Tag: infertility

Eleven Years Later

June 6, 2018

On the eve of my son’s 11th birthday (I’m choking on that number), I am having memories of where I was 11 years ago. Rewind that five more years just after Kevin and I got married. We wanted to have a family right away.

We were married four months when I was diagnosed with kidney vasculitis after many, many doctor visits with no answers and finally a kidney biopsy to confirm the damage to my small blood vessels in my kidneys.

I was ok hearing the news because it was a relief to finally know what was wrong with me. What upset me the most was when they told me I had to take a chemotherapy type of medication. As soon as they told me that my first question was whether or not we could still try to get pregnant. The answer was no. Not at that time. They needed to get my autoimmune disease under control with the medication and a high dose of steroids.

Several years went by where my disease was quieting down and less flare ups. We tried different medications and my doctor was always aware that my hope in the future was to start a family. So that was always a consideration in the type of medications we tried.

Finally, after two kidney biopsies (a more specific diagnosis of which antibody I was overproducing), weaning off of steroids, and my doctor who was always keeping up with the latest info on my disease and the medications, we were allowed to explore our options.

In June of 2006 we met with fertility specialists. We began all the tests, met with genetic counselors and a pharmaceutical counselor about the medication I was on and the risks. We were finally given the go ahead. But all the tests came back and I had unexplained infertility. It wasn’t going to be easy for us to get pregnant. We were going to need help.

We were determined to do whatever it took. We wanted this so badly. We waited four years after getting married. This wasn’t going to get in our way of our dream. Going through fertility treatments is a very emotionally challenging experience. Having had to wait four years and then coming across this challenge made me, a very impatient person, a little crazy.

Finally after a few intrauterine inseminations we had a successful pregnancy. I was watched closely through the high risk pregnancy group and everything went well for the full term. I was admitted to the hospital June 5 because of low amniotic fluid.

The night before Kevin’s birth 11 years ago today, we were sent back upstairs from the labor and delivery floor. After an entire day of being induced but no progress they had to shut off the pitocin and give my uterus a break.

Kevin and I were in our room while I was hooked up to a monitor and had a lovely Foley balloon. I wasn’t very comfortable and I was getting anxious to meet our baby and find out if they were a girl or a boy. But we remained calm, had our Liquid Mind soothing music playing and I was weirdly enough enjoying the process.

I felt like I had menstrual cramps all night. That was probably the real labor starting on its own. I barely slept and I know Kevin didn’t either. We were anxious, excited, and tired. We couldn’t wait for baby day.

Finally, the next morning I was walking around the maternity floor, I took a nice long shower and the Foley balloon fell out. That was a good sign! Not long after that when we were relaxing in bed my water broke at 10:30 a.m. It was birthday time!

Kevin Charles was born at 8:07 p.m. weighing 6 pounds 6 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. A lot more happened that day from the time that my water broke to the time of his birth. But I’ll save that story for another day.

Eleven Years Later

I can’t believe this all happened 11 years ago. He has changed so much. I can’t help but get sad sometimes when I see how big he is getting. He still loves to snuggle with me and kiss me and spend quality time with me. He will always be my baby boy, but life has blown by me in light speed since our children were born. I try as much as I can to enrich their lives with memories and events and fun. I don’t want them to grow up too fast. I’m keeping them in the innocent bubble as long as I can.

Happy Birthday baby boy! Thank you for making my dreams of becoming a mom come true! I love you more than the universe!

Challenges You May Face While Making your Dreams Come True

July 18, 2014

Yesterday I talked about taking the first step towards achieving your dream.  Today I want to talk about some of the issues that you might face while taking those steps.  Many of us have dreams whether it be to start a new job, or to quit a job to start your own business, lose weight, run a race, change careers completely.  Whatever your dream is, it is yours alone.  No one can make that dream come true for you.  You have to work for it on your own.

While you are working to pursue that dream you may come across some challenges.  It’s how you deal with those challenges that are important for the success of your end result.  You may feel  some of the following things, but don’t let them overcome you:

– Uncomfortable – we tend to stay where we are because it is comfortable and we are familiar with everything involved.
– Scared – the fear of the what-ifs or the unknowns are very strong feelings to keep us from moving forward
– You’ll be tempted to stay with the familiar and safe place – In regards to work, job security is never a guarantee
– Doubt – Sometimes you will doubt yourself or someone will doubt you which makes you doubt yourself
– You can’t please everyone and your decision is yours alone.  If people you care about makes you doubt your decision, it’s ok to continue on with what you want to do because ultimately it’s your life and your dream.

After you get over the negative feelings and hurdles you will begin to realize that your dream is something you are good at and that’s why it was your dream in the first place.  You will begin to feel confident that you can do what you set out to do.  You will realize who smart you really are.  You will stand out on your own.  If you are like me, I am listening to podcasts about dreamers and am seeing that other people are reaching their dreams and are going through many of the same experiences I am going through.  You may begin to network with those people and it will help build your confidence.  Those new acquaintances are good people to have on your side, especially when the doubt and fear begins to creep in.  You can reach out to them to express your feelings and may learn that they too had the same feelings at one point when working towards their dreams.

Something that I am terrible at is being patient.  During the times when you want to know what will happen if you do this or that, there are times where you may have to wait.  Waiting isn’t easy!  It gives your mind time to think and time to think brings in fear and doubt.  You may want to run faster and get a better finish time, but you can’t get faster over night.  You have to be patient and work up to that pace slowly in order to get faster. You are going to get hurt when you do too much too soon.  Did you quit your job to go back to school?  Well you don’t graduate overnight.  It may be hard to get all the basics courses done before you even get to the core classes related to the major that you are working towards.  Be patient.  It will come.

