the Collins

A long road to a happy ending

Last September, Brent and I decided we wanted to have another baby. Our timing did not match up with God’s timing. With Abby, it took about 4 months to conceive. So, I figured it would take around that long to conceive the second baby. Well, after the 4th, 5th, 6th month, I, being one of the most impatient people in the world, started getting really frustrated. Brent kept telling me it will happen when God wants it to happen. I know that is true, but it’s really hard to have to wait on something you really want…selfish, I know. Then came the 7th and 8th month. Nope. Nothing. The weird thing was that the previous months, I felt really lethargic, like you would feel when you are pregnant. I told Brent that the pregnancy tests were wrong because this is how I felt with Abby…no energy whatsoever.

Then came the end of April. I had been planning a huge church event for Sunday, April 27. My mom came in town to help with Abby while I worked overtime. Friday night, April 25, I had this horrible pain in my lower abdomen. I was curled up on the couch and practically could not move. My doctor had moved to Huntsville and I had not transferred my records yet, so Brent called my old practice for the on-call physician. He said it could be a ruptured ovarian cyst so he prescribed pain medicine (which caused me to be nauseated on top of the pain). On Monday, I went to see my doctor in Huntsville, and she did an ultrasound to see if it was a ruptured cyst. It was. There was a lot of fluid that normally isn’t there. Then she spotted a bunch of other cysts all around my ovaries. She then gave me the news that I had polycystic ovarian syndrome. The cause is not known. It looks like a ring of pearls around your ovaries. Some of the symptoms are infertility, ovarian cysts, weight gain, high cholesterol and blood pressure, pelvic pain, anxiety and depression, and the list goes on. Fortunately, I only had a few symptoms. So could this be the answer on why I couldn’t get pregnant. Well, only partly.

I had a lot of blood tests that day. A few days later, the doctor called with another diagnosis. I also had hypothyroidism. It is a condition in which your thyroid gland doesn't produce enough of certain important hormones. Some of the symptoms are fatigue, sluggishness, infertility, increase sensitivity to cold, and unexplained weight gain. So this explains my fatigue and also part of my infertility. So now I have 2 strikes against me. I can’t do anything for the polycystic ovarian syndrome, but I can take a pill everyday for my hypothyroidism (probably for the rest of my life). Brent and I discussed options with the doctor. The option we chose was to use a fertility drug, clomid. At the end of 28 days, I was supposed to return to see if it worked and to test my thyroid levels again.

I went back to the doctor exactly 28 days after we had seen her. I took a pregnancy test a few days before and it was negative. So I did not expect anything. I went in and took a pregnancy test. It took a few minutes and the nurse saw a very faded plus sign. She did not want to get my hopes up so she said she still wasn’t sure. By the time the doctor came in the plus sign was darker. She looked at me, smiled, and said congratulations! I still did not believe her. She ran a blood test, and later that day, the tech called saying I had a positive pregnancy test. I still was in shock. Brent couldn’t meet me at the doctor, so when he came home, I gave him his father’s day present a few days early. I had made him a calendar full of pictures of Abby. He flipped through, but when he came to February, he saw something penciled in. It said “Baby’s Due Date.” He looked at me, looked down again, looked at me and smiled and gave me a big hug. We couldn’t believe it. We were going to have another baby. It may have taken longer than I wanted, but God does answer prayer. He has been faithful my whole life, especially when I have needed him most. So far, the baby looks happy and healthy. I am almost 5 months along. Praise God!!!