I don't have the answer to all of life's mysteries. I can't explain why children get cancer or why babies in Africa starve to death. I don't know why people die tragic deaths or get Alzheimer's or MS. I don't understand why some people have all the money in the world and are looking for ways to spend it while others just want enough to put food in their mouths. I can NOT understand why some people use abortions as birth control and others starve and murder the children they were blessed with while others would do anything for the chance to have just one child. I don't understand why it is so easy for some and so hard for others, but what I do know is that you are crazy if you think that Christians get a get-out-of-jail-free card. Satan doesn't care who you are. God never promised us a perfect life just because we are his followers. It is quite the contrary. What we do have that separates us from non-believers is HOPE. We don't have to carry the burden of life on our own shoulders. Christ has and will gladly carry it for us. We don't have to fret and worry about what the end result will be, because God's got it all taken care of. He has a perfect plan for each and every one of us. If you'll just sit back and let God do his thing, the same man who created the universe will guide and direct your life on a perfect path. I am certain that God's plan for my life is 1,000 times better than anything I could ever come up with.
I have to remind myself of these things constantly, especially on days like today when things don't go my way. I went back to the doctor today, ready to start the most expensive round of treatments yet. However, we will have to wait another month. My body isn't cooperating this month. Let me give you an Infertility 101 lesson. When you begin a cycle of treatment, the first thing you do is go in for your baseline ultrasound to check for antral follicles. Antral follicles are what produce mature follicles and mature follicles are what produce eggs. Now, not every antral follicle will produce a mature follicle and not every mature follicle will produce a mature egg, so you want as many follicles as possible. The last treatment I did back in July/August, I had eight antrals. Today, I only had two, one on each ovary. That is very, very bad. There is no explanation. I have never had this few. Each month only one ovary ovulates, so you normally see more on one side, but mine just decided that neither wanted to participate. My blood work was fine, as usual. I never have issues with FSH, estradiol, or progesterone, just the follicles.
I'm not upset. If I'm going to spend $7,000 on a treatment, I don't want to do it until everything looks great. They did go ahead and test my AMH levels again. That is the anti-mullerian hormone. It is used to test ovarian reserve. They have tested mine before, but it's been about two years since the last test. My results were not good last time. They like for women to have .7 to 1.0. Mine was .40/.45. That is considered low. We have been aware of that for a while. The doctors say I have low ovarian reserve, which means I don't have a lot of eggs left, but that doesn't mean I can't conceive. They checked again to see if it's dropped anymore. If it gets below .3, then we have a problem. They didn't have those results when they called me back today. If it hasn't dropped much, then we will just go back next month and try again.
It is what it is. There is nothing I can do about it. Women are born with how many eggs they are going to have. I can't change that. Only God can do that. I will keep trying until they tell me they can't do anything else for me. If they tell me that my AMH has dropped to below .3, then we will have to look at adoption or embryo donation or egg donation, all of which are expensive, but like I said before, God's got this, so I'm going to sit back and follow his lead.
Just continue to keep us in your prayers. I don't even know what to specifically ask you to pray for. Thank you for your love and support.
