Lets Start At The Beginning

Here's to the first post of our new Journey. I might as well start with the basics. My husband Ben is a deployed marine and I am a holter technician, mother of one. Ben & I met at work and from the beginning we clicked. I, however, did not develop romantic feelings until later on. Hes always been an amazing person to talk to, and when he was first deployed to Iraq in 2007 is where it all became real. Ive always loved Ben, but as communication became our only way to "be together" my love for him grew much stronger. Communication is key in any relationship, and sometimes we get so caught up in the fast pace of life, we sometimes forget how to communicate. When Ben returned home after that deployment we decided to move into together and I truly fell deeply in love with him. We took a vacation down to Costa Rica where he proposed in a memorable way, and to make a long story short, we got married in May. Today is our second wedding anniversary, although the number two seems so little, so much has happened to us. We bought our first home in October of 08', we quickly started thinking of a family, a life, our future. I became surprisingly pregnant in 2009 and it changed our relationship forever. We did conceive the "ol' natural way" with of course a story to tell. I have always, since I can remember, had reproductive complications. I never could get the birth control right, I never had menstrual cycles, I've had surgery multiple times from endometriosis to cancerous cells on the cervix, I've had a unicornate uterus, twisted fallopian tubes, rare ovulation, poly cystic ovaries, incontinent cervix, and so on. My first pregnancy was no rainbow and butterflies like I had always dreamed it to be... I found myself hospitalized so many times  in prelabor, high blood pressure, and preclamsia. I did however deliver naturally a healthy baby boy, although I was in labor for 31 hours with plenty of complications, everything turned out just fine! We named him Grayson, and he has been the light of my life since the minute I knew I was pregnant. My love for him is stronger then any imaginable force I can think of. We found out Ben was deploying again and started discussing our future plans for our family. The road has been bumpy from the beginning, we've been so broke that we've sold everything in our house to make a mortgage payment, taken out loans to pay debt, we've fought, cried, left the room slamming a door, but we are still together emotionally going strong. We love Grayson, hes brought so much joy and happiness in hard times, so we talked about having a second. While he is deployed our financial situation becomes much greener, we have health insurance which is also a huge deal, but the sad realization of my health became a road block. We tried for months trying to conceive a second child naturally... I am talking OPK's, tracking periods, tracking non existent periods, basal temperatures and ect. All the while, because the road has been so bumpy, we decided as a couple we were going to keep our future aspirations to a dull roar. We decided not to discuss these issues with family, this was OUR decision and OUR journey. I started seeing a fertility specialist after a miscarriage in 2010 and that is where our newest journey has began.

I started the process with high hopes, that this would be so easy, take a few ovulatory pills, have some timed sex.... and bam have a baby! Not so likely. My doctor started running all kinds of tests, from cancer screenings, to hormone testing, HSG, Hysteroscopys, Leeps, Laproscopy, and endiometrical biopsies. I have been thru it ALL! For those who know infertility the answer is already clear... I have problems. Tests started flowing in with every bad news imaginable, even the word cancer has been thrown around many times. I started falling into denial that I had any issues, I kept holding off thinking this couldn't happen to me, im young and healthy.... so the Journey begins. I started having procedures done, cyst aspirations, injections, ultrasounds, negative results, the highs the lows.... and finally it was time for Ben to deploy..... this couldn't possibly be the end for over a year! So we decided I would continue with this emotional roller coaster while he fights this war to provide for our family. Deployed members are offered free cyro sperm freezing at our clinic, so we jumped on it before he left. I think it was a mature, amazing idea and decision for us to do that. So, I have decided to continue fertility treatments for my health and for the sake of a baby. So far we are in 6 months without even a cycle until now.