eggs are and see where my lining is at to determine dosage of Follistim and the trigger shot to make me ovulate about 36 hours later. This was about 3-4 ultrasounds and a final appointment for the actual IUI. Each ultrasound (took about 10min) and the actual IUI (20 min) was a 3ish hour car ride, one way. We did this for two months with our doctor with hopes it would lead us to our rainbow baby. The second month, I actually had to leave a work conference and drive about 2 hours to have the IUI done by myself. My husband drove 3 hours AFTER working night shift give his semen, then 3 hours home to sleep for a few hours then back to working shift that night. You really do whatever it takes to try and get pregnant when longing for a baby. No pregnancy came from this doctor. \r\n.\r\nA few months and another puppy later (Remi is now 4 and our new puppy, a male fox red lab named Teak Clifford came into our life as a spunky, loyal, protector of mom), my best friend reached out and suggested I get a good allergy test done. A place in Green Bay and another 3ish hours away from home. With this specialist in September 2017 (another birthday passed during this specific time), I did a food allergy test as well as check out my hormone levels. My food allergy test came back to the following foods causing inflammation; dairy, rice, barely, black pepper, eggs, corn, mushrooms, &amp; a few seafood I’ve never touched. My hormone test came back with my cortisol being shot by afternoon leaving me exhausted and my adrenal glands being really low also. I was put on a strict diet to get rid of the following foods (have you ever noticed that corn is in EVERYTHING??) &amp; put on a supplement regimen that helped support my body better. After almost a year of doing this, &amp; feeling SO MUCH better overall – so much more energy, no headaches, not much bloating anymore, we decided to get my gut checked out as well. This required me to capture some of my feces and put it in test tubes and throw it in the mail. Yes, I know, TMI, but imagine my thoughts actually having to do this. GROSS! Again, willing to do anything to get pregnant. I ended up having a yeast overload in my gut which was causing some serious issues. I thought my diet was already strict having to stay away from my food allergies, but added to this now is 5grams of sugar or less, 50grams of carbs or less and put garlic and coconut oil on everything… did I mention I am a runner so I enjoy the carb loading before long runs. I now how to teach my body to burn extra fat instead of carbs while running which definitely did not feel like the same energy to me. I also had to switch up my supplements to kill the bacteria/yeast in my gut including taking a probiotic. \r\n.\r\nAfter two weeks of this new diet, staying on my food restrictions &amp; taking my supplements I ended up with a yeast infection (again, maybe TMI). I figured I would just call my doctor and get an antibiotic and all would be well, but since I was seeing a specialist I reached out to her first. She informed me to NOT call my doctor and NOT take any antibiotics because that’ll really ruin my gut even more. She then explained I will have to put a garlic clove up my vagina while I sleep at night. Garlic kills yeast in your gut. I made her explain it to me twice – yes, thread a garlic clove (after removing the skin of it) and insert it like a tampon, not TOO far though. I was so weirded out, but thought ‘ok, if it helps’. I kid you not, after doing it for 3 nights &amp; waking up to the taste of garlic and the bedroom smelling of garlic, my yeast infection was gone (cheap and all natural cure for a yeast infection, yay!). I continued to do this for a few more months and had everything but my food allergies retested. My body was damn near on point for hormones and gut bacteria. My specialist told me I was incredibly close to perfection. My husband and I continued to try to get pregnant. January 2019 rolled around and I started to get severe cramps. I went to the emergency room wanting relief. After an ultrasound, it was determined I should have my closed tube taken out. I was divested. I felt I was getting closer to the end of our journey, then this news. I knew our chances of getting pregnant were still there with just my left tube being open, but our odds dropped. I was a one tubed woman trying to get pregnant. My heart was slowly breaking. My third surgery was scheduled early February 2019. After surgery, my doctor told me some good news. The pain was NOT coming from my closed tube, there was a sack of fluid and old blood that was connecting my tube to my uterus. My doctor removed it, checked for endometriosis (there was little to NO endo since changing my diet!!), did a sonohysterogram in which BOTH tubes were open and ready for action. I was relieved and SO grateful. I am back to being a two tubed woman with better chances of becoming pregnant! \r\n.