Some Change Is Around the Corner...

Because this little boy's world might get a little rocked!!

Cale is going to be a BIG BROTHER!!

Baby Cooper #2 is coming to our house in November!

So, to back up and give some details (since this is my scrapbook)...

Adam and I became pregnant with Cale pretty quickly after we had come around to the idea of it being a good season to start a family.  We had no reason to think that trying for number 2 would be any different...but oh, it was!  To make a long story short, after 8 months of trying, I went to my annual OB appointment, told her what was going on, and she gave me the name of a Reproductive Endocrinologist.  That took a little bit for me to wrap my head around...a RE, as in a Fertility Specialist??  Who us?  Who got pregnant quickly and had a relatively easy pregnancy with Cale?  WOW.  We weren't sure we were ready to move into the fertility world, but we decided it would be best to at least go for a consultation before making any decisions.

We loved the RE we were referred to.  He was quick to tell us that he could help regulate my body and hormones to make things function as they should, but he was not the giver or creator of life and he would not be able to guarantee us that he could give us a baby.  Good thing.  We know the only One who is capable of that.  Glad we were all on the same page.

He did a sonogram, looked my ovaries, and summed up that I have PCOS.  This is a common diagnosis, but tricky and difficult, nonetheless.  He told me that the cysts that were forming in my ovaries were secreting hormones that were throwing my body off and not allowing me to ovulate.  He said that the reason that he thought that we were able to get pregnant with Cale so quickly was because I had been on birth control (which regulated my body's hormones), up until just a month or two before I got pregnant.  After having Cale, I never got back on birth control, because who really wants to pay $50/month for BC when we were planning to have more children sooner rather than later...

Anyway, all that being said, I needed help regulating my hormones and kicking my body back into action so that I would ovulate.  Without ovulation, there is 0% chance of pregnancy...duh.  That was going to require A LOT of blood work, a lot of doctors appointments, medication, etc... for an unknown amount of time....without any insurance coverage....YIKES!  The estimated $1200-1500 a month was a little more than we could budget, so I consulted with my OB again, who was so gracious to prescribe the lowest amount of fertility drug (Clomid) for me to try on my own (without monitoring = $$) for three months.  If in three months the Clomid had not kick-started my ovulation, I would need to go back to the RE.  So we had three months of $8 in fertility meds, instead of the originally estimated $1200-1500...whew!  Thank you, Lord for giving us those few months to process and come up with a financial game plan for the next steps.  

Month 1 of 50mg clomid came and went.  I took the pill on cycle days 5-9, and went in for a blood work to check my progesterone levels on CD 21.  The magic number was 10.  Any blood work that was above a 10, meant I technically had ovulated that month.  I had been doing Ovulation Predictor Kits to more accurately monitor my cycle, and was encouraged to see a positive OPK that cycle.  Unfortunately, it was a false alarm, since my blood work back back at a 2.5.  The elevated LH levels (due to the hormone imbalance) is what created the "false" positive OPK.

So, month 2 was 100mg of clomid, and not a whole lot of hope on my end.  Took the pills, did the OPK's and never got a positive.  "great", i thought, "so my body is continuing to regress".  It was not looking good.  To my shock, when I had my CD 21 blood work done, it came back at a 10.5, which basically meant that I sputtered.  But hey, at least my body was indeed moving in the right direction!  

With one moth left to try clomid, I shared my blood results with Adam that night and told him that we needed to really fine tune our game plan, since we'd be back at the RE the next month.  Adam was way more optimistic than I was, and told me that we didn't need to talk about it until after this cycle had completely finished and I knew I wasn't pregnant.  I laughed at him and went to our bedroom on a mission to shut down his optimism with a negative pregnancy test.  The Lord decided the joke was actually going to be on me.

After a few minutes, I went into the living room, white-faced, and handed this to Adam...

There was a second line.  Barely.  But a line, no doubt.

I didn't believe it.  I took 2 more that night.  They were so faint that I still didn't believe it.

I woke up at 2:30 am and took another.  So faint.  I woke up that next morning and took 3 more.  

Still faint, but visible.  After looking at my line up, Adam rolled his eyes with a big smile on his face and said, "Kasie.  Stop.  You're pregnant!"

I still couldn't believe it.  Until I saw this...the final test.

After I saw the words, I decided to believe it! :)

Adam's parents were arriving the next day to celebrate Cale's birthday and we had planned to tell everyone all together that weekend.  Morning sickness hit hard and we had to abort our original mission, since I was NOT acting normal and Adam's mom was becoming worried over my behavior.  We went to my parents house and told them (well, technically, Cale told them) the news.  Everyone was so excited.  It was so much fun to tell all of our family all together.  The Lord orchestrated it perfectly.  Even down to my negative OPK's that entire month.  He wanted to show me, again, that He is truly the one in control.  He is the giver and creator of life.  And, we are SO thankful that he saw it fit to breathe life into our little bean, and begin our journey to a family of four.

A few weeks later, we went and saw this...

and heard a precious heartbeat of 155bpm.  Same as it's big brother's first monitored heart beat.

We are so thankful for this story.  Infertility is hard, and scary and unknown.  I know we "barely" faced infertility, but if you've ever struggled with infertility, you know that there is no such thing as "barely" facing infertility.  You're either staring it in the face or you aren't.  We were.  And it was hard and scary and unknown.  We are praising the Lord, as hard as it was, for our journey.  We have grown closer, and learned in even greater depths about surrendering our plans to the Lord.  His plans are perfect, and furthermore, CANNOT be thwarted!  Praise the Lord for the miracle of life!  

Updates to come...