Make Lemon Pie

The next few months brought a lot of reflection and to much self pity. They were hard months. It had been three years we had been married and our plans were not where we wanted them to be. On top of the not being able to get pregnant my husband was in a job he didn't like. He wasn't able to be creative and use his skills and his boss wasn't exactly what he had in mind as a mentor. I on the other hand, had a boss I loved and who was a great mentor but the job required traveling more than I wanted. So we were away from each other more than we were together. It was a tough time for us. We began to argue more than we talked. And we found ourselves becoming more distant from one another with each passing day. And so in order to deal with it all....I cried and ate. My two stress relievers. My motto seems to be when life hands you lemons...make lemon pie...then eat it...the entire pie!

At this point in life I hadn't learned to hand over life to God knowing he would help with the pain. Instead I questioned his reasoning. I tried to make sense of something that made no sense. I held it together during the days so that I could work but at night I found myself crying and yelling like a two year old. Even on the days I would travel I would work all day and then find myself in a hotel room at night....journaling to God and crying. How could he let this happen? Hadn't I been thru enough in life?? What did I do deserve this?? And the worse part of all these feelings...I was so wrapped up in my own feelings I never even checked on my husband. And so we grieved alone.

One day I was out shopping and I got a call from Hudson. It had been a few months since the last talk and he wanted to check in and see which direction we wanted to go. We didn't know. And so Hudson told me to just call him when we were ready. I got off the phone and then like a waterfall the tears began to flow...again. And my mind began to race...I started with the what if's game that I am so known for....what if we don't try again and that could have been the time we got pregnant...what if I am broken as a woman....and then the pity party....why me....why me...why me!

When I got home I told my husband that Hudson called and he asked me what I wanted to do. I said maybe its time to see a infertility doctor and see if they can figure out what is wrong? And he agreed. So we were off to see one of the best infertility doctors in the United States but we weren't full of hope this trip. This trip we just were looking for answers to explain why we wouldn't be parents.

The Room Was Still White

Month four was going to be our month. Both my husband and I knew it. For the first two weeks of the month I was diligent in taking my temps every morning just as Hudson and instructed. I hated doing it....but it was the answer and I knew it. So every morning the alarm would go off and I wouldn't even open my eyes. I would hit snooze and begin slapping around the night stand looking for the thermometer. Once I found it I would commence in the temperature taking. As soon as the thermometer would beep that meant time to get in the shower and get ready for work. On my way out the door I was taking my herbs... 4 scoops mixed with water. The herbs were a big part of all this so I couldn't miss a dosage. I had to have those 4 scoops...three times a day, even tho the taste was a little like dirt with a hint of cinnamon....it was gross! This also meant taking the bottle of herbs with me to work and getting my lunch dosage in and then once back home taking them before bedtime. Everyday same routine. Until OVULATION DAY....sounds like a Will Smith movie...right?


On Ovulation day a woman's temperature spikes and her body gets warmer. As Hudson explained to me, its like a Hen sitting on her egg in the nest. Your body needs to be warm to keep the egg healthy. I know seems so elementary but I learned more about my body in that time with Hudson than I ever did from anyone else. I knew the basics but with him educating me, I became more in tune with body than I ever thought possible. Every girl needs a Hudson.

Around ovulation day you begin to think about schedules as a couple...yes schedules. Remember my husband is a chef and at the time I was an accountant. Which meant I worked days and he worked long hours that were never consistent. And so we tried to plan for the big night. There would be candle light and romantic music....it would be the perfect encounter to conceive our first born. Ahhh the joys of planning romance. Makes me laugh now.


How it really happened was my alarm went off that morning I checked my temp...rolled over told him tonight was the night and he said something like....I can't tonight I am going to be late remember. I have an banquet. I freaked out because we couldn't miss our one shot this month and proceed to figure out how to get a quickie in before I need to get in the shower and get ready for work. And that's how it happened. Very romantic....any child would want to hear that as their story of conception.


We did manage to get a few more nights in of romance in that month...just in case! However it didn't matter. 28 days after my last period I started menstruating again. I was devastated. I thought for sure this was it. I called Hudson and said it didn't work and his response was don't give up. Don't give up I thought....I drank the herbs that tasted like dirt...I did acupuncture....I took my temps and no baby...and now you don't want me to give up? He said its still early on in this process. Give it some more time....and so we did.


