Part 1 of this post can be read by clicking here. Also, because of the details that go along with telling our infertility story, some of you guy readers might feel like I'm sharing too much information, so proceed with caution!

Part of me always knew, in the back of my mind, that one day I would have trouble getting pregnant. Since pretty much day one of my "passage into womanhood," I had problems ranging from periods that wouldn't stop without medical intervention or simply no periods at all. And at the young age of 13--after at least a year or more of 3-month intervals on and off the Pill--my doctor put me on the Pill permanently. He offered to refer me to someone else so we could identify what was actually wrong (instead of just using the Pill as a Band-Aid for the problem), but I was in junior high and I didn't want to be poked and prodded and undergo tests that were more appropriate for older, maturer women. I just wanted to be a normal teenager, so my Mom and I declined any further evaluations or tests and I spent the next decade growing up, graduating from high school, falling in love, getting married, graduating college, and working on my career--all while popping a Pill nightly to keep me "normal."

Since Matt and I were so young when we got married in December 2000, we decided that we wanted to wait at least five years before we had a child. In February 2004, six months after I graduated college and six months before Matt graduated with his masters degree, we bought our first home. Up until that point in our marriage, children hadn't really been a thought since we were still in such a transition period in our lives. Buying a home meant we could finally settle down, though, and it wasn't long before I started getting serious about growing our family. Matt, however, is an only child and seemed to not have much interest in children (or didn't really know what to do with them when we were around them), so as a test of his parenting abilities, I agreed to let him adopt a puppy from the pound. Zoe was like our first child and Matt babied her so much (and still does!) that I knew we were ready...Matt had passed my test! So, in late summer of 2004, I stopped taking the Pill and was anxious to see if the same problems I had as a young teenager were still there. It didn't take long for my fears to be confirmed.

As the months went by, I tried to stay optimistic, thinking maybe the Pill just needs to get out of my system and I'll be regular then. But by Spring 2005, it was apparent that I needed to see a doctor since I wasn't having my periods. My doctor ran some blood work, which came back normal, and then over the next six months or so of that year, he regularly prescribed me hormones to make my periods start and Clomid to increase my chances of getting pregnant. I tried to not get frustrated by the fact that he seemed to not be very aggressive about finding the root of the problem and oftentimes through that first year, I questioned whether I should change doctors or even go see an infertility specialist. I found myself constantly feeling like I was wanting to "bypass God" if I took more aggressive measures or that if I prayed harder or had more faith, I wouldn't need medical intervention.

By Fall 2005, I was fed up, though, and had come around to the realization that further medical intervention didn't mean I was relying on man to fix my problem, but that these doctors were simply one of God's tools! It had been a year and we still had no clue what the problem was, so I decided to try another Ob/Gyn who I had heard good things about. Before we left the other doctor, though, we had a sperm analysis done and were told that Matt had a normal level of sperm but that the count was on the lower end of normal and he should probably avoid hot baths. Considering that Matt likes to get in the bathtub and read and had just finished getting his masters in English, which requires a lot of reading, I banned him from the bathtub until we were pregnant!

Changing doctors made me feel optimistic again. I went for my first appointment in October 2005 and the doctor--before even doing an exam or ultrasound--said he felt I had a mild form of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) based on what I had told him about my history. An ultrasound showed that one of my ovaries was huge and had cysts on them and that it was most likely because of the treatment of hormones and Clomid that the other doctor had me on. I'm a little fuzzy on the workings of insulin and its relation to PCOS, so I might not be totally correct in how I describe it, but basically, women with PCOS typically suffer from insulin-resistance, meaning their body doesn't respond to insulin like it should and therefore more insulin is made, which can cause your ovaries to develop cysts. High insulin levels lead to your ovaries producing higher levels of male hormones and thus ovulation becomes affected. In short, your hormones are all out of whack and as was my case, the hormone that told the egg to release from the ovary wasn't working, therefore I wasn't ovulating. (Clear as mud, huh?)

My new doctor's first course of action was to get my ovary back to its normal size and to get rid of the cysts. He prescribed metformin, a form of glucophage that is typically used to treat diabetes and regulate insulin in your body. I was also scheduled for a laparoscopy (exploratory surgery to look at my reproductive organs) and a hysterosalpingogram or HSG (better known as a tubal dye study) for the first week of November 2005. The laparoscopy showed that the metformin had helped to shrink my ovary back, that the cysts were gone, and that everything looked good. The HSG showed no blockage in my fallopian tubes and I was sent home with a follow-up appointment for the next week and a very positive outlook from the doctor.

At my follow-up appointment, we were given the go-ahead to try again that month, this time taking both metformin and Clomid, as well as charting my basal body temperature. I had been charting my basal body temperature (your temperature at rest, before getting out of bed in the morning, using a special thermometer) almost since we had started trying to conceive, but didn't know the facts behind why it was so important until I read "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" by Toni Weschler. "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" was such an eye-opener to me, as I never knew some of the signs my body was giving me, especially when it came to cervical mucus. Yes, I went there! Too much information, I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and if taking two medicines, recording my basal body temperature into software that analyzed it for me and told me when I would be most fertile, checking my cervical mucus daily, and a healthy dose of prayer would lead to pregnancy, I was all for it!

