The Journey That Defines Us (Part 6 of 6)

October 15, 2010-November 22, 2010:  The most wonderfully terrifying 5 weeks of our lives.

After we found out we were pregnant, our everyday lives changed completely.  We were filled with emotional ups and downs that I never dreamed possible.  We scheduled our first doctor’s appointment for Tuesday, October 19^th.  They did blood work and an ultrasound.  We were still too early to see anything on the ultrasound and my HCG level was 256…pretty low.  Nonetheless the nurse put me on prenatal vitamins and wanted to do more blood work on Thursday.  We would be looking for a double of the HCG levels every 2 days or so.  On Thursday my HCG level was 580.  I was so excited when I got the number I went to Allen’s school and took him a small piece of paper with the number on it folded up.  When I found him I didn’t say anything, just handed him the paper.  When he opened it the biggest smile crossed his face.  He hugged me and it felt like we were the only people in the gym.

Although I was a little apprehensive at first, later that night we celebrated like most married people do…and loved every minute of it!  This was also the day that we announced to the world…via Facebook of course…that a miracle had taken place in the Maness family.  Here is the post I put on Facebook: 

“If you ever needed a reason to believe in miracles...here's one for you! After 5 years, 4 surgeries, 5 failed artificial inseminations and 1 failed in vitro fertilization...Allen and I are going to be parents...and the best news of all is that this baby was not created by doctors' hands...but by the one true giver of life...GOD ALMIGHTY! Baby Maness will be here the end of June! Thank you for all the prayers that were sent up to Heaven on our behalf. God knew the plans that He had for Allen and me, plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future!” October 21, 2010 at 8:25pm

I had 50 “likes” and 59 “comments” on that status…and more wall posts, texts and phone calls than anyone would be able to count.  That night was one of the most memorable in this journey that we are on.  It was so exciting to be able to share God’s miracle over and over with our friends and to know that so many people were genially happy for us.  God is amazing!

The next morning, I got up at 5:30 to get ready for school and when I went to the bathroom I was horrified to find that I had a significant bleed.  I called the doctor’s office immediately and was told there wasn’t much that could be done so soon in to the pregnancy.  I was also told that the doctor that I had seen just the day before could not see me but the on-call doctor would call me back if I wanted to leave a message.  Did I want to leave a message?  Did I want to leave a message?  Are you kidding me?  Of course I wanted to leave a message…better yet; if they would have given me the doctor’s number I would call him myself.  Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.  I left a message and lay in my closet floor crying my eyes out for what seemed like an eternity.  Finally the doctor called me back and I confessed that Allen and I had made love the night before.  He seemed to think that was the cause of the bleed and told me that if I wanted to come in to appease my fears that he would work me in.  We called my mom and she came and went with us to see the on-call doctor.  They did an HCG level check and he did a vaginal exam.  My HCG came back 750 (almost right on target) but during the vaginal exam the doctor found tissue that he was almost sure was fetal and told us that we were likely having a miscarriage.  We were devastated!  The doctor put me on bed rest until Monday when he told me to come back in.  In the mean time they were going to send the tissue to the lab to see exactly what it was.  When we left the doctor’s office I was in total shock.  I sat in the back of the car as Allen drove and my mother rode up front and could not hold back the tears.  Everything I had ever wanted was being ripped out of me and there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it.  When we got home Allen put a mattress in the living room floor for me and we camped out there the entire weekend.  My mom went home just long enough to pick up my dad and they came back and fed us dinner.  They also came back Saturday and Sunday to just be with us and to help out if we needed anything.

Monday finally came and we headed back to the doctor awaiting news that would make or break our future.  It turned out to be a GREAT day!  My HCG level was 1916 (low but still on the rise) and we finally saw the yolk sack that was going to be where our baby would spend the next eight months.  We also got the first pictures of our baby and found out that the tissue that the doctor had pulled from me the Friday before contained ZERO fetal tissue!  We were overjoyed.  This was also the day that we named our child…Baby Cam.  You see, from day 1, we were convinced that we would be having a baby boy.  When we got the ultrasound pic, Allen took a picture of it with his phone and sent it to my dad and his parents with the description “Baby Cam”.  The name stuck from there and we later agreed upon Camden Allen Maness…or Cam for short.  Here is my Facebook post that summarizes the pure joy we felt that day:

“Thank you for all the prayers and congratulations! I have been a little hesitant about posting any news this weekend because I woke up Friday morning with significant cramping and bleeding. We went to the doctor immediately. He told us to be hopeful but signs were pointing to a miscarriage. He put me on bedrest through the weekend. We went back to the doctor this morning and once again God prevailed!  We finally saw our miracle with our own eyes via ultrasound. Today the doctor said everything looked normal and healthy! My blood work was right on target also. Our little "Cammy" (that's what Allen is calling him) is scheduled to arrive on June 28th. That's Allen's mom's birthday. We are so excited and feel so loved by our friends, family and Eternal Father!” October 25, 2010 at 12:23pm

What an amazing day!  Our next appointment was scheduled for a week later.  The entire next week we lived in pure bliss…planning the future that would be ours.  A summer baby…perfect timing…now if only we could figure out a way for me to stay home with Baby Cam…. J Oh the joys of planning for a baby!