\r\nMy husband and I continued to try on our own. Knowing I did not have any endo, my hormones were in check, my gut was good…. This had to be it for us! 2019 rolled on and no pregnancy. We had a one final option we were willing to explore, IVF (In vitro fertilization). I started to look into it in the fall of 2019, and some friends of ours kept mentioning their fertility clinic (another 2.5 hours away) that ended with a beautiful, healthy baby girl. The financial part scared me. The shots and firm yet always having to be available scheduling seemed like a pain in my ass. Realistically, I was beyond terrified. I’ve always been that girl on Instagram watching behind the scenes all these women go through such a traumatizing time in their life to have a baby. Nope, not for me. Can’t do it. Won’t do it. Don’t think I can handle it. After talking to myself a lot, bringing God into the decision and deliberating with my husband, we decided to go for it. Our first appointment was the end of February 2020. The doctor was amazing, the staff was friendly &amp; my confidence in myself began to grow. I wrote out the check for $24,500 &amp; we left our appointment. I felt sick, dizzy but yet somehow still hopeful. During that appointment we did a trial transfer. I had to have a full bladder and the doctor took a look to make sure I had a nice, homey uterus for our little embryo we’d be transferring. He noticed a few cysts that I needed to clean up before getting going on our process. Surgery number 4, yes 4, was scheduled for March 18, 2020. Surgery went well, but two days later, we got the call from our fertility clinic that they have to shut down due to COVID-19. I felt disappointment and unhappy, but also a little secretively relieved because I didn’t have to start IVF. IVF to me felt like one of those things where you just want to get it over and done with and feel that relief when you’re done, kind of like your first day at a new job. You’re really nervous, don’t know what to expect, not sure if you want to do it, but at the end of the day it was pretty ok! We sat in limbo for just over a month waiting for them to open back up. We got the call towards the end of April and I got my period on April 23rd – it was almost perfect timing. I started birth control day 3 of my cycle, Dexamethosone on April 30th and had my baseline ultrasound on May 4th (my last birth control pill was taken this day). Due to COVID-19, I had to go to all my appointments by myself… as if IVF wasn’t bad enough, I now had to do this with my husband there holding my hand. I drove the 2.5 hours to my fertility clinic alone, went to the appointment alone and drove back alone. A lot of time people who are going through infertility will tell how lonely it feels. This emotion is very real and going to the appointments alone only multiplied that emotion. I got the ok to start my stims on May 9th, which also meant no more running, lifting, biking, swimming, only walking. I was about to enter the most stressful part of my life without my stress relievers? Oh man!\r\n.\r\nI started with 4 vials of Menopur (a shot in my stomach). The next day was Mother’s Day, a day that can feel very hard and depressing for those of us going through infertility along with those who’ve lost their mother, lost a child, and so on. When I got up that morning I went to immediately take my 4 vials of Menopur. I decided to facetime my parents to first, wish my mom a Happy Mother’s Day and second, so they could be involved in the shot taking. As I was finishing up the last bit of the shot, I remember tunnel vision and ended up fainting. My husband dropped the phone and tried his best to catch me, but I still ended up smacking my head on our kitchen tile floor. I came to a few seconds later not knowing what had happened. As if Mother’s Day wasn’t hard enough, here have a small bruise on the side of your forehead from hitting your head on the floor from fainting from shots due to IVF. \r\n.\r\nMonday morning’s lab work came really early and by Monday afternoon I received a phone call from my fertility clinic asking me to come in for an ultrasound the next day as well as switching up the medication schedule, 3 vials of Menopur in the morning and 1 at night. I of course agreed, knowing the 4 families I was supposed to talk with on the phone would all have to be rescheduled. I drove up 2.5 hours for my ultrasound on May 12th. Everything looked good, but we continued to switch the schedule up. May 14th came, and I drove another 2.5 hours by myself one way to another ultrasound and have lab work done. I also was able to start my ganirelix acetate, which prevent premature ovulation (I was now up to 3 shots a day in my stomach). My last ultrasound for the week was done on Saturday morning at 8:40am, that means leaving the house just before 6am. Thank God my husband could drive me to this one. Things looked great and later that day we found out Egg Retrieval was scheduled for May 19th so Trigger shot was to be taken 10:15pm on Sunday night. \r\n.\r\nEgg Retrieval was good to us and my husband was able to come in with me! We had 13 eggs removed. I went home, happy, hopeful and exhausted. The end was so close, I could feel it. At this point, I was feeling very confident and positive. We were able to freeze 2 embabies that day and the rest we’d hear about in the coming days. \r\n.