The best things in life are worth waiting for.  It took me a VERY long time to start my family, but now as I look back all of those years are a blur now.  I am so busy and happy with my family and am so blessed by the life that I have and waited so long to have.

Have faith and believe in yourself that you will achieve your goals.  If you have achieved your goal and are now living your dream you will feel light and happy.  Your life will have a burning desire to get started and do what you love.  Isn’t that worth waiting for and overcoming all of your hurdles to get to as the end result?  I know that is what I want for my life.  I know that while I have many miles ahead of me on my calendar for the training plan for Dopey, I am looking forward to checking those miles off and seeing the success of all of my hard work.

Don’t give up on your dreams because of the feelings that you may have listed above.  Not to sound morbid, but the number one regret people have when on their death beds is that they were never brave enough to achieve their dreams.  Don’t put things off, we are not promised tomorrow.  The time is now.

Everyone has a story… My story

January 21, 2014

My running story begins when I started running in 2002. It was the year I got married. At the time I started running I had been undergoing tests and multiple doctor visits, skin biopsies and an upcoming kidney biopsy to determine why I had petechia on my lower legs and feet and blood and protein in my urine.  Prior to my kidney biopsy we learned that my grandfather had lung cancer and he was hospitalized quickly.  He passed away very quickly after his diagnosis and hospitalization.  I believe that he knew that at the age of 90 he wasn’t going to fight the fight of cancer.  I had to have my kidney biopsy the week after his funeral. I had a lot of stress so I decided to visit the Woodbridge Running Store and get fitted for a proper pair of running shoes. I needed an outlet for my new stresses.

I began running on the treadmill.  I had to take a brief pause in my new hobby because of my kidney biopsy.  But once I was cleared to run again I continued on.  That year, my boss at the time, was running the New York City marathon.  I was fascinated by this.  I guess I can say I was a little in awe about it.  On the day of her marathon I watched it on TV and decided to lace up my sneakers and run it with her virtually.  I turned the race on the TV downstairs and ran on the treadmill for 9 miles.  That was the longest I had ever run.  I think deep in the back of my mind I knew that I wanted to run a marathon and maybe I would.

That year I had to be put on a chemotherapy-like immunosuppresant drug and a high dose of steroids to try to knock this mysterious illness out of my body and reduce the inflammation in my kidneys. I was not happy to be on the steroids and I did gain weight being on it which also bothered me.  I ran on the treadmill to try to reduce the weight gain, but if you have ever been on steroids for a long period of time, you will know you can’t really do much to eliminate the weight gain.

I was totally stressed and overwhelmed by this mysterious illness and course of treatment and at the time, being newly married, my husband and I wanted to start a family. However, in September when I was told that I had to go on these drugs I was also told that our dream to start a family had to be put on hold for an undetermined amount of time. I was not happy.  I was devastated.  We were devastated.  I needed an outlet. After a few years of being on different immunosuppresants and on and off doses of steroids I continued to run on the treadmill at our house.  I never ran outside.

I had to have one more kidney biopsy in 2005 and my diagnosis was confirmed as Henoch Schonlein Purpura, a disease that usually strikes children when they are put on antibiotics for strep and clears up on its own.  I was in my early 30s at the time of my diagnosis. Because I had this disease and my kidneys were affected by vasculitis (inflammation of the small blood vessels), I would have to be on medication until I could stay off of it without getting petechia on my legs or feet.

After five years of treatment I finally had the chance to try to get pregnant.  But ironically the decision was to try while taking the medication that I was told five years earlier wasn’t safe to take while trying to get pregnant.  We met with several researchers and learned about the risks of taking the drug while pregnant and made our decision to proceed. However, that didn’t go as easy as planned.  After several months of trying, we learned that I couldn’t get pregnant on my own.  We needed help. I met the great staff at the UCONN fertility group and they helped us conceive our son.  This was also a stressful time of multiple doctor visits, tests (some uncomfortable), MANY blood tests and a LOT of waiting.  We had gone through all of this alone while not telling our families.  We wanted to surprise them when we did finally get pregnant.  We gave birth to our son on June 7, 2007.

After he was born I resumed my working out on the treadmill with walking and took him for walks in the stroller in my neighborhood.  Then once cleared I resumed running again on the treadmill downstairs while he was in the baby chair or napping.  It felt good to run again and helped me lose the pregnancy weight. I kept up with this until it was time to try for our second child.  Once again we needed help and Adrienne was born 16 months after Kevin on October 13, 2008.  During my pregnancy with her I was much more active.  I took walks with Kevin in the stroller pretty much up to the week before having Adrienne. Then when she was born I was out with my husband and my son hiking in the park near our house.  I enjoy being active.

I suffered post partum with Adrienne but didn’t realize that I was going through it.  I honestly think I suffered with it for 4 years after she was born until I finally got some help in 2013.

My running for races and outdoor running began in the summer of 2011.  On vacation I started to jog up in New Hampshire and was hooked when I got back home. I wanted to do a 5K before my 40th birthday.  And to summarize I have done several 5Ks, at least 8 half marathons, 10ks and now 2 full marathons.

My parents were at the finish line of my marathon this year and were so proud of me. I enjoyed knowing they were going to be there when I crossed the line to see me accomplish my dream again.  Being a parent myself I now understand how they felt seeing me cross the line with a friend in need rather than cross the line to get my best finish time.  As a parent I look forward to watching my children at their races or sporting events with the same feeling of pride.

The picture my dad took at the finish line.

The picture my dad took at the finish line.

Stay tuned for the stories of Alison and Gail in my upcoming posts.

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