To my beautiful child,
Your dad told me last week that maybe I should actually start writing letters to myself instead of to you, to try to encourage myself. I think last week that letter would have started with, “What are you, crazy?! Stop all of this right now!!” I mean…yikes. Super motivating. I think maybe it’s safer to write to you š
So to catch you up, I got a call while shopping the other day (actually returning some items I had bought for your sister Goldie since “you know I only like to wear to dresses and skirts, mom”) and it was from my IVF coordinator. I had left her a voicemail when I started my period and she told me to start taking birth control to regulate my uterine lining thickness and then scheduled my polyp removal surgery. Long story short with a few less swear words typed here than were actually happening in my mind, birth control makes me feel 1000% sick and that’s when I feel like the doubts came in full blown because my life is good right now!! Like what am I even doing?! These are the thoughts that I’m thinking and honestly, believe a little. I just have to stick to those few moments where I knew it was right to proceed.
So I immediately start feeling nauseous as I’m taking these pills every night and I call my mom and tell her that I’m so annoyed at everything…and I know it’s me. Like, what they are doing is not annoying and I’m annoyed, so clearly, it’s a situation of, “your hormones are having a whack attack, honey.”
It’s affecting me to the point where I have to go to sleep early, lay in bed when Tyler comes home from work, etc. Super fun times. Happy Summer 2021, everyone!
The surgery was scheduled for June 23rd and I’m pretty hopeful that it wouldn’t be as bad as last time because I like to choose to be naive sometimes, apparently. Call it looking on the bright side? Or being an idiot? Your choice. I mean I’m laughing right now as I type this, but like what’s a girl to do? I think when my pregnancy and everything surrounding it was so awful last time, I just decided to move forward with hope that it could be better this time around because what sane person would choose to do it all again, you know?
I woke up that morning and I’m in a ferociously horrible mood. Like why are there so many people who live in in Utah? How dare everyone drive on the road in front of me, you know? Tyler makes me laugh finally as he starts to state aloud all of these terrible thoughts that I’m actually having in my brain. “Why did they build this building on that side of the road?! Didn’t they know we would be driving this way, today?” Hilarious…and yet I was actually thinking these thoughts, genuinely annoyed. You see…birth control and me don’t mix. We’re really fun together. YIKES.
So we’re sitting in the waiting room and Tyler’s probably thinking at this point that he maybe should have really thought twice 13 years ago when he said “yes” to forever with this angel. The cutest couple walks out from their appointment and out of the building and then back into the building, holding a pic of me on my Instagram and said, “Is this you?!” Such a sweet experience. I love that we all have each other.
When the nurse calls me back, I go back and pee in a cup in the bathroom which is quickly becoming one of my greatest skills, and then I go into the room and change into my gown. I’m naked except for the gown and my socks that I designed for the Slice of Sun infertility community and I’m feeling great because it’s the first step to moving forward and at this point I’m not enjoying my own company so the anesthesia nap maybe isn’t the worst thing that could happen to a girl with hormones happening that are consuming her road-ragey thoughts.
I don’t remember moving from surgery to the recovery room but I do remember pulling out my camera to film Dr. Foulk when he came in, mostly because I have the actual footage on my phone to prove it. A girl shouldn’t be trusted with her phone when she is waking up from anesthesia, but also, I’m super glad he just went along with it because of documentation purposes and it’s in my DNA to capture it all.
Tyler filmed lots of hilarious little tidbits, starting at the wall and panning to me, starting at the chair and panning to me, starting at the other wall and panning to me, and starting on my forehead and panning out. They’re all equally flattering.
We somehow managed to make it from the building, to home, to my bed where I woke up 3 hours later. I rested for a few hours in bed, ate some food, my mom called to see if she could help pick up my kids, my sister sent us dinner and my friends Lisanne and Brooke came to visit. It takes a village. The next day I felt super ambitious after sleeping in until 10 am so I packed my bags and took my kids to my sister-in-law’s to swim and then regretted it by laying on the couch the rest of the night. I would be a terrible sick person because even being down for a few days is incredibly inconvenient.
Friday comes around and I decide to go to my hair appointment because I’ll just be sitting around anyway trying to rest and my hair is crying out for help, so I went. The entire time I kept having these thoughts that I was going to just cancel the entire round of IVF and call it quits because this was just too much. I was crawling out of my skin. It was like I was in a tunnel or in a dream. Being the wise soul that I am, I called my IVF coordinator Danica who I somehow got her cell phone number in my phone, I think from my last attempt to conceive 6 years ago, and she answers and is so kind. I wasn’t supposed to stop taking my birth control until Tuesday to regulate when I would start my period for my transfer and she asked if I could take it for one more night and I said no. Sorry, Danica. You’re the actual kindest human. She told me to call her if I started my period earlier than Wednesday which is what we were planning on, so that’s where we are at now.
A few other miracles happened for me that day. I called my friend Karalynne who has helped me so much in getting healthy this past year, and she answered her phone and talked to me for 20 minutes. She is a mom of 6 and runs a business so the fact that she even answered her phone when I needed her was a miracle. She helped me brainstorm how to keep my gut healthy and what vitamins she recommended and was so helpful for me. She also said she wanted to do some research on why polyps grow. I also called my sweet step sister Tatum who just got pregnant after doing IVF and she listened to me cry for a little bit and then sent me the most encouraging message later that day. My friends Brooke and Lisanne came over that night and we all had a casual dinner outside. It just helped me feel like a normal human for a little bit. I’m truly grateful for the people God has placed in my life because I know He is acutely aware of the support that I need.
It’s Monday, I thankfully haven’t started my period yet, so we should be able to still stay on track for our IVF transfer and all of those fun times ahead.
Oh, and I almost immediately started feeling SO much better since I stopped taking the birth control. I woke up on Saturday and was like, “Okay, cool. I feel a little more normal.” And I literally had to hold back the tears as I went on a little bike ride that day because I could. I love my body and what it can do. I feel so much better when I can exercise and move.
So I’m going to take it a day at a time and just see how it all pans out. I have about a million doubts right now but I’m trusting the girl who decided to do this again and going to back to the “When in Doubt” note in my cell phone where I write down the moments of faith and truth for myself when I have them so I can reference them later when things don’t seem as sure.
xx
Mom
My “I’m so brave and I know I’m a part of an incredible community of women” socks
Laying on the couch after overdoing it a little after surgery. Precious babies in the background.
Very swollen and very sad after surgery.
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