earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal

the lord has surely blessed us. over the past week people from around the world (literally) have been reading our story, praying for us, sending messages, notes, texts, emails, making phone calls all in the name of encouragement. i am blown away. what's more amazing is how the lord has woven the lives of the people in my family together so intricately through this struggle.

many of you saw my post last night about my brother and sister. i guess i should clarify that my brother is not married to my sister. although that would certainly make the story even MORE interesting! gray met jennifer in 2009 and loved her from the first moment he saw her. i was the first one in our family to meet her, and i have also loved her from the first moment i met her. she and i have the most unique relationship that i have ever experienced. the lord has literally bound our hearts and souls together and blurred all lines of blood and marriage and what the law says about our relationship. she is my sister, and our bond is one of the most sacred things in my life. anyway, she and gray are walking through a similar but different situation as they try to begin their family. please, if you pray for me and kenny, read their story and pray for them. you can read about what's going on in their lives on jen's blog: thegardners7712.blogspot.com.

since so many of you have read about their story and have appreciated knowing exactly what's going on in with them, i thought i should give a little clarity to our own situation. this might explain what's going on a little better.

kenny and i got married in june of 2013. i immediately quit the birth control pill. we knew it could take at least three months for my body to adjust to the drastic change in hormones, so we made the decision to go ahead and stop it as soon as we got married. since i quit the pill my body has been in an all out mutiny. when i quit the pill my mom and several other people laughed that i'd probably be pregnant by september. i had really hoped so. weeks turned in to months, and my body did not adjust. in fact, it rebelled. i must have taken 75 pregnancy tests between july and february. seriously. my body didn't regulate itself to doing what it was supposed to each month, so each month we got excited that maybe, just maybe, we had gotten pregnant. and multiple times each month i sat on the bathroom floor and cried surrounded by multiple negative pregnancy tests. in october i went to the doctor and had every panel of blood work run that you could possibly have run. everything came back normal. we kept trying. by march i was at my wits' end, so we decided it was time to head back to the doctor. my doctor ran another panel of blood work, and it turns out that i have no hormones. well, not none, but not enough to make me function like a normal person. we also learned that my body does not ovulate on its own. super. to get pregnant you kind of have to ovulate. my doctor put me on an oral hormone and a fertility drug that should have forced my body to ovulate. the first round of this medication was one of the lowest points i can remember having in years. that is no exaggeration. it was absolutely horrible. i was horrible grumpy, depressed, had hot flashes, insomnia, everything hurt, my emotions were ALL over the place, and everything inside of my body was overstimulated and swollen. i could barely move, sit, or stand. uncomfortable doesn't begin to describe it. i cried most of the time. this lasted for two and a half weeks out of each month we did this. the cycle started with blood work to check levels, oral hormone to stimulate my "monthly friend," fertility drug, doctor's visit on day 14 to check follicle growth and to be sure i wasn't having any symptoms of a potentially fatal side effect called ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome. then on day 21 i went back to the doctor for more blood work to check my levels. on day 28 i started taking home pregnancy tests every other day until day 35. at day 35 i went in for blood work to confirm the absence of a pregnancy. this was the all clear to begin again. just to give you an idea of how completely worthless my body is at making babies: my levels of progesterone needed to be at the VERY bare minimum a 3 for that be a sign of ovulation. my level was 0.3. you read that correctly. 0.3. ideally i would have been at a 10 or higher.

as we got ready to start our final round of this drug, i was so overcome with fear and dread. i didn't want to. i mean i REALLY didn't want to. research shows that with these types of drugs if they're going to work, they'll work the first time. the medicine wasn't forcing my body to ovulate. it wasn't working. i went back to the doctor and told her i was done and what else could we do. she explained that i would need much more serious medication (with much more serious side effects) and that she could no longer help me. she referred me to a new specialist. in the mean time she put me on a diabetes medication (i am not even close to being diabetic) that could help my body get back to normal. 

kenny and i had a decision to make: continue on with more serious drugs that could pose a more serious threat to me long term or stop all treatment. we did some research and found some studies that indicate that fertility treatments increase the chances of having a female specific cancer by as much as three times. i have a strong family history of cancer. we were not comfortable moving forward with treatment.

and that is how we came to the conclusion to adopt. i saw this somewhere, and it's really true about how we feel: it's more important for us to be parents than it is for me to be pregnant. i may never be pregnant. i may never know what that's like. maybe at some point the lord will perform a miracle and allow to me to get pregnant. for now, we will grieve the loss of babies that won't be born of us, but we will pray hopefully and expectantly for the baby (or babies) that will be born for us. there's a david crowder song called "come as you are." my favorite line says earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. i don't understand why every jane doe on the street who DOES NOT NEED A CHILD can conceive easily, over and over again and i cannot. but earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal. these light and momentary afflictions are nothing compared to the glory awaiting us.