We went back to the doctor on Monday, November 1^st.  The ultrasound was first.  We were of course still on cloud nine.  We had no idea what was in store for us…the ultrasound tech could not find the heartbeat and insisted that by now we should be seeing more growth.  She sent us to meet with our doctor and yet again we were hit with a diagnosis of probable miscarriage.  We only thought it was hard to hear the first time…this time we had had a little over a week to make plans and begin to love, pray over and sing to our sweet Baby Cam.  This could not be happening!  Again, we headed home not sure what to do.  I couldn’t go to school the next day.  We had a decision to make…do nothing and let our baby die or fight.  Not sure how to fight I wallowed in sorrow until our parents took over.  They insisted we get a second opinion.  My mom called in favors to everyone she knew until we finally found someone to see us on Tuesday.  We headed to Montgomery to meet with Dr. Jason K. Gentry.  Everyone in his office had apparently been briefed on our situation and welcomed us with loving arms.  We went in immediately for an ultrasound.  We didn’t know what to expect.  One day everything was going great and the next was pure hell.  I lay on the table and just starred up at the ceiling praying for a miracle.  From out of nowhere there was a flicker on the screen.  The ultrasound tech didn’t say anything but measured the flicker very carefully and printed some images to take to Dr. Gentry.  We were instructed to wait outside his office.  When he finally called us in Allen and I took the seats in front of his desk while mom stood behind us.  His first words…and I’ll remember them for as long as I live…were “Well, you have NOT had a miscarriage.”  He proceeded to tell us that yes, everything pointed to a miscarriage but indeed our baby was still alive.  As a matter of fact, the flicker that was on the screen was our baby’s heart beat.  Here is my Facebook post from the day after that appointment.  It best describes the state of emotion that we were in that day.

“Baby Cam Update: Prayers Needed! After a roller coaster of doctor appointments and emotions running high and low we finally saw our baby’s heartbeat yesterday. However, it is VERY slow. Only 82 bpm. Our first doctor could never find a heartbeat and told us Monday that we were probably headed towards a miscarriage. After encouragement from both Allen’s mom and my mom, we decided to seek out a second opinion.  Yesterday we went to Montgomery and after lots of searching, there is was. Only a small flicker but it was definitely there. Unfortunately the second doctor gave the same probable diagnosis of miscarriage. However, I will not and cannot believe this is how God’s miracle is going to end.  Isaiah 14:24 says “The Lord Almighty has sworn, surely as I have planned so it will be and as I purposed so it will stand.”  We are confident that God would not give us this miracle baby and then take it away in only a few short weeks.  We need prayers!  Please pray that our baby’s heartbeat continues to grow stronger each day.  He is fighting for his life and we need help in begging God for yet another miracle.  We go back to the doctor in Montgomery on Monday.  One way or another we will know the outcome them.”  November 3, 2010 6:04 pm

When we left the doctor’s office Wednesday we were scheduled to go back for yet another ultrasound the following Monday.

“Baby Cam Update: God answers prayers! As soon as we started the U/S this morning God's power was evident. Our little miracle has grown so much in the past week! We got to hear his heartbeat which is up to 128! Please continue to pray! Back to the doc in 2 weeks.”   November 8, 2010 at 10:09am

Fast forward 2 days to Wednesday.  I’m standing up teaching graphing linear equations.  It’s the beginning of 3^rd block and my kids are doing great with this ordinarily difficult concept.  I’m on a role when I get this sudden sensation that I need to use the restroom.  Since my kids are doing so well I hate to leave in the middle of the explanation.  I stand up from sitting on my stool and try to make it to lunch.  After a few minutes I’m convinced that I have wet my clothes so I excuse myself to the restroom while my kids are working on a problem.  When I sit down on the toilet I am horrified to find a bleed way worse than the first one at the beginning of the pregnancy.  And not only was I bleeding but I passed a mass about the size of a plum.  Devastated I went back to the classroom, grabbed my purse and informed my special education co-teacher that I had to leave.  I hurried by the office and told them I HAD to get to the doctor immediately.  I called Allen on my way out.  He met me at home and we were on our way to Montgomery in fear of what was happening for what seemed like the 100^th time in the last few weeks.  As soon as we got there Amy, Dr. Gentry’s nurse, did an ultrasound.  She saw a pool of blood in my uterus but it was below Baby Cam.  And actually, she found his heartbeat very easily.  Not only did we see his heartbeat this day, but we got to HEAR it also.  It was amazing!  After we finished that ultrasound and Amy took the pics to Dr. Gentry to review he wanted to do another ultrasound to see the bleed for himself.  So here we go, vaginal ultrasound #2, all in the same day.  To be honest, I wouldn’t have minded having one EVERYDAY if it meant we got to see and hear Baby Cam…  Finally Dr. Gentry sent us home to another couple of days of bed rest and a follow-up appointment scheduled for November 22^nd.

Other than the inability to sleep, horrible back pains and uncomfortable constipation (gross but true J), the next week was pretty uneventful.  I was convinced that we were over the scary thought of losing our miracle baby and was what I guess you would call a normal pregnant woman…still on cloud 9 of course.  Here are a couple of my Facebook posts from that week.

“A day of bed rest wouldn't be bad if I could actually sleep. Waiting on Allen to bring me some pancakes and sausage...I'm going to be as big as a house before Baby Cam gets here!”  November 11, 2010 at 7:51am

“Ready for this Cam Newton scandal to be over! Don't get me wrong...I love AU football but hates how much my husband is obsessed with it!”     November 11, 2010 at 7:30pm

“Carroll JV over Headland JV 44-42! Way to go Eagles!”   November 16, 2010 at 6:46pm

“Please pray for baby Cam today. Satan is the devil of worry and fear and he is attacking me this morning.”

 November 18, 2010 at 7:29am

“Misses my ZC babies!”  November 18, 2010 at 10:33pm

“Finally.......a break! Out for the entire week of Thanksgiving. Woohoo!”  November 19, 2010 at 3:51pm

“Carroll JV is on a roll! 2-1!”   November 19, 2010 at 5:32pm 

“So excited to say that my size small clothes are no longer fitting!”   November 20, 2010 at 10:35am

So, we were out the entire week of November 22-26 for Thanksgiving break.  We had a basketball game against Slocomb on Friday, November 19^th.  We planned to head to Camden the next day to spend the weekend with Allen’s family since we would have to miss Thanksgiving with them because of the Thanksgiving Basketball Tournament.  Saturday was a good day full of family time.  I remember that at some point in the day, the only people home were Allen’s mom, myself, and our niece Ella Kate.  EK was worn out from a morning of playing with Uncle Allen and crashed in my lap.  As she slept there with her head on my chest I prayed about holding Baby Cam just like that in 7 months.  I was 8 weeks 2 days by then.  Life was surreal.

