Our Baby Journey

Well it’s really official now… Baby Peterson is on its way!! We are due at the end of March, currently 18 weeks, and are still semi in shock! (but so so so thrilled!!) We thought it looked like a little gummy bear in the first pictures… or a foot… but whatever, it was the cutest gummy bear / foot we had ever seen!

I wanted to take a minute and change things up a bit from the usual photo/wedding/engagement/bridal blog posts and share a little bit, or a lot, of our personal journey to getting this precious baby. We started ‘trying’ to get pregnant a little over 2 1/2 years ago with no luck. I bought all the ovulation tests and peed on 100’s (seriously!) of ovulation sticks, sorry if TMI but if you are trying to get pregnant you can relate, bought pregnancy tests every month and every time they came back negative. I didn’t understand, it seemed like everyone around me was pregnant. I couldn’t walk through the grocery store or in the mall without seeing pregnant women, they were EVERYWHERE! Realistically they probably were not ‘everywhere’, I was just now noticing them. It was tough, to say the least, but I tried to cling to the fact that I believed it was all in God’s time, not mine.

Long story short, we ended up seeing a Reproductive Endocrinologist, or Fertility Specialist as I call them… much easier to say and for others to understand. It took me almost 5 months to accept the fact we needed help and to fill out the paper work to see the RE… 5 MONTHS! Why,  you ask… I struggled with pride. I didn’t want to be classified as having fertility problems, I wanted to be like everyone else and just let it happen on its own. Right?! Thats how everyone else got pregnant, right?! Wrong, I quickly found out. 1 out of 10 couples have fertility problems… what?!?! How am I 29 and NEVER heard anyone or know of anyone ever speak of fertility problems or seeing a fertility doctor?? only time thats ever happened was on TV or ‘older’ women… not someone like ME in their 20’s.

So yes, I struggled with pride. I realized this one day listening to a sermon by Matt Chandler at The Village Church, he was speaking of Paul’s vision and his thorn- 2 corinthians 12:1-10.

 I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord.² I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. ³ And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— ⁴ was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. ⁵ I will boast about a man like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. ⁶ Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, ⁷ or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Hearing this reminded me that were humans fail, when our bodies fail us, God does not. Whatever He is working out by giving us thorns is for His glory and your joy.

So after putting my pride aside and acknowledging my thorn and weakness, we ventured into our specialist. We did 4 cycles of clomid+IUIs, each one failed and so we met with our Dr. again. They suggested IVF as our next step. IVF… it took me some time to wrap my brain around, again, never did I think that would be part of our journey to baby. So we decided before we jumped in to something as big and as $$$$$ as IVF, we would get a second opinion. So we went to another RE and they suggested one more option before they would, as well, suggest IVF. So we did a process called Follistim (injections)+ IUI. Pretty much Follistim makes your body produce LOTS of follicles/eggs, ideally 1-5. If you produce more than 5 they can not do the IUI that month for risk of high# multiples. Well, just my luck because I produced 5!!! I could see it now, ‘OCTO-MOM TEXAS featuring Stefani Peterson’… lol!… all we were shooting for was one and now I had a chance at 5?! Realistically the chance at all 5 ‘catching’ was SO slim, like 1%, but still it was a chance. Even with all 5 eggs we were only given a 30% chance 1 would ‘find a friend’ (hahaha!).

And so that leads us to our gummy bear pic above, YES, just one little gummy bear… No Octo-Mom here! Thank you Lord! And actually its looking more like a little person now, not so alien like with the gigant-o head. Here is that latest pics we have from 12 weeks so I can only imagine how much its changed since then.

So ‘why’ you ask, am I writing this? I could very easily just go on living my life being a happy prego woman and only the 4 or 5 close family members and friends would know any of our struggles to have a baby. Well my answer is simple… I know the reason we went through what we did was to share our story. Its part of our wonderful journey in life and our wonderful journey to baby. I don’t know what the future holds for us or for our little one on the way, all I know is what is happening right now and what has happened. No matter what happens from here, there is a plan far more perfect than what I, or you, can imagine. I don’t want any woman, or couple, to feel like they are alone in this process. Like I said before, I didn’t know anyone going through infertility issues… its such a ‘hush-hush’ topic in our society. Hopefully someone will read this and they will find hope and encouragement to look past their current struggles to the the future, and trust in God’s perfect plan.

That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

As far as the business goes, Heather is leading all weddings from January onward. So shoot us an inquiry for Spring weddings, we still have dates available!

Love,

-Stefani

If you know of anyone needing information, doctor recs, questions about procedures, medicine, etc. regarding infertility or just wants to talk please feel free to shoot me an email anytime. I’d be glad to help. Stefani@truidentitydesigns.com