Are We Going to Have a Third Baby?
That’s a great question.
If you’re new here, I’ll give you the quick overview of our fertility journey. Jason and I got married in 2013, moved to Colorado in 2014, and I finished graduate school in 2015. The whole time we were married, we were open to starting our family, but we weren’t “trying-trying.” We figured it would happen when it was meant to happen, and were okay with it taking a little bit to get pregnant because we enjoyed exploring our new home in the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains (Jason was placed on a ground-up hospital construction project for our first year and three-quarters of living in Colorado, in a town called Grand Junction), and I wanted to finish my Master’s Degree. We had a lot of fun in Grand Junction, which was CRAZY-different from the Lakeview East neighborhood in Chicago, from where we had moved. Three years into our marriage, we started really trying to get pregnant, but month after month, we had negative pregnancy tests, so we both went to see male and female fertility specialists, who diagnosed the problem. For the sake of keeping personal things private, I’ll jump to the bottom line: the only way for us to become pregnant was to go through in-vitro fertilization (IVF). This was how we were blessed with our son Joe (now five) and our daughter Everleigh (now two and a half).
Jump to October 2022, one year and four months after our sweet Everleigh was born. Jason and I really wanted to try to have our third child, so I began the bloodwork and other related labs and testing required to start-up the next frozen embryo transfer (FET). A project I had been working on for a year and nine months at that point was delayed after the GC took a major step back. I had to take on a lot of the tasks that typically would not fall under the designer/decorator’s umbrella of responsibilities, such as sourcing new subcontractors (from a distance, too, and not knowing anyone in the location where this project was taking place, 3.5 hours from my home), coordinating new subs’ arrival windows with the property management team, managing and coordinating materials deliveries, sourcing and ordering products like millwork and plumbing parts (I’m talking beyond the pretty finishes, so usually a GC task), and corresponding with the manufacturers of products that the subs on site were installing if/when issues arose. All of these added responsibilities were not part of my overall scope of work when I signed up for this project, but I felt a sense of pride in this renovation, and we had already made it so close to the finish line that I felt it was the right thing to do for me to see it through. This added work, though, combined with the kids heading into the dreaded “sick season,” made it difficult to de-stress. I was averaging 4-5 hours of sleep per night because there weren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with everything, our whole family kept coming down with illnesses, and my blood test results were not where they needed to be for a successful embryo transfer. I decided I would postpone trying to get pregnant until this project was completely wrapped.
Now jump to February 2023, two years from the project start date. I was excited to be in my client’s home, this time styling each space and capturing photos for my portfolio! There were still some to-dos to get the house ready for guests, but we had thankfully turned those over to the property management team, and I was able to re-focus on my family and my health.
To see more of this home, or to book your stay, check out @aspenvalleyskyranch on Instagram.
After doing some more blood work, my nurse and I decided it would be best for me to make it a personal goal to take on less stress and sleep more at night. I needed a few months where I’d calm my mind and hopefully get all of my levels to reset so we could create the best environment to attempt our next embryo transfer, so we decided to prioritize our family and finishing our own home projects over the summer. This way, we could work on our own schedule, answer to ourselves and not twenty other people who needed answers from me throughout the day, and take weekends off for family fun whenever we wanted. In the Fall of 2023, I started up again with bloodwork, ultrasounds, and other tests and procedures to get the whole process going again. I was taking all of the necessary vitamins and prescriptions, and starting on Thanksgiving Day, I had even begun the Lupron injections (the shots you inject nightly into your stomach skin for four weeks).
Here’s where things started to spiral.
I remember being excited to take Joe and Everleigh trick or treating on Halloween (we’re rewinding a little bit here from Thanksgiving), but then feeling more and more awful as the day went on. Everleigh woke up groggy and moany (I’m making that a word here because if you’ve even been around a sick toddler, you know what I mean) from her nap, too, so she and I stayed in while Jason took Joe around the neighborhood. As the week went on, I felt wheezy, was coughing constantly, and couldn’t stay awake. I went in to see my doctor, tested negative for Covid and Strep, and was diagnosed with laryngitis.