The next morning we got up and got ready to head to Allen’s parent’s church.  We were excited about spending the morning with a church family that had been praying for us since day 1 of this journey five years ago.  I took a shower, put my makeup on and fixed my hair and was about to change in to my church clothes when I started cramping slightly.  I immediately headed for the restroom and of course…I was spotting.  Not like the other 2 significant bleeds that I had in the previous weeks but enough to freak me out.  I told Allen and he and I decided that we should stay home from church.  I crawled in Allen’s parent’s bed to spend the day.  After church, one of the ladies from Camden Church of God, Mrs. Sue Kitzinger, came and prayed over me and Baby Cam.  She was convinced that this incident would end just like all the previous scares from the past 8 weeks and that on June 28^th we would be having a healthy miracle baby.  I wanted to believe her so badly.  I called Dr. Gentry that afternoon (He had given us his cell phone number in case we needed him any time day or night.)  Since we were already scheduled to see him the next day we decided to try to make it through the night in Camden. 

Around 8 o’clock that night I began to pass blood clots.  We called Dr. Gentry back and he told us that truly there was nothing that could be done.  If we absolutely could not make it through the night we could head to the ER in Montgomery but again, there was really nothing that could be done.  After spending an hour in Hell I had had enough.  I didn’t care if they couldn’t do anything but I could not sit around and do nothing to save Baby Cam.  I had to do SOMETHING!  Around 9 o’clock we called my parents and headed to the Jackson Hospital ER in Montgomery.  My parents would meet us there.

Mom and dad got there before us and by the time I got checked in and in a room it was almost midnight.  We saw the ER doctor, who I did NOT like, and he said that an ultrasound tech would be coming to do an ultrasound shortly.  After what seemed like an eternity an older woman came in with an ultrasound machine that looked to be about the same age as her.  As she did the ultrasound she didn’t say much.  I of course asked questions and she of course refused to answer them.  I did notice that she measured Baby Cam and the measurement came out 8 weeks 3 days…exactly on target!  We did not see a heartbeat but come on…on the machine she was using you could hardly make out anything.  She left and told us that the doctor would be back to see us in a few minutes.  When the doctor returned he told us that he was sure “the baby”…I hated hearing that phrase because to us, he was already Baby Cam…had already miscarried and there was nothing that we could do.  I was in pure shock…and disbelief.  It was a mistake.  This had happened too many times already and I would NOT give up just like that.  We shared the news with mom and dad, paid the $200something copay and headed to Troy to stay the night before our appointment with Dr. Gentry the next morning.  I was convinced that everything was okay and an ultrasound on Dr. Gentry’s new and updated machine would prove that the ER doctor and ultrasound tech didn’t have a clue in prenatal medicine.

As dawn arrived on Monday, November 22, 2010, I prayed continuously for good news at our 11 o’clock appointment.  I had no idea what God had in store for us, but I was sure of one thing…whatever it was, HE would be with us.

“Believing God.”     November 22, 2010 at 10:46am

Believing God.  That’s what I was doing.  As I lay on the ultrasound table starring at the ceiling I prayed one thing…”Save Our Baby”.  Amy started the ultrasound and as I watched the screen I became suddenly aware of a new club that we were joining…the “We’ve Lost A Child” club.  No, we had never held our sweet Baby Cam in our arms…and yes, we had only spent the last 8 weeks and 4 days with him, but he was ours.  Our child.  Our MIRACLE.  Our hearts.  He was the center of our lives…already. Amy didn’t have to say a word. Over the past 5 weeks we had become expert ultrasound readers.  The screen was blank.  No trace of even what we had seen in the ER only 11 hours earlier.  Baby Cam was no longer in this world; he was already in the arms of our Father.  Amy excused herself and Allen and I held each other like we had never before.  I cried of course…but not as I had imagined myself crying if our journey ever came to this.  I was too broken to cry…crying wouldn’t bring back Baby Cam…our baby.  Before we left the doctor’s office we met with Dr. Gentry and he discussed several things with us…causes, tests to determine causes, medicine to take for pain, future plans for children and a list of other things that now are a blur.

The next thing I remember was being in the backseat of mom’s pathfinder headed home without our sweet baby.  All at once this feeling came over me…a feeling that said that I could NOT wallow in my sorrows.  My son was with his Heavenly Father.  Neither he nor God wanted us to spend the next week in the dungeon of a dark house.  I texted Allen because I was not ready to share my next thoughts with my mom just yet.  I needed to get away.  It was Thanksgiving week and we had a basketball tournament and a day of spending time with the extended family just around the corner.  I was not ready to see or talk to anyone but Allen, the only person that felt the exact lose that I did.  We dropped mom off in Troy and headed home to Ozark.  We decided to leave town immediately.  We wanted to go somewhere we had never been before.  We settled on Biloxi, MS.  Cheap hotels, the ocean, and lots of life…exactly what we needed.  My parents had a hard time seeing it through our eyes but they agreed to keep Molly and Christian for us.  Allen did a little finagling and got out of coaching in the basketball tournament.  We left town about 5 o’clock that afternoon and headed west.  Biloxi was a time of healing that we needed.  We had been through the most heartbreaking and tiring 5 and a half weeks of our lives and we needed to find our way back to a “normal” life for us.  We somewhat succeeded.  Biloxi will always be a special place to us…the place where we said goodbye to our son.

“After 8 short weeks of one miracle after the next, God has decided to take our miracle baby back to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. We will always hold this angel in our hearts. Thank you for all the prayers that were sent up on our behalf. I still believe God is in the miracle making business.”  November 22, 2010 at 4:39pm

November 23, 2010-present:  Life without after Baby Cam.