\r\nTransfer Day was FINALLY here and we also found out besides the one we’d be transferring today, we have 4 more that were able to freeze. This is the day we infertiles take the shots for, deal with all the emotions and trauma for, the day we can finally say we are pregnant until proven otherwise. I remember the actual transfer SO vividly. I was given a picture of our little embaby, I had to pee like none other, and the valium was making me feel quite goofy. As I laid there and the doctor transferred part of my husband and part of me into my uterus, I prayed the hardest I have EVER prayed in my life. I asked God to let this be it. Let this little embaby implant and grow big and healthy in my uterus. I prayed that this journey he had me on was THE HARDEST almost 8 years of my life, and I also thanked him for giving me the strength to continue on the journey to get us right here in that moment, the moment I became pregnant and knew it. That is ONE thing I loved about IVF. I get to know specific dates! The story I was going to be able to tell our baby someday was going to be a wild one, as well as tell him or her how hard it was… but I wouldn’t have changed anything because it brought me him or her. \r\n.\r\nThe two week wait was tolerable, but not by much. On June 3rd, I could finally go in to see if I was pregnant or not. I had to wait all day to finally find out, for the first time in almost 7 years, I was pregnant. My HCG was 151. More bloodwork was done on Friday June 5th to confirm my pregnancy in which case it jumped to 324, “Kara you are indeed pregnant”. I was overwhelmed, shocked, baffled, but so incredibly hopeful that this was going to be our rainbow baby. FINALLY, it was our turn. I never thought our very first transfer would lead to a pregnancy!\r\n.\r\nThe next few weeks were amazing. I had very little pregnancy symptoms (I am the women who can’t wait for morning sickness and food aversions etc…), which frustrated me a little, but I counted it as a blessing. On June 22nd, we went in for our first ultrasound. I was 6w6d and I was able to see the most beautiful sight I have ever seen, our babies heartbeat. It was the fastest little flicker, it was real and it was finally MY baby. I was joyous, but still standoffish. We never made it this far with our last baby, so even though this was absolutely amazing, it was frightening. Would I lose this baby also? My mind started to play that game and I started to go down the google rabbit hole. I was still feeling zero pregnancy symptoms, so it was hard for me to accept I was actually pregnant.  \r\n.\r\nOn July 6th, my fear became true. There was no heartbeat anymore. We had a silent miscarriage and lost our baby. I had a D&amp;C on July 8th and my heart broke completely in half as I was wheeled down to the operating room, alone, knowing this was my last moments with my baby. I would never get to see him/her. How in the world do you love someone so much you never got to meet? This baby was supposed to be it. My almost 8 year struggle was supposed to be over. This isn’t how it was supposed to turn out. My baby was supposed to sing in front of church in the a few years with the rest of her kindergarten class.  The ONLY thing that got my through this mess, was the day we found out about the miscarriage it stormed in the afternoon, but right after was the most beautiful rainbow. That rainbow was God’s promise telling me to not be sad, our baby is safely in Heaven with him and both our children are in the arms of Jesus. \r\n.\r\nWe had genetic testing done on our baby. Results came back showing our baby girl passed due to Trisomy 16 which is the most common reason miscarriages happen. Our fertility clinic reached out and empathized with us. My consult with my doctor for our next steps started with a 10 minute apology and explanation making sure I was not blaming myself for this. \r\n.\r\nTomorrow, August 12th, I will be 5 weeks post D&amp;C. I am still waiting for my cycle to come so we can do our first Frozen Embryo Transfer. I am starting to become impatient, but know I have to trust God and have a little faith my body knows what it’s doing. Just needs more time to heal, as do I. \r\n.\r\nThe things that have helped me the most throughout this journey was my TTC sisters. They’ve been there, they FULLY get it. If you are at all able, connect with those who are struggling as well. This is one of the shittiest positions to be in and if you don’t have people in your corner who understand the whys and hows of infertility, it can be awful and feel even lonelier. I attended an InfertileAF summit in April 2019. It was a room FULL of women going through the same thing as me, but in different ways. It was an unexpected connection you feel with complete strangers. My family was also there for me. They had to put themselves out there a little to handle the emotions that come with someone going through infertility, but the most important thing behind that is that they’re there. Sometimes it’s not that they understand (because you really can’t unless you’ve been through it), it’s just the simple fact that they’re there for you to listen, cry and laugh with. Lastly, I think it can go without saying (but shouldn’t), my husband was a real trooper through it all. Infertility is a rollercoaster and things can change SO quickly. He knew how to handle me in every situation, how to talk to me down from the extreme emotions as well knew when I just need space and silence, with a foot rub of course. \r\n.\r\nAdvice I would give someone going through this, is simple. Hang on. Hang on cause it’s a rough ride. Hang on because giving up can’t be an option if you want it bad enough (nothing against those that chose the child free life after infertility). Hang on because just when you think you’re in the clear at 39 weeks pregnant and you finally bring that miracle home, it’s a whole new ride. \r\n                                            \r\n \r\n  "
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