Tests, Tests, and more Tests....

This is a continuation of a previous post.....

In March of last year I began to have severe pain in my left kidney or ovary area. This started on a Wed. night at church. It was terrible shooting pains that would make me cringe or double over with pain. My friend Sarah noticed that I was in pain and immediately asked me what was wrong. When I showed her where I was hurting she then asked if there was any way that I could be pregnant? Not really wanting to answer that (because at that point no one even knew that we were trying except my dear friend Dewey) I just stood and looked at her blankly...or more like a deer in the headlights probably. To which she said....well, let's just say that it is possible....you could be having a tubal pregnancy....because the pain sounds similar and it hurts in the same place.

Well, as you can imagine....that scared me to no end. So all during the bible study that night that possibility was all I though about. After the bible study I told Sarah that there was a possibility of me being pregnant but please to keep that between us since no one knew about us trying at that point. I did tell her that she could tell Keith. (Keith is our Pastor and Sarah is his wife and they are both our great friends). She said she would and she and Keith became two more invaluable confidants for us on this journey.

After another day the pain eased off for a few days and then it came back with vengeance and a fever and cause to believe it was my kidneys instead anything else. I called and made an appointment with my regular family doctor...who thought immediately that I had kidney stones. We did labs and nothing showed up out of the ordinary. It did not show that I had any type of infection. However, because of the fever and where the pain was he still believed it was my kidneys. He immediately scheduled me to go the next day to Hamilton Diagnostics to have dye ran through my kidneys to see if anything showed up.

The next day I went to have this test and my sweet Sandy went with me. When I went back for the test and was in the room signing the consent form the technician asked me if there was any possibility that I could be was pregnant. Knowing that there was and not believing I had not considered the danger of this test if I was….I said yes. I thought the guy was going to fall over in the floor at my answer. He said, well, this dye is radiation….and so before we do it we need to have you do a pregnancy test.

So I got dressed again and went to their lab and had blood drawn to be tested. This blood work had to be taken to the hospital to be tested since they needed to know the answer right away. If you ever wonder what a blood test at the hospital costs…this one test was $144 ….. Anyway, after they took the blood work I went back to the waiting room to wait for the results. This was stressful because by then my phone was ringing with my family wanting to check and see how it went..... and I couldn't / wasn't about to tell them I was waiting on a pregnancy test before I could even do the test.... so I just had to stall them which wasn't fun. I will say that my friends Dewey, Sarah, and Keith all called to check on me too...and I did at least have them praying for me as I waited. Best of all...my Sandy was right there with me. Finally, about an hour later the results came back negative and I had the test done on my kidneys and we went home.

The next day we went back to my doctor for the results. The test showed nothing in my kidneys and my Doctor asked me if I thought I had passed it the night before the test? I didn't think so but I still don't really know.

This pain continued to bother me off and on over the next few weeks and I began to wonder if something else was going on. Most likely a cyst on the ovary causing the pain. So I made an appointment with my GYN Dr. Stuckey to get everything checked out.

At the appointment with Dr. Stuckey everything appeared to be the norm. He did think that the pain was caused by a ruptured cyst that was on the ovary. He wasn't very concerned about that because he said they are very common and can cause a lot of pain but they are generally not dangerous.

So after discussing that I told him we were trying to conceive and not having any luck. I think that he was surprised at that revelation since he has been my doctor for many years and never heard me mention anything about kids. He said he was excited for us and that he hoped that everything would work out. He then suggested that we do some additional blood work to make sure all my levels were normal and that we didn't have any problems there. Everything came back normal.

We discussed a few things and he suggested that I start taking prenatal vitamins and come back in about a month. He did point out to me that on this particular day that my blood pressure was very high (160/90 I think) and that he wanted me to keep up with that daily for the next month. He and I both figured that this might be stress related with all that was going on but he wanted to be sure.

In April I went back for our next appointment.....still no luck. We did some addition blood tests on this day.....which again came back normal levels. My blood pressure was almost back in the normal range so we decided we were just going to keep an eye on it and see how it went. We scheduled another appointment in another month.


In May we still hadn't had any luck and so Dr. Stuckey suggested we move to two more extensive tests. First we had to get Sandy checked out and that came back fine. So the next was a test for me called a Hysteroscopy. This test involved having a dye ran through the tubes to see if they were blocked. We scheduled this test for June 5th.

On June 5th, I went back to Hamilton Diagnostics to have this test done. Sandy wasn't able to go with me this time as he was with his mom as she was having heart by-pass surgery this same day. So I went by myself. This time I knew I wasn't pregnant so no more $144 pregnancy tests on this day. This test involved having a dye ran through the tubes while the radiologist watched the dye on a computer screen to see if it was able to pass through the tubes. There was a computer screen up by my head that also allowed me to watch the dye and my insides on a screen and see what was going on. That was pretty neat to watch and I think I could tell by seeing where the dye stayed that we had a problem.

This test really hurt a lot but thankfully it didn't take but about 30 minutes. When it was finished I was allowed to go home. I got calls from those who knew I was having the test before I even reached home checking on me. That was a blessing.

When I got home I crashed for a few hours and then we headed out to a wedding renewal of two special friends. I was in a lot of pain but we had a great time. The couple glasses of wine probably helped....

We wouldn't find out the results of this test for 3 weeks. So again....we waited.

To be continued...

Trying....Well, This Should Be Fun.....

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to this blog. There is a lot going on in my life right now and it is sometimes hard to sit and try to put my thoughts into words.

Well...again....excuse me if I say anything that offends anyone...... I said I was going to be real and I'm trying to do that without going to far. This is our experience.

So we finally made the decision to try to have a baby.... and we got started on that right away : ) ... So if any of you have known me for more than an hour....you know that my primary love language is physical touch and that I make no excuse or bones about that. I love all of the physical stuff.... hugs, cuddling, and that other good stuff too. I could very easily be a guy when it comes to sex....except.....well....I'm not. This is just who I am and that is who God made me to be. If you want to show me that you love me a good tender hug will take you a long way..... ALL that other stuff though belongs only to Sandy.

But I digress. So we, like most, thought this part would be easy....and fun. And for a while it was.

When you are trying to have a baby you at first don't really put a lot of thought into the planning of it. You just as Nike would say..... "Just do it". You enjoy the freedom of using no protection and the excitement of just being together whenever you want.

However, as times passes and you are not getting the results that you want you have to start looking a little ... well, a lot closer at the technical timing of being together. You see...there is an optimum time of the month that you are most likely to be able to conceive. A window of about a weeks time at which you are most likely to be able to be able to make a baby.

I will tell you that we hated this part of trying with a passion. There is nothing like being on a schedule to take the romance out of the most intimate part of your life. We really hated this part so much. As much as we love being together, to have to look at calendars and timing and predictors..... romance quickly goes out the window and making love becomes a task to do. That is something that it should never be. Emotionally this was very difficult for both of us.

There are a lot of emotions that go into trying to start a family. There is the joy of thinking about what will happen when you find out you are pregnant. There is the joy of thinking about telling your family and your friends that you are going to have a baby. The thoughts about baby names. The question of will it be a boy or a girl....or in my family the possibility of twins.

There are also a lot of emotions that go into wondering why it's not working. Like... I wonder what the problem is? Is it time for tests? What does that involve? What if it's him? How do I tell him it doesn't matter? What if it's me? How do I tell him? Am I enough? Are we enough together?

It's really difficult to have these kind of things on your heart and spirit day after day....week after week....and even month after month. There is a constant reminder ever single month to tell you that all that you have done....has not worked.

And it didn't.

The story continues.......