No matter how great a lose…life goes on.  We returned home from Biloxi on Thanksgiving Day to the cruel fact that life was going on all around us even though our world had been spun off its axis 4 days earlier.  We had Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to recoup and headed back to school on Monday morning and back to basketball on Tuesday.  Of course there were the questions that we had to answer but with God’s help we survived.  I turned to my outlet of writing and started this blog.  Ironically, it has taken me 7 months to complete.  Right now I am 20 days from the due date of sweet Baby Cam.  For Christmas 2010 I had 3 Baby Cam ornaments made for my mom, Allen’s mom and myself by my precious sorority sister, Melissa McCord Amos.  I wrote a note for us to go with the ornaments.  I wasn’t sure I was going to share the note with everyone but they say there is power is sharing so why hold back now, right?

WE Will Never Forget

In several years, even months or weeks, to most, our sweet Baby Cam will be forgotten.  Sure people will remember when specifically called to their attention that we, after 5 years of fertility medications, finally conceived and then lost a child.  Most people may also forget that this child was not given to us by the hands of an earthly doctor, but by the miracle working hands of The Great Physician.

WE, however, will never forget the wonderful eight and a half weeks that we had to praise God over this miracle baby.  We dreamed about what the future would hold for us as a family and spent many sleepless nights praying for God’s hand of protection over him as he grew in his mommy’s tummy.

Unfortunately for us, but to Baby Cam’s benefit, God chose to have this angel join Him in Heaven before ever being born in to our arms.  Although the hurt is still as fresh as the morning dew and seems to never fade, we are comforted in the fact that our sweet child will never shed a tear or feel the sting of a broken heart.  Instead, He will forever be rejoicing side by side with Jesus Christ.

Yes, Baby Cam may fade in most people’s minds, but to us he will always be our first child, our first grandchild, or our third grandchild.  Other than God Almighty, no one will ever love him like his mother and grandmothers.

For now, our journey is on hold.  We have dabbed back in to some fertility medicines but nothing major.  Currently, I am not taking anything.  I of course, hope for a child every month, but do not look for it to happen any time soon.  We have revisited the adoption thought a lot recently but have agreed that maybe we should wait for job security.  Before fall 2010 we were parents at heart, waiting on God to give us our child.  Now, we are parents to a child that God thought to be so special that he took to be with Him forever.  That is the thought that gets me through the hard days.  Baby Cam is alive, not in this world, but in a world that has roads of gold and gates made of pearls….Pearls….the birthstone for the month of June, Baby Cam’s birth month.  When we returned home from Biloxi we bought me a white gold necklace with a single pearl.  Baby Cam’s pearl.  I have not taken it off since the day I got it.  One day I will give it to Baby Cam’s sister or brother.  For now, it’s the one thing that I feel like I can hold to feel him.  Him.  Our miracle.  Our child.  Our pride and joy. Our little tiger.  Our angel.  Our sweet Baby Cam.

Over the past 7 months I have shed uncountable tears…but I am healing.  In the first few months after releasing Baby Cam to God I had a couple of dreams about him.  And I still often day dream about Baby Cam’s life.  These last few thoughts include some of my day dreams about the kind of person that Baby Cam would have been.  I hope it doesn’t freak you out…

 Baby Cam looks just like his daddy.  I imagine that to my dismay he likes to go everywhere barefoot, like his dad did when he was a child.  He of course is an athlete and his daddy is his coach and his mom his biggest cheerleader.  He plays the piano and loves to fish and hunt with his Aunt Kasee.  He is spoiled rotten by his Mama D, Big Daddy, Poppa, Nana, Pop and YiYa.  He grows up to have the height of his Pop and of course goes to AU.  Allen and I live through him.  He is smart and outgoing like his mama and kind and handsome like his daddy.  He loves on his mama, even when he’s grown and his daddy is his best friend.  He is our son…our pride and joy.  Our first child.

The Journey That Defines Us (Part 5 of 6)

Year 6:  After our failed IVF cycle we were drained…drained emotionally and financially.  Further fertility treatments seemed to be nowhere in our future.  The negative IVF cycle was in October 2009.  By February 2010, Allen had decided that maybe it was time to look in to adoption.  I, of course, was trilled!  I had suggested adoption several times to no agreement from my husband.  We had actually always talked about adopting, once we had had our own children first.  I remember that when we were dating there was this one time when we were at his parent’s church during Christmas.  There was this little girl sitting across the aisle from us at a night service. She was precious but filthy...covered in dirt from head to toe.  You could tell that she came from a family that was struggling.  We vowed to each other that night to adopt a child one day.  We wanted to give a child a life that was greater than they could imagine.  We never knew that might be the only chance we would have at parenthood.

So, I did some research and talked to several people I knew that had adopted.  We finally settled on an adoption agency.  Catholic Social Services.  There was an office in Montgomery and I had a friend that I graduated from high school with that had used and been very pleased with them.  We made our first appointment.  I was so so so nervous.  I felt like that first impression was the most important.  I obsessed over what we would wear and what we would say.  In the end, Allen did the best job of explaining why we wanted to be parents.  We met with this nice lady named Jane Blackmon and went home with the application packet.  I spent the next 2 weeks filling out the application.  We also had an appointment with a photographer to have some professional pictures taken to include in the packet.  For some reason, completing the application took longer than it should have.  And before we could figure out why, the reason was laid out before us.  God was moving us…away from our home for the past 3 years.

We put our adoption application on hold until we got settled into our new lives in Ozark, AL.  We were excited about the change; however miss our ZC family very much.  We dove straight in to getting settled as Coach and Mrs. Maness in the Ozark City School System.  We figured we better take some time before sending in our adoption application...besides, we had 2 house payments.  We just didn’t have the money for a child while supporting 2 houses.  We started school in August and enjoyed our new house and “real” pool; and the fact that Allen was not coaching varsity football.  We had no clue that we were about to embark on the greatest roller coaster of our lives.