We went thru 6 more months of not giving up. Each month more devastating than the last. One month my husband even went on herbs to give him super sperm and still no baby. Everyday I took my herbs and temps and everyday it was a constant reminder that we weren't parents. Our souls grew very tired and we both wondered where God was in all this. Hudson watched me cry a lot in the visits toward the end. He told me it was going to happen. But I stopped believing. Our sex life had turned into a time table of when I was going to ovulate. We weren't making love anymore we were just trying to make a baby. It was awful for both of us.


Then one visit I went to Hudson crying. I couldn't take it anymore...We couldn't take it anymore. I was tired of the devastation every month. I was tired of watching my temps and taking herbs. I was so tired I even started slacking on taking the herbs regularly. I was tired of crying to my husband every month I started my period and asking WHY??? Hudson said to me its time we take a break from all this and we agreed. Maybe this parent thing wasn't for us....should becoming a parent really be this hard?? And so that was the second time we took a break from trying to be parents. Instead we went out and got a pug....and we became pet owners...to little Pugsley.

Leaving Western Medicine

After about 6 months of not seeing a doctor and still not conceiving a new idea was brought to us. My mom took a trip to Florida and while she was there she saw a story on the news about a woman that had gotten pregnant after 10 years of trying through acupuncture. So obviously my mom was intrigued by this whole thing because more than anything my mother wanted to be a Grandmother. So she came home told us the story and as we listened I think both my husband and I thought she had lost her mind. Acupuncture really? So we told her we would check it out. Of coarse we didn't.

Then a few months later my girlfriend was telling me about an acupuncturist that was here in town that specialized in the female reproductive system. She told me about her sister that had gone to him and she gave me his phone number so I could go check him out. Now this was twice God had sent me this message so upon receiving the second message...I picked up the phone and made an appointment.

Now I have never been known for going to the doctor expect that once a year visit. I have to be half dying before I even take an aspirin and the hospital....well... only by ambulance would I make it there. So you would think I would be more open to a natural remedy. Nope I wasn't. I was even more concerned. I had visions of Eastern Medicine it looked a little like me being Pinhead from the Hellraiser movies. I could just see me full of needles all over my body...incense burning....and some Mr. Miyagi look alike doing some chant over me to help me become a mom. And not to mention having to be poked with more needles was not my idea of helpful. But if it made us parents, I would buck it up and do it!

And so I was off to meet my new doctor. When I got there I was pleasantly surprised at the office. I was expecting sage burning...ya know to help line up my chakra or clean out bad vibes...whatever sage does. I thought my doctor would look a lot like my OBGYN....a little man from China with long grey hair and bad teeth. But instead I got Hudson, a white dude that had studied with only the best in China. He was just a normal guy with a kind smile. The kind you could see yourself having a beer with. He wasn't in scrubs or a suit and tie. He was just a guy you would pass on the street and say hello to.

Our first meeting was all about my menstrual cycles and all the test results. He needed to know how far we had gone with the infertility work...what the outcome of all of it was and on...and on. But more than that Hudson cared about how I was feeling emotionally. He was the first doctor I had seen up until then that asked about my heart. What was I feeling? How was I dealing with all this? Who was I talking to? And it wasn't until then that I found hope again....I knew I had found someone that could help. I couldn't wait to introduce him to my husband.

Hudson put me on herbs right away and I saw him every two weeks for acupuncture and an herb refill. Every visit I would lay on his table and he would stick needles in different areas of my body. Mostly my arms and legs. He would explain why he was putting the needles where he was and he would tell me how it was going to help. After I had all the needles in he would leave the room and I would lay still for about 45 min. In the beginning I was restless and then I grew to crave it. It was my time to be with just me and God....Laying there was the most peaceful place I had found in life. It still is.

The first three months with Hudson were about getting my body to do the things it needed to do to conceive a child. Things like have a 28 day cycle...which I wasn't having.... and my ovulation needed work and we needed a good ovulation (yes it was more mucus talk) and he asked me to keep a fertility chart. I had to take my temperature everyday to make sure I was spiking a temp during ovulation and rest of the time I wasn't two hot or to cold. It was all so complicated but I did it. In three months Hudson had changed my cycles thru herbs and acupuncture. It was amazing...I was a huge believer in him and in Eastern Medicine.

Month four was our first month to try and conceive. My fertility charts looked good..my body was healthy and my mind was full of hope again.....this time it was going to work....we just knew it!

