Pregnant... by Faith

About four days ago, I received a positive ovulation test! This is about the right time as last month. So, I went out and bought some prenatal vitamins as if I'm already two weeks pregnant! I have lost 15lbs so far and I an going to continue losing the next three months. Then, I will increase my calories a little, but stay ON PLAN so that I don't gain so much. I already know I'm high risk based on my last pregnancy, but I'm ready! 

So this is what is going to happen next. I will be fine through April 22nd which will be my 2nd trimester. At the beginning of my 2nd trimester, I have to get a surgery called cerclage. It's when your cervix is stitched up so that you won't dialate too early. In my last pregnancy, I dialated 2 inches at week 19 and spent 4 weeks in the hospital laying upside to keep my bag from falling out. I was on 100% bedrest! I have to do #1 AND #2 LAYING DOWN! I did all of that for him to get sick and die at week 24. It was the worse feeling ever, but I would do it all again just hold my little Prince one more time. 😔

 So my businesses are now are setup for me to work from home and still keep my same pay. I will just need to send my assistant to the meetings. I am SUPER EXCITED to be going on this last trip in February because after April, its all shutting down. Conceiving this cycle will give me a due date of October 7, 2016! Not too close to Christmas, anniversary, or birthday...perfect!

As always, I leave you with the positive message of Not Giving Up even when it LOOKS nearly impossible, because with God, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! Check in on January 29th when I will do my pregnancy test LIVE and confirm what I already know...I'M PREGNANT!

Haven't post in a while because my smiley face won't go away!

It is DAY 8 of the blinking smiley face and I don't know how to turn this off! Technically, I'm on CD25 which in the female cycle world should be the last week before AF (Aunt FLOW) comes! So why haven't I peaked? I had a peak 2 days after the last chlomid pill but that couldn't have been real right? 

I mean chlomid is supposed to work 5-10 days after your last pill! So I peaked and then for about 6 days it was negative. Then on CD14, I went back into high fertility and have been there since! I'm using up all my OPK sticks!!!

So I have emailed my doctor and asked him if he could take me off chlomid and lets make this thing happen manually...YES, IVF! So let's see what he says. In the meantime, I'm gonna take a random PT to make sure I'm not accidentally preggos!

Down 8.6lbs in 10 days! And Embarrassing Confession

So, I haven't been as transparent with you as you may think. I have a confession to make. I have gained so much weight over the past 10 years and now I have reached the embarrassing highest weight 317.8 pounds. When I married my husband, I was 80lbs lighter, but when we first met 3 years earlier, I was 100lbs lighter. This is embarrassing how I let myself go. But I will not stay in the past, I must move forward like the great psalmist Israel Houghton says. 

But that's not all. I have been hiding the fact that my blood pressure have reached an all-time high of 150/100. If you read the charts this is stage 2 hypertension and puts me at serious risk of having a heart attack, stroke, or even death. Well, I'M NOT going out like this! I refuse to deny my future children the ability to spend ACTIVE time with their mother being demobilized!

So, I have put my money where my mouth is. I've been saying for months that I was going to join the Quick Weight Loss Centers and on Monday, December 14th, I DID! I wanted to keep it a secret because every time I started something in the past I failed and I didn't want to disappoint myself again or my husband. But I looked fear in the face and I said you will not cripple me! And then I started thinking about love because perfect love casts out fear. And I am braced and put it towards my health and wellness. This is not about losing weight anymore or fitting into some jeans. This is now about loving and living to see this whole journey to fertility come to past.

Aunty Flow is here! Find out WHY I'm happy about that. Round 2 begins

So it is official. AF is here! Wait...AF IS HERE! That brownish spotting was indeed a sign of things to come. But why am I excited about having a period right now? Shouldn't I be upset that I am not pregnant? Well, I am a little bit, but you do not understand, so sit down and let me tell you a little story.

I have to take two medications in order for me to go through a fertility cycle. The first medication is called Provera. That medication is a hormone that I take for 10 days and then five days later my period comes. Previously, I have not been able to have a regular period without it being induced by this medication. Once my period starts, I take the second medication on day three of my cycle. That medication is call Chlomid. Chlomid is a medication that causes me to ovulate 5-10 days after taking it. And then I wait 10-12 days to test for pregnancy. If negative, I start Provera again. The whole cycle is supposed to be about 30-33 days.

So why am I so excited about having my period. It's because I have not taking Provera this month! In fact, I was just about to take the first pill for Round 2, when I found out that I was spotting. I didn't want to take the pill because I knew that if I did and I was having implantation bleeding then it was going to make me bleed more and that's not good! 

So I'm excited about the fact that I am having a regular hormonal experience! It is certain that I ovulated 13 days before my period. This means that my cycle was 40 days long. I am wondering, should I just go ahead and skip Chlomid to see if I will also ovulate on my own?

I keep hearing the scripture with man things are impossible but with God all things are possible. It's possible to get pregnant with Chlomid and without. The question is what method am I supposed to use?

We never got a spike in BBT which means that it was an anovulation cycle (a cycle where the egg did not release). This means Chlomid is necessary in my case. 

It could not have been the week we were away in Michigan because if I would have ovulated my basal body temperature would have been elevated for the direction of the luteal phase. When I got back home my temperature was the same 97.70! It stayed that temperature plus or minus one or two degrees.

 So the lesson that we learned this cycle is that we will have to do the bed dance (bd) EVERYDAY once we get the positive ovulation or solid smiley face, AND confirm with BBT, AND lose weight/make natural food choices to increase my chances of naturally healing PCOS. 