It all started one weekend in September.  We went to a couples shower for a guy I graduated high school with.  A couple of weeks before the shower, Allen and I both had gotten a sore or two on our bodies.  (Strange, I know.)  Mine was on my toe and elbow and Allen’s was on his shin.  While at the shower, we showed a friend of ours who is a nurse.  She immediately said the sores looked like staff and we needed to go to the doctor sooner than later.  The next day we went to the urgent care center in Troy. (It was Sunday so we didn’t know what else to do…)  The doctor cultured the sores and sent us home with antibiotics.  Before we left the office, the doctor stuck his head back in and said “Oh, I forgot to ask, when was your last menstrual cycle?”  I told him September 12^th.  He charted it and was gone.  Fast forward 5 weeks…Thursday, October 14^th.  I had to run to Wal-Mart after school.  I can’t remember what the trip was for, but I had a strange thought.  “I should buy a pregnancy test.”  It had been exactly 1 year and 1 day since our failed IVF cycle and I had not done a pregnancy test since. (Before the failed IVF cycle, I took a pregnancy test at least every other month in hopes of a miracle baby.)  When I got home, I put the test in the bathroom cabinet and out of my mind.  Our night went on like normal.  We had dinner and hit the sack…pumped that the next day was Friday and excited about the fact that Allen’s parents were coming to spend the weekend with us.

My alarm went off at 5 a.m.  I got up and headed to the bathroom.  I remembered the pregnancy test I had bought the day before.  I decided that it would be a good time to take it since it was morning and “they” say the best time to get accurate results is right when you first wake up.  I took the test and went to the other part of the bathroom to get towels for my shower.  After my towels were in place, I peeked at the test.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Was that 2 pink lines?  My heart stopped!  I didn’t know what to do.  I starred at the second faint pink line for several minutes.  The shower was going and I was naked.  What should I do?  I walked, in a trance, back in to the bedroom…birthday suit and all.  Allen of course was dead to the world.  I climbed in the bed and told him I needed him to look at something.  He rolled over and looked at me like I was crazy.  I lead him to the bathroom, eyes half open.  “Is that 2 pink lines?” I said as I shoved the pregnancy test in his face.  It only took a few seconds for him to realize what was going on.  “I think it is.”, was his response.  BTW...that's the nicest Allen has EVER been to me at 5 o'clock in the morning!  Even nicer than the morning of our PCT.  :)  We both stood there in pure shock.  I don’t remember if there were any emotions other than shock.  I do remember that Allen said we needed a blood test.  Eventually, I had to get in the shower in order to be ready for school in time.  Allen left the bathroom and headed back to bed, or so I thought.  While I was in the shower I formulated a plan.  I would go to school but take off the second half of the day and find a doctor to do the blood test.  When I got out of the shower Allen wasn’t in bed.  He was in the kitchen on the computer looking up accuracy of at home pregnancy tests.  We decided that he would take off the second half of the day too.  We got ready and left for school in a state of pure awe…scheduled to meet back at the house at 11:30 to find a doctor to give us an answer.

When we got home, Allen suggested that I take another home pregnancy test.  He headed outside to wait it out.  I took the test.  It was positive.  Shock was not an element this time.  As soon as I saw the second pink line I raced out the back door to share the news.  “It’s positive!” I shouted.  Allen immediately shouted with excited.  He did the cutest little fist pump and turned and picked me up and spun me around.  I can’t remember a more excited and exhilarating time in my life.  That very moment topped everything that was ever exciting to me…better than coming home to a Mustang when I was about to turn 16, better than winning a National Championship at cheerleading, better than taking off a blindfold to find Allen on one knee with our families in the background, and better than saying “I do” to the man of my dreams.  This was the greatest moment ever…we had conceived a child…a miracle child! 

We left the house headed to an urgent care facility in Ozark to get a blood test.  We ended up waiting for over an hour to get in to see a doctor, only to find out that they did not do blood tests in the office.  He sent us to Dale Medical Center with an order for the blood test.  We headed to the lab.  They did the test and we said we would wait for the results.  The wait seemed like an eternity.  Finally, the lab technician came out of the lab and across the hall to the waiting room where we were.  She had a piece of paper in her hand folded.  Before she gave us the paper she said “I hope these results are what you want.”   I opened the paper and saw positive.  I looked up at her and she nodded her head.  “The pregnancy serum numbers are very low, but you are indeed pregnant.” she said.  Allen broke down in tears which started a chain reaction.  The nurse began to cry and I joined in immediately.  Through tears and a squeaky voice Allen explained to her that we had been waiting for this for a long time.  The nurse hugged us both and told us congratulations.  We left the hospital parents, one of the greatest miracles that God gives his people.  A million thoughts were racing through my mind.  Atop those thoughts was the fact that Allen’s parents were coming to visit and that we were already scheduled to meet my parents for dinner in Troy that night.

Once we left the hospital we headed to Dothan to buy some surprises for our moms to open to find out the news.  We ran around town for 2 or so hours collecting a book and bib for each new grandmother and a picture frame that said “I Love My Aunt” for my sister.  We stopped by our house in Ozark just long enough for me to wrap up the gifts and headed back out the door.  We called Allen’s parents and told them to meet us at my parent’s house.  When we got there, Allen’s parents were already there but my dad wasn’t.  We were about to bust with excitement so I called him and hounded him about hurrying home.  When he walked in the door, we corralled them in the living room and I gave both moms a wrapped gift.  I told them that I saw something that they would both like and I wanted them to open the gifts at the same time.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of my mom and Allen was squared in on his mom.  My mom pulled out the book.  I can’t remember the exact name of the book but it was something like The Big Book of Things to do with Grandma…or something to that effect.  Allen’s mom’s book was Chicken Soup for the Grandmother’s Soul.  My mom looked at me with the same look of shock that I saw on my own face earlier that morning in the bathroom mirror.  “What is this?” mom asked.  Allen’s mom spoke up and asked what this meant.  “We’re pregnant.” is all I had to say.  The tears began to flow.  3 grown women and 3 grown men stood in my parent’s living room with tears of joy flowing and hugging each other.  We eventually joined hands to form a circle and Allen’s dad prayed, thanking God for this miracle.  The rest of the night passed in a blur of pure bliss.  We ate dinner at The Pines where my sister joined us.  After thousands of tears of joy, several phone calls to share the news and goodnight hugs to my parents, we called it a night and headed back to Ozark.  We were finally going to be the parents that God had called us to be.  Life couldn’t be better.