The Test Kept Coming

As I cried all the way home I was trying to put into words why the tears were even there. And I couldn't, all I could do is cry. I was crying about something that hadn't even happened yet. I was crying at the idea of not being a mother. I was crying over the thought of not being able to give my husband a child, I was lost in broken dreams...and the blood for the very first test had just been drawn. Isn't it funny how we fear the worst before we even know the results. When I got home to tell my husband the outcome, he was as always, my saving grace. When I am flying into my "What If World" he brings be back to earth and just simply says....Lets wait and see what happens. And so we did.

Seven days later the test results were in. My hormone levels were normal. What a huge relief! It was like I had been holding my breath for seven days and now I could finally breath. And as soon as I was breathing again the doctor informed me he wanted to run the next test. The next test was to check to see if I carried an antibody that killed off semen. Can you believe that!?! Here we are trying to bring a child into the world and I could be killing off sperm....GREAT! Now just a warning the next few details aren't for those of you with weak stomachs. But I tell the details for my husband...he brings the humor into the antibody test!

The way you find out if you have an antibody that kills off semen is you wait until the day your ovulating and then you have intercourse. The following morning you run to your doctors office and he takes a sample and lets you know if there are live swimmers. Seems easy enough right....well we waited until ovulation day and then we had AMAZING sex! Okay, to be honest I don't remember the sex but for my husband sake...it was AMAZING! The next day we BOTH..that's the key word there BOTH of us went to see my OBGYN and found ourselves with a story my husband will never forget.

My husband came with me for moral support because at this point every test to me could mean infertility and mental break down. So we get into the room and I am back in the stirrups and my crazy OBGYN is there and he takes a sample. No big deal really, not any worse than my previous visit. My husband sat in a chair by my side with just a side view. Although it was a little awkward we managed...I mean we are married we could handle this! Then the next thing I know my OBGYN is back to Mucus talk, only this time with my husband. I think trying to educate him on the female body however when I looked over at my husband he looked at me like a kid that just found out Santa Claus doesn't exist. He was full of fear and his eyes were the size of saucers. Then out of now where my doctor pulls out his hand and shows my husband my mucus. When my husband tells the story the mucus was 4 feet in length and the doctor couldn't get off his glove. Sounds like a fishing story but oh know we are talking about MY MUCUS! I was mortified and my husband was green. Luckily we made it thru that test without anyone passing out or throwing up. And even better news...I wasn't a sperm killer.

The next few tests were: a test where they ran dye thru my fallopian tubes to see if my they were blocked...they were clear. My husband had his swimmers tested...that came back normal. Every test we took we passed! So why hadn't we gotten pregnant. After about 6 tests and thousands of dollars later the doctor said we may want to go see an infertility specialist...and all we heard was....you may want to look into spending $25,000.00 for in vitro fertilization. And so we took a break from it all for about 6 months. That was our first break from trying to become parents........

Why The Tests Began?

After being married a year we started to talk about why we hadn't conceived a child yet. And that's when I made the first visit to my doctor. I waited until I had an my annual check up and then I asked my doctor about reasons for me not getting pregnant. I was full of fear as the word flowed from my mouth. In my mind the worse thing he could say to me was...Sorry you can't have children.

Now my OBGYN was a little oriental man, maybe 5'5", in his 50's probably with a long black and grey pony tail. He had started treating me 4 years prior to this visit just for the basics. I saw him once a year and we had the usual conversation...he would say...ok slide down feet in the stirrups. I would roll my eyes and say...I bet you say that to all the girls! Then he would reply...ok now here comes the cold duck. I would take a deep breath and wish I was somewhere else. Then I would hear...Are you ready I am going to feel for your cervix. Then as I lay there thanking God this only has to take place once a year at that point he would say....everything feels and looks fine you can expect a phone call from of us if anything is abnormal otherwise no news is good new! Every year same process.

But this year was different...this year we had this conversation. He began by asking me how long we had been trying to conceive and did I have any problems with my cycles and on and on....it seemed like an eternity that I was sitting there on the table with that stupid gown on. You know the one the nurse hands you after she has ruined your day by telling you how much weight you have gained from the year before. So you have to leave the gown open in the back and sit there to talk about menstrual cycles and how often we were trying to conceive and then before I know whats happening he says it....HOW IS YOUR MUCUS???

I remember thinking to myself as we were talking about my cycles and how frequently I had been intimate with my husband ...why do I keep these white socks on every time I come for an exam...well at least my feet aren't naked and hangin' out like my backside...how did I gain that much weight in one year...wait what did he say...how is my WHAT? So I respond by saying..My Mucus??? And then he began to educate me on the female ovulation process and mucus. I needed to check my mucus during ovulation. I needed to watch the color and how much there was. I needed to know in a 28 day cycle what days in the cycle mucus was noticeable or if I was noticing it at all. And so I mentally took notes of all I needed to do.