In telling my story, I can't skip over the spiritual side of it. There was about a year there that I felt desperate all the time, where my prayers were made up of literally begging and pleading, and where my emotions were running so high that news of my friends' pregnancies (and there were quite a few during that time) left me running to God crying, "Why?" "Why Me? Why Can't I Have a Baby?" As I shared in the first part of this post, in the excerpt from the book, I'm a control freak and oftentimes God uses situations that he knows will get your attention to teach you some important life lessons. For me, I thought I could control my body, even though I had never actually been in control of my menstrual cycle. None of us are, but my perception of pregnancy had everything to do with controlling whether I got pregnant or not and nothing to do with allowing God to control such an important step in my life, in our marriage. I thought I was in control and I thought it would happen on MY timeline. God took this opportunity as a wonderful teaching moment in my life, and I don't regret it at all. And then I did something crazy around the time I changed doctors. I quit praying!

During the transition of doctors, I read a book (which I can't remember the name of) of one woman's story of infertility. In the book, she talked about ceasing her prayers for a while because she felt the main reason she was praying so much was because she felt she needed to "remind God." I suddenly felt convicted about my prayer life because I realized that control freak in me was coming out in my prayers and without really realizing it, I was trying to control God. My prayers were definitely becoming a "reminder" to God (as if He would ever forget!), and I was treating Him like a child does their parent when they want something really badly--I was trying to "wear Him down," hoping He'd change His mind and go with MY timing, not His. I had become a woman obsessed with trying to convince God to go along with my plans and it wasn't good. So, that fall of 2005, I said a prayer and it went something like this, "God, I know you know the desires of my heart and I know you don't have to be reminded. I've become obsessed and I'm not praying to you for the right reasons. I know that you will answer my prayers in YOUR timing, so I'm not going to ask you again." That Fall I had such a peace. That doesn't mean that I didn't pray to God at all during that time, but I specifically quit asking Him to give us a baby. If I was getting anxious, I would ask for patience, peace, whatever I needed at the time. I firmly believe that, for me, I needed to come to this place in my relationship with God before He would give us our miracle!

The first cycle I had in November 2005, after having the laparoscopy and the HSG, while taking the metformin and Clomid and following some of the more natural tracking methods as discussed in "Taking Charge of Your Fertility," was "the one." On December 23, 2005, I stood staring at a faint second line, my heart pounding, trying hard to contain my excitement. Could it be? Was this for real? For a year and a half, I had stood at that same bathroom sink staring down at just one line. One line that dashed my dreams month after month. A line that to me symbolized failure.

I wasn't supposed to start my period until that day and had actually already taken two tests the following two days and hadn't taken the trash out yet. I pulled the prior two tests out of the trash and was shocked to see a very faint second line on them, so faint that I had missed them the two days prior. I knew then...this really was for real! I remember clearly that Matt was on the couch watching TV when I nonchalantly came walking into the living room with the stick in my hand to announce the news. He wasn't so convinced over the faint second line, so I hightailed it to Walgreens to get one of those tests that are indisputable, the ones that say either "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant." It said "Pregnant" and although I was thrilled, I was still reserved about it because I knew this wasn't necessarily a "happy ever after" moment, that we could lose the baby. For the first 15 weeks of my pregnancy, I continued taking my basal body temperature because I knew that if I were going to miscarry, my temperature would start dropping back down. After 15 weeks, I quit taking it since we were out of the first trimester and on August 24, 2006, we welcomed Miss Juliette Geniece to the world. Funny thing about God's timing, three months into my pregnancy my company was bought out by a bigger one that offered cheaper insurance premiums, awesome insurance that cut my costs of having her in half, and 100% paid maternity leave (which I wouldn't have had before). God knew the best time all along, of course!

Since her arrival, life has taken some twists and turns that I didn't really foresee. I had always hoped to be done having my children by the time I was 30. This past December, I hit the Big 3-0 and we haven't had any more children. In 2009, before Juliette's 3rd birthday, we downsized and moved to a new town in order for my husband to go back to school for his doctorate. Juliette is always asking about having a baby, and I know she would make an excellent big sister. I often find myself wishing we could have another one right now and feel the same longing that I felt when we were trying to conceive Juliette, but without the desperation (since the circumstances are different). Because of my age and because of the problems we encountered before, we plan to start trying for number two at the beginning of next year in the hopes that God will bless us with another baby before Matt graduates and we make another transition to a new town. Because it has been over five years since our infertility journey, I've found the same feelings and attitudes toward a new pregnancy have begin to surface: denial over a problem, wanting to control when we get pregnant, thinking it will be a quick fix if we do encounter the same problem. Writing our story out this weekend, though, has helped me to relive some of those emotions and feelings (even though I didn't really want to) and I hope the lessons I learned the first time around in regards to control and God's timing stay at the forefront of my mind.

More than likely, our journey with infertility isn't over, but I'm okay with that. God is still writing our story and if I've learned anything it's that His endings are so much better than mine!