The Journey That Defines Us (Part 4 of 6)

Year 5:  Fall 2009…After trying everything under the sun that medicine has to offer except IVF (in vitro fertilization), we finally broke down and decided that we would borrow the money ($12,000)…yes we had to borrow the money and no we have not even come close to paying it off…and try a round of IVF.  Really quick, I’ll give you a run-down of what IVF is and how it works.  The woman takes medication to stimulate follicles in her ovaries.  The follicles are removed vaginally.  The man gives a specimen.  The sperm are joined with the follicles in a petry dish in hopes that they will form an embryo (that’s the baby).  The embryos grow in the petry dish for a couple of days and then are placed back in the woman’s uterus.  If all goes well, the embryo(s) attach in the uterus and the baby grows until birth.  Believe me…it’s a LOT more complicated than those few sentences but that’s a quick summary for you. 

Now…for our IVF experience.  Let me warn you that although this process only lasted about 6 or 7 weeks, it felt like an eternity.  If you get tired of reading…I completely understand.

Ok, so first of all Allen had to go through a detox for 60 days to rid his system of all non-natural supplements such as caffeine and so on.  (Side note-my husband drinks at least a 2 liter of coke every day!)  Along with the detox he had to take some kind of herbal supplement every day for 60 days prior to the cycle.  As for me, I had to take the strongest round of infertility medications they offer since my body had not responded well to earlier medications.  In the past, Allen had been in charge of keeping up with everything that had to do with the medicines.  He always made sure to get the correct instructions from the nurse and had become a pro at giving me shots.  So naturally, he would handle the medicine this time as well.  Now, if you have ever gone through IVF or lived with someone that has, you know how BIG of a task this actually is.  (We had to go out of town one night during our IVF cycle and I had to carry a separate bag just for my medicine.  It’s ridiculous!)  As I mentioned, a round of IVF costs about $12,000.  Between $3,000 and $4,000 of that is the medicine. That makes each day of medicine about $400 to $500.  Another thing about IVF medicine is that it has to be mixed together.  For us, we had to mix 2 different powders with some type of liquid solution.  Of course all 3 chemicals are in different viles.  In order for the IVF to be effective, you have to get the medicine mixed just right.  There is NO room for error!  The first night Allen and I went rounds about the mixing of the medicine.  I made him talk me through what he was going to do several times before I would let him start mixing.  I kept thinking that something just wasn’t “adding” up.  The math just wasn’t coming out right for me to get the prescribed amount of each medicine.  He insisted he was right and mixed the first injection.  When he got finished, he realized I was right and that the way he had mixed the medicine, I wasn’t going to get enough of one of the specific powders.  I had a complete melt down.  (Although we ended up having just enough to cover the one mess up.  Thank goodness.)  I don’t think it was that I was mad at him or that I knew he was doing it wrong all along.  It’s more that sometimes I get angry because we are even “having” to do this kind of thing in the first place.  In the end, I ended up figuring it all out.  In my rant though, I decided I would be mixing the medicine from then on and that I would give myself the shot.  I locked myself in our bedroom for close to half an hour because I was so frustrated.  I finally let Allen in for moral support but was determined to do it “by myself”.  Here’s the thing about these injections.  They either have to go in the back of your arm (not an option for me since I was now giving myself the shot) or in the stomach about an inch or so from your belly button.  The whole ordeal of giving the shot was a lot more complicated than just sticking in the needle and pumping in the medicine.  With one hand you have to pinch the skin between your fingers.  With the other hand inject the needle.  (By the way…it took SEVERAL countdowns before I actually got the needle in. J)  Then, without letting go of the needle, you have to let go of the skin and with that hand inject the medicine.  At all costs, you can NOT let go of the needle!  Now, that sounds a lot easier than it actually is.  It’s kind of like that game where you interlock your fingers and someone points to a finger to move and you have to make yourself move only that finger without the others moving as well.  You’ve got to admit it takes you a while to get the correct fillange sometimes. J  And let’s be honest, my brain does better at solving equations than injecting needles anyway.  For the rest of the days that we had to do that type of injection, I mixed the medicine and we took turns giving the injections.  After a couple of times in the belly, my stomach was getting bruised and sore.  I had no option but to have Allen do it in the back of my arm some times.  If you are following my dates and times of the year, you may have realized that since we were doing the IVF cycle in the fall; that means we had to deal with all the interruptions of high school football.  One thing with the medicine is that you have to give the injection the same time every day.  Well, of course we had an away football game on one of the nights I was supposed to have an injection.  You should have seen me.  Rushing to the school bus after the first quarter to mix medicine and inject myself by the stadium lights coming in the window of the bus.  It would have been a very awkward moment if someone would have seen what I was doing.

Alright, enough of the drama about the shots…after 6 days (I think it was 6 days) of injections, we got to the “monitoring” stage of the cycle.  That’s where you have a vaginal ultrasound and blood work done every 1 or 2 days until they decide that your eggs are ready to be removed from your ovaries.  It started that we went every other day.  Then the last 3 days we went every day I believe.  Keep in mind that we were driving from Elba to Montgomery every morning!  We spent a lot of time on the road and money in gas!  Once the eggs had grown to the correct size, we had to go to Birmingham for one of the doctors to remove them and for Allen to give the specimen to mix with the follicles.  (Most of the time we stayed overnight when we went to Birmingham…add an additional $75 for hotel fees.)  In order to remove the eggs they sedate the woman.  My doctor, Dr. Honea, was not on call the week of my cycle…which I was not happy with by the way…so one of the doctors in her group did my procedure.  I remember him telling me that if it began to hurt to let him know.  At first everything was fine, but then I started to feel a pulling that was hurting pretty bad.  I think I told him and actually tried to get up off the table…but that’s the last thing I remember.  I woke up in recovery about an hour later with Allen at my side.  The nurse came in and told us that they had retrieved 8 eggs.  I got kind of upset because the odds are that the number of eggs that die each day while maturing was like 50%.  That meant the first night 4 would die, the next 2 would die, the next 1 would die and we would be lucky to have just 1 embryo to transfer.  I know you’re supposed to be positive but any idiot could do the math on that!  And besides, I was really hoping that we would have some embryos to freeze for the future.  Boy, does God have different plans than me or what!?!  Once the eggs were removed we had to wait another couple of days for them to be combined with the sperm and begin to grow in to embryos.