In the meantime he was going to take some blood and check my hormone levels. It was the least invasive procedure there was to start with. Then he gave me a list of all the other levels of test that could occur depending on the results of my blood work. So two small tubes of blood later I found myself walking out of the office for the first time and I began to feel it. The butterflies that come with lost hope. These butterflies make your stomach tight with anxiety...make your heart race with fear...and make your mind think the worst. What if something is wrong? What if my mucus isn't thick enough or the right color? What if my tubes are blocked? What if I we can't have a baby? What if...what if....what if??? And as I got to my car I felt the tears begin to fall. How was I going to tell my husband?

Moving Into Our Home

The first road we went down as newly weds was moving into our first home. Now, finding our first home wasn't as hard as we had imagined. We had it in our heads what we wanted. More importantly we had figured out what we could afford and now it was just finding the perfect house that we could make a home.

We spent many Saturdays in houses we knew would never be our home. There was always something we didn't like. To small, wrong neighborhood or we just couldn't afford it. Until one Saturday we visited the Kessler Walk subdivision. It was the third model home we looked at that day. We knew as soon as we walked in the door that this one was for us.

The first floor was perfect. The kitchen had plenty of cabinet space for all of kitchen equipment that a chef brings to a home. There was a three sided fireplace between the living room and the dining room, for little stockings to hang on at Christmas time. The dinning room was big enough for a family size table...that would be where we would have dinner every night and talk about how our days were. We were sold.

The second floor had a loft, a master bedroom with a huge bathtub and two other bedrooms. Perfect for us and the two children that we had been dreaming about...this was the house. As we walked around the model we began to dream. We asked each other so many question like...How would it look and feel when people came into our home? Where would we put the furniture? What pictures would look good on the walls? We even picked which room would be the nursery. We were ready to move in. So we got to work on making this dream come true.


Soon we were moving in. We started making the house a home right away. First we unpacked boxes and then we found a place for all the things we had accumulated as a couple. Okay, I will be honest. Mostly when I say we unpacked boxes and we found places for things that means it was me throwing out his bachelor things like the orange and white pheasant couch. I mean seriously do we really need that!

Then we started grooming the lawn. We planted trees that we would watch grow for the next 50 years and tulips that would reminded us of our wedding day every spring. We were planting roots literally. Then the most amazing thing happened we found PAINT! Isn't it amazing how paint changes a room. We painted every room. We started in the loft and hit all the rooms in the house. We changed every look of every room in that first year except for one....we kept the nursery white. We were waiting until I got pregnant before we choose a theme....little did we know how long that room would stay white.

My Dream of Writing Begins

My dreams of being a writer started many years ago. Whenever anyone would ask the question, " What would you do for a living if you didn't have to worry about money?" My immediate response would be, "I want to be an author." Yet, every time I sit down to put my thoughts together with a pen and paper its a little overwhelming to be honest....I think about all the subjects I could share with the world. . It is a life time of lessons and stories that each of us have and could share. Why would mine be different? I wonder if just one person read my thoughts and my thoughts helped them find some sort of peace would it be worth printing? I don't know but my heart tells me to move forward and my head says I gotta get on Oprah so I can be a best seller so here we go.....we will start with J's story because he is what made me listen to my heart again.

Its been six years ago now that my husband and I said "I do." The day you say those words your head is full of hopes and dreams of spending the rest of your life feeling exactly the way you do that day. You look your best and feel like a princess with prince charming at the end of the isle waiting for you. Then surrounded by God, family and friends you pledge for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, and in our case for fatter of for thinner! We didn't know that in the first five years of marriage we would hit each of those vows full on. Test each one out to see if our marriage really could survive it. But thats exactly what we did....

Our first year of marriage was full of hopes and dreams. We had life planned out. Funny right, I mean like our plans are Gods plans. When we dreamed it looked a little like this, we were going to move into our first home in June (we were married in April), we were going to start a family right away (hopefully get pregnant on the honeymoon). Baby number one would come within a year and then maybe baby number two would come a few years later. We would have one boy one girl. You know because we could predict that. Our home would be a place all the kids would want to be when they got out of school. I was going to be a stay at home mom, baking fresh cookies and keeping the house clean. So I would leave my life in accounting and my husband would bring home the bacon...literally as he is a chef. Oh life was going to be AMAZING!