Let’s fast forward again to the first week of December 2023. More than one full month after I started feeling crappy, and nearly two weeks into Lupron injections for our FET, I was feeling even worse. My lungs had this sharp stabbing pain whenever I coughed, laughed, or tried to take a deep breath. I went to the urgent care for a chest x-ray, and they diagnosed pneumonia. They put me on two kinds of antibiotics to try to kick the infection, but a week later, the lung pain had continued to grow worse. Worried the infection was worsening, I went back to the urgent care. They took another chest x-ray, which revealed that my pneumonia had completely cleared (YAY!). The doctor then advised I do a CT scan, as she was worried that I might’ve had a blood clot in my lung (boo!), based on the symptoms I told her I was having. The CT scan revealed that the lining of my left lung was very inflamed (so the sharp, stabbing pain was caused by pleurisy), but also that my heart had become enlarged.
Because of this new information, I needed to cease the treatment plan I was on for our embryo transfer, as my doctor said it would not be safe to become pregnant with an enlarged heart. I felt defeated. I’m a spiritual person, and I had prayed a lot back in 2022 when Jason and I were trying to decide whether or not we should try to have a third child. In our hearts, we felt like our family wasn’t “finished” yet. A friend of mine told me to look 10, 20 years into my future and picture my family: Was it complete with two children, or did we have another child?
There was another child.
There I was, sick in bed with pneumonia, wincing in pain with every breath, mustering-up the bravery to inject fertility hormones into my stomach, and then suddenly being told to postpone yet again until my heart went back to the proper size. It made sense, so I wasn’t mad. Just sad, and questioning a little bit at this point after postponing our FET for the third time whether or not it actually was in God’s plan for us to have a third child.
Jason and his parents had been so incredibly helpful while I was down for the count, and they helped me get back to good health. We had our embryo transfer scheduled for 12/21, but the earliest echocardiogram I could get was 12/20, so of course, the transfer was cancelled. As it turned out, the results I received on 12/22 from the echo on 12/20 revealed that my heart was once again its normal size, and I was cleared to restart fertility treatments. Had I known how quickly it would’ve bounced back, I could have stayed on track for an embryo transfer on the 21st, but I’m working on letting go of that and trusting that God has a reason for everything.
I started my stomach injections again on Christmas day and have been going in for all of the required blood tests and labs so my doctor can make sure I’m on track for our scheduled embryo transfer, which is now scheduled for 1/25! Of course, we’re praying hard for it to be successful, and if you’re reading this and are open to sending up prayers for our family, we would welcome them lovingly!
Our new home, located in the town just West of where Jason and I grew up. We’re excited to make this ours!!
If you’ve been following my Instagram stories closely, you are probably aware that we’re also in the process of selling our house. We’ve had showings the whole week of 1/15, so we’ve been completely thrown off of our routine. We’re getting some great quality time in with Jason’s parents, who also live in Arvada, and I’ve been going in for labs every other day as we gear up for this embryo transfer. We are DEFINITELY cutting it close, though. We’ve already closed on our new home in Illinois, and Jason’s already started his new job in our hometown, so he’s flown back for that once already and might need to go back again once more before we move out of our Colorado home and into our new home.
There’s a lot happening all at once!!
It’s nuts to me that one year and three months after the original date we wanted to attempt getting pregnant, it might finally happen this month! Stress hormones don’t play nicely with pregnancy hormones, though, so if we want this to be successful, I need to continually ground my emotions, practice mindfulness, and work on saying no to things that won’t do me any good. On the flip side, I’m trying to say yes to more things that bring me peace and joy, even when I feel unworthy, like I haven’t earned those little bits of happiness. I’m a firm believer that you get out what you put in. Keeping calm, praying, choosing kindness, practicing mindfulness, showing empathy… these are all things that have been important to me in my life, but now more than ever, these are taking priority over things that don’t do any good for anybody, such as gossiping about others, sharing hurtful opinions, succumbing to jealousy or envy, and putting any sort of negative energy into the world. If you’re a faithful person, please pray for us this week!
Many thanks!
Cait