As hard as it was, we returned to Elba and our everyday lives as teachers and coaches.  A nurse called us every day and gave us an update on the progress.  The first day was not good news…2 of the eggs had not taken to the sperm and had died.  I was devastated!  I found Allen outside on the playground with his kids immediately to tell him the news.  The next day was just as bad.  Although 4 of the remaining 6 eggs had taken to the sperm, the other 2 just weren’t looking good.  They ended up not making it.  The last day we lost another, which then left us with 3.  It was like someone punched me in the stomach every time I got the call from the nurse.

Finally, on day 5, we were ready for the transfer.  We left early the day of the appointment and even though the transfer was in the morning, we made plans to stay the night.  I just wasn’t going to get in the car and have my babies tossed around in my tummy while they were trying to implant in to my uterus.  I mean come on now, what kind of mother would do that?  Before they did the transfer, they took a picture of the 3 embryos and gave it to us.  The same doctor that did the egg retrieval did the transfer.  He told us that the embryos were not in the best shape, but that on a bell curve, they certainly weren’t at the bottom.  (That statement would come back to haunt us a few weeks later. L)  Once we were released to leave after the transfer we walked across the parking lot to our hotel.  That moment was one I will never forget.  It had been raining earlier that morning so there were puddles on the pavement.  Allen and I walked hand in hand and just knew that we would be having not just one baby the next July, but triplets!  No one would have been able to convince us of anything else.  We were over the moon with excitement about what the future held for us!  Once we made it up to our motel room I immediately hit the bed.  I meant I was going to lie still for the next 24 hours come rain or shine.  Allen went out to get us some lunch and I just lay there, hands on my belly, praying for my babies.  We went home the next day.  It would be almost 2 weeks before the pregnancy test to announce that we were indeed pregnant.  At church the next Sunday some missionaries came to speak to the congregation about their work in distributing bibles to foreign countries.  At the end of the service they took an offering for donations to go towards the purchase of the bibles.  We donated money for 3.  One for each of our miracle children.

Since it was fall, we were right in the middle of football season and low and behold, the week we were to find out that we were indeed expecting was homecoming.  As the cheerleader coach I stayed busy the entire week with assemblies, pep rallies, parades, painting signs, and selling t-shirts.  I methodically planned my week however to be able to take off Wednesday…the BIG day.  We went to Montgomery for the blood test.  After the blood test we went on a little shopping trip.  We bought some sports onezys and a polo blanket for our babies.  We returned home to Elba a little after lunch and just waited for the phone call.  I went to bed hoping to wake up to the most memorable phone call of my life.  Allen couldn’t lay around…he went outside to piddle.  This is what he does when he gets anxious.  Finally my cell phone rang.  The moment had arrived.  I imagined what it would be like to go outside and tell Allen the news.  I contemplated whether I would run out the sliding glass door and into his arms shouting the news or if I would just causally walk out there with a smile on my face.  There was also my plan that I had since day 1 of trying to conceive about the way I would share the news with him that I was pregnant.  I bought a set of Auburn pacifiers when we lived in GA.  I always imagined that I would be calm enough to wrap the pacifiers up and have him open them and realize the news.  I answered the phone with meek confidence.  (I know that’s an oxymoron…but I was nervous and sure all at the same time.)  The nurse gave away the news right away by the tone in her voice.  “Mrs. Maness…I’m sorry but the test was negative.”  That’s all I remember hearing.  I’m sure she probably tried to console me but the second I heard “I’m sorry” my ears and heart stopped.  I’m not sure how much time actually passed between the phone call and Allen coming in the back door but I think it was only a matter of seconds because before I realized what was happening Allen was holding me.  (As I write this now, I still feel the overwhelming sense of loss that we felt that day…it was horrible.  I never thought I could feel worse.)  I don’t really remember if I even told him the news or if he just knew…knew to come inside, knew that we would not be parents in 9 months, and knew that in order for me to survive he would have to be there right at that exact moment to catch me as I began to fall.  He took me to our bed and we lay in each other’s arms for hours.  We both cried…actually cried is not the appropriate word.  We wailed.  There were times when I had to sit up because I was drowning in my own tears.

Finally, around 9 o’clock, Allen suggested we go to town and get a blizzard from DQ.  It had been almost 6 hours since our heartbreaking news.  We knew that we could not live in the lose forever so we got up and headed to town.  When we got home I cried some more, but we finally went to sleep.  The next day, I got up, put on my school teacher face, and headed to school.  Thankfully, I was thrown right back in to the middle of Zion Chapel Homecoming.  I’m not even sure that anyone knew what was going on.  (If they did, they did a really good job of hiding it.)  You know…when I found out that we would be getting our news the week of Homecoming I was really upset…upset that I would not be able to take off and rush to Troy and Camden to tell our parents that they were going to be having a grandchild.  When the news turned out to be negative, I saw it more as a blessing that it was Homecoming week.  I never really had time (other than the day of the test) to wallow in my sorrow.  It did take a while before I was completely “back to normal” (if you consider my overwhelming/obsessive desire to be a mother “normal”).  But I survived.

We had to go in and see Dr. Honea a couple of weeks later for the post-IVF appointment.  She brought us in her office and began the explanation that pissed us off more than comforted us.  She proceeded to inform us that the embryos were indeed “not in the best shape”.  She said that from the way they looked before they were transferred, their chances weren’t very good.  Allen explained to her the bell curve picture that the doctor that did the transfer told us.  She said that she would never have used that to describe our situation.  She gestured that in her opinion the embryos would not have been on the side of the bell, but on the bottom/flat part.  After that visit we left her office with no plans to return…and we haven’t...although as I mentioned earlier...every month I am forced to revisit this horrible time in our lives as I write the stinking check for a couple hundred bucks to pay for...well NOTHING!  Tear.

