Soon after we were married I started down the road of fertility testing. I had been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome when I was 13 and had been told that it would either be really hard or impossible for me to get pregnant. We decided to go ahead and start with the testing early on in our marriage because we knew we wanted to have a family we just didn’t know how long it would take or if it would even be possible. 6 months into fertility testing we were told that it looked like I would never be able to have children. I wasn’t ovulating at all even when I took all the fertility meds. I was devastated. The doctor said we could try it all again for another month but she was sure it would’t work. We decided to wait a month and then try all the meds one last time. After a month of letting my body rest I went in for the standard pregnancy test you had to take before starting any fertility medication. Can I just tell you how mean it is that you have to take what feels like a million pregnancy tests that all come out negative when you are going through fertility treatment? It’s just not right. It’s very insensitive and mean. Chris and I were getting ready to go my parents house for dinner when the phone rang and I answered it. It was my fertility doctor calling to tell me that the test came back negative and I could start my next round of treatment. Except those weren’t the words out of her mouth. I remember exactly what she said like it was yesterday, “Caroline, I just want you to know that I just went and threw all of my medical books away. There is no medical explanation for how this happened, but you are pregnant!”. She was dumbfounded, I was elated! We were having a baby. A baby I thought that we would never have. A true gift from God. A true example that it truly is God who opens and closes the womb.
-Me pregnant with Gillian and my dad with his food baby.-
Gillian started off her life a very colicky baby. At night the only way we could get her calm was to “bounce, rock, pat”. We would rock her in the rocking chair while bouncing up and down and patting her back. It was a great workout for the core. During the day she was a genuinely happy baby. At night it was a different story. This lasted for about 3 months and then she was good at night too. People around us started whispering about Gillian she was about 10 months old. They could have been whispering before this but the whispers got way louder about this time where we could hear them. She wasn’t crawling yet. She wasn’t talking that much. She wasn’t hitting any of the milestones that babies are supposed to make. I think I knew in the back of my head that something just wasn’t right, but I was not even close to being ready to admit that. Soon after Gillian’s first birthday we took her to her pediatrician to voice our concerns and he sent us to have her tested. We spent approximately 4 hours with an occupational therapist, a speech therapist, a physical therapist, a social worker, a regional center representative, and an early intervention teacher. They all took their turns playing with and evaluating Gillian and then they would come and talk to us about what they found. We ended that half day being told that Gillian was indeed significantly delayed and she would benefit from immediately starting physical, occupational and speech therapy as well as having a teacher come to our home to work with her a couple of times a week. To say I was overwhelmed by all of this would be a gross understatement. I went into complete shock and denial. I politely declined all of their services and told them that Gillian just needed more time and she would catch up with all of the milestones. 6 months later Gillian was just starting to crawl but she was nowhere near walking and her speech was still significantly delayed and that’s when we started our special needs child journey through therapies and home teachers. It was a lot.
We waited 4 years before deciding to add to our family. Thinking infertility would be an issue again, I went into the process very carefully. We were pregnant with our second daughter, Emma, the first month! I just love how God works and constantly reminds me that He is the one in control and not me. Emma was a great baby and is now an amazing young lady with the most amazing servant’s heart. She is just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. I know God has great things in store for her as He has made her relatable in so many ways because she has had to walk many through many of these journeys with me.
To be continued....
-My beautiful daughters when they were little.-
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