As always ladies, don't give up, don't give in, and always do the dance!

Round 1...RESULTS ARE IN!

Round 1 failed...maybe. The spotting was indeed the first sign of my period coming. I'm now on my period, I think which means I have to go and pick up my 2nd round of Chlomid from the pharmacy so that I can start Round 2 on Day 3 of my cycle. Its too much brownish blood though. Could it be bleeding from anything else? I'm so sorry guys. I'm confused. I thought we were going to have a PPT on Christmas Day. Pray for me and my hubby who cannot understand what went wrong...

BUT, my husband just sent me this information from Google: "The irregular bleeding or spotting that can occur during pregnancy is often a dark brown or a light pinkish color. It should not be enough bleeding to fill pads or tampons over a few days. If you are bleeding enough to fill pads and tampons, then this would be a good indication that you are probably not pregnant."

He just told me to keep hope alive and observe over the next few days! 

Such a wonderful partner!!!

5 days of Smiley faces!!!

I am growing more and more frustrated with this body of mine! Today, I took another Clearblue digital OPK and the smiley face was blinking for the 5th day in a row! The blinking smiley face mean high fertility or high estrogen and SUPPOSED to mean you are about to have a LH surge for ovulation to occur. Well, I have had no signs of ovulation either from cervical mucous or basal temperature. But I have to keep focusing on the fact that I HAVE been pregnant before and that thought of "maybe you can't get pregnant " no longer works! Now, the thought is, how many cycles is this gonna take? If I am not either ovulating or positive pregnancy test (remember Thanksgiving week when I was out of town and couldn't test or temp?), well its very possible I ovulated that week and if I did, I should have a positive pregnancy test (PPT) by Dec 14th. If its not, I will restart the chlomid cycle and here we go again!

After 10 months, I back!

So I took a break from ttc (trying to conceive) to focus on my foundation and get my head right. So I am going through a pretty tough time right now. I restarted Chlomid on Nov 13th which was CD5 for me and took 💊50mg for 5 days. I use Clearblue Digital OPK to get a more accurate reading. The 1st after my last pill I had a solid smiley face which means peak fertility. Well, thats too soon so I disregarded and BD every other day until the week of Thanksgiving happened!

So we went home for the holidays and which was the most critical week of all! I was supposed to ovulate any day between Nov 22nd - Nov 29th. Thanksgiving was Nov 24th, so we had to find creative ways to "make the deposit." And guess what, I left both my Digital OPK AND my thermometer do I could confirm ovulation. We arrived back home and I immediately tested. My digital OPK was blank face. My BBT was normal. I am left only wondering...

Still not feeling well...

Still not pregnant and no period since July 15th! I need to find a natural cure for this! Looks like the we are going to look into adoption.  It's been over a year since our baby's death and still no success.  Maybe we should just adopt because IVF is just too expensive! Who has 20k for fertility treatments?  SMH, making big bucks off of people's desperation.

Nausea?! Pregnant or Metformin side effect?

I have been having severe nausea for the past 4 days and I am hoping it's because I have a BFP (big fat positive) test and its not a side effect of the Metformin I've been taking. 

I am about to take a test, but I'm so hesistant because I don't want to be disappointed.  Should I test? Ok, you win! If it's not positive,  I'm going to stop taking the medicine because I feel HORRIBLE! 😩😳😷

Clearblue OPK is Negative...the COUNTDOWN to a POSITIVE Pregnancy test begins NOW!!!

Yes! This blank circle tells me two things: I am no longer having an LH surge which is good because that means my hormones are actually doing what its supposed to be doing. A while back (2008), the doctor diagnosed me with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) which affects the hormones and estrogen levels in women. It also causes irregular periods and abnormal ovulation cycles. But I am not believing that condition is permanent, NO not in me! Second, the blank circle tells me that it's time to start the countdown from conception to a positive pregnancy test! At this point, it's a waiting game. So here is how my fertility calendar looks this week:

8/19/2014 - I did not test this day although I think this was actually the 1st day of the Peak Fertility result on the Clearblue digital Ovulation tool. If it was positive this day, then that means me and the hubby needed to start Coitus process on 8/20/2014 and 8/21/2014.

8/20/2014 - Positive OPK (Ovulation Predicator Kit) LH Peak Surge means that you will be ovulating within 24-48 hrs AFTER the positive shows up. It took a while for me to get that. Just in case the test was actually positive on the Tuesday that I didn't actually test, the hubby and I just went ahead and got started with Coitus. Since this is the first day that I've actually seen the positive Peak Fertility result, we will add an extra day to Coitus process. This means that if this is accurate and Peak LH Surge did happen today, we should expect ovulation to occur either 8/21/2014 or 8/22/2014.

8/21/2014 - I did  not test on the OPK to see if my LH surge was gone, but I assumed the positive result was still there from the day before. On the Clearblue Digital, the positive result actually stays lit in the window for 2 days! It's a constant reminder to do what you need to do to make it happen! Coitus also occurred this night. We have agreed to continue Coitus until we see a positive pregnancy test which could be in about 2-3 weeks from now! It will take work, but we just have to keep it fun, fresh, and exciting and we should be able to make it through. By the way, we haven't done that since we were in our 20's so this will definitely be a challenge!

8/22/2014 - OPK Negative

Well ladies (and maybe a gentleman or two), we are on this journey together. The Path To Fertility for some is easy (hince the 4, 5, 6+ kids), but for some, the journey is long and hard, but in the end it will be all worth it! We just want to be an encouragement to the thousands of couples around the world struggling with infertility or high risk fertility and let you know that WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!!!