The Journey That Defines Us (Part 3 of 6)

Years 3-4:  At the end of the 2006-2007 school year we moved back to good ‘ole Alabama.  Not that we were unhappy in GA, but AL teacher insurance offers a lot more toward infertility treatments.  And, as Allen says, there’s just something about the air in AL. (He was always so funny.  When we would come back home to visit family and we'd cross the AL line he would roll the windows down and just take in the air.)  And besides, Alabama will always be home to us.  So, we moved to Elba, AL and Allen and I both took jobs at Zion Chapel Schools.  Allen taught elementary PE and coached basketball and football and I taught high school math and coached the varsity cheerleaders.

I know that this is a blog about our journey though infertility…but I have to take this minute to share with you how much we LOVE our family at ZC.  Allen absolutely adored working with Ms. Skinner, or his “work-wife” as I called her and he also really enjoyed his elementary kids, the ZC elementary teachers, Mrs. Calhoun and his coaching peers.  I really enjoyed my teaching peers around my room; Coach Barton, Mrs. Bentley and Coach Bowers and loved my advanced and honors classes and cheerleaders.  Allen and I both greatly treasure the 3 years we had with the ZC class of 2011.  We both feel like we had a hand in raising them from scrawny, immature freshmen to young men and women ready to take on the world.  They will always hold a special place in our hearts.  One thing about being a teacher is that aside from your personal life, whether you have kids at home or not, you are a parent Monday-Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  My ZC kids taught me a lot about how I want to mother my own children one day!  I love y’all so much!

Back to the topic at hand…over the next 2 years we took LOTS of medication to try to help us have a baby.  Oddly enough though, we never took the most popular infertility medicine, Clomid.  Our fertility specialist at the time, Dr. Katherine Honea, recommended that we stay away from it with our history of cysts.  Along with the medications, we also tried several procedures: cyst drains, PCTs (postcoital test), specimen collections, HSGs (hysterosalpingogram...let's hear you pronounce that!) and IUIs (intrauterine insemination) .  Let me "attempt" to give you a quick run down of what each procedure involves.

A cyst drain is just that.  It’s when they go in and drain, versus remove, a cyst.  I think we had 2 cyst drains during these 2 years. 

A PCT is a procedure that is done to help determine how sperm interact with cervical mucus.  We only had one of these but it’s a funny story.  I’ll share a few of the details with you now…First of all, I always schedule my appointments early in the morning so that Allen can make most of them with me.  After all, remember after that initial appointment with Dr. Gaydos in GA I do NOT go to the doctor alone anymore!  Two other reasons for scheduling early appointments: 1...If we get to the doctor early enough, we usually only have to take half a day off of school…and believe me, our days we can take are very few and far between…and 2...even after 5 and a half years of this, I still cannot think about anything but having a baby and if I know I have a doctor’s appointment that day, I cannot focus on anything…much less teach rambunctious teenagers!  So, back to the PCT.  In order to have a PCT you have to have sex.  In order to get the first appointment at 7:30 a.m. we had to leave our house in Elba at 6 a.m.  In order to leave our house at 6 a.m. we have to start getting ready at 5 a.m.  In order to start getting ready at 5 a.m. we have to make love by 4:30 a.m.  In order to get my husband in a good enough mood to make love to his "beautiful" wife…he has to get up at 4 a.m.  I’m sure you see where this is going!  It was a very eventful morning at the Maness house!  (I hope you enjoyed picturing that!)

Moving on…a specimen collection is also pretty self explanatory.  I wish I could get Allen to share some stories of these adventures with you first hand.  I’m sure my version will not come close to the actual thing.  Basically, a nurse takes the man to a room, gives them a specimen cup and says good luck.  I’ve never actually seen the inside of a “collection room”, as they are labeled but here’s what Allen has shared with me.  Some have couches, some don’t.  Some have um...interesting entertainment, some don’t.  Here’s a true story…after going through several specimen collections, one time we had a nurse ask us if I needed to go back with him to get the specimen.  We were so shocked!  We didn’t know that was an option!  You should have seen our reaction.  I’m sure it was priceless.  However, we prefer that Allen takes care of the collecting by himself.  I’ll leave it at that and move on.

An HSG is an X-ray procedure where the doctor shoots a blue dye through your fallopian tubes and watches to see if it makes it through the tubes and begins to spill in to the uterus.  I think we have had 3 of these done.  One time it seems like the dye did not go through and they had to do a surgery to repair one of my tubes.  Another time, my tubes were not open but after the doctor continued to push the dye it finally opened the tubes and began to spill like it was supposed to.  OUCH!  And the most recent HSG that I had done in September of 2009 showed that both my tubes were open and everything looked good.  Let's hope that's still the case.

And finally, an IUI is a procedure usually done with some sort of medications.  The woman takes meds the first couple of weeks of her cycle.  Then either a home ovulation predictor kit is done to determine when the woman is ovulating or an HCG shot is given to make the woman ovulate.  (We have done both and by the way…the HCG shot is the WORST of all infertility shots.  The needle is forever long and the medicine is very thick…and it has to be given IM…that means in the muscle a.k.a MY BUTT!)  Next, the man has to do a specimen collection.  The collection is sent to the lab and “spun” to get the good sperm.  The sperm are then put in to this basting like tube and inserted in to the woman.  The woman then lies on the exam table for 30 minutes and prays for a baby.  Our insurance pays for 8 of these IUIs.  I believe we have had 4-5 of these done.  Never any luck but considering that our insurance pays for them…we’ll probably try a couple more before its all over.

Alrighty, so other than the endless amount of blood work and thousands of miles driven and dollars spent on gas…that pretty much concludes years 3 and 4.  They were definitely 2 adventurous years; that's for sure!