Roth Family Christmas Card & Letter 2020

We sent out our Christmas cards only digitally this year to save on money, but wanted to share here too. If you're reading this, we love you and wish all the best. Here is our Christmas card and letter for 2020:

What a year this has been, right?? All around us there has been political strife, social unrest, economic hardship, and of course the global pandemic. That’s enough to make anyone’s year a challenging one.

For us personally, even with all of that aside this was one of our hardest years to date. Among other challenges, some of the harder things that we’ve been open about include a suicide attempt followed by hospitalization and another year of no successful pregnancy, including miscarriage and failed IUI cycles.

But there is good too! Josh got a new mental health diagnosis (Borderline Personality Disorder) along with new doctors, therapies, medications, and even a few workplace accommodations. As always it’s a long road, but we’ve seen a lot of good there too. And with my secondary infertility, we have decided to move on to IVF - a very big deal! Granted, it felt like a big deal to start any fertility treatments, but going from IUI to IVF there is a lot more to it. It’s not cheap and it sucks to anticipate that when we’ve been working to save for a bigger car and a house, but it’s also much more likely to result in a pregnancy so we’re hopeful. We are also so grateful to continue to have steady incomes this past year, even if there were some hits to our income. We’ve been able to provide for our needs, and we are so grateful for that.

Josh has gotten more crafty this year - he’s been making trinkets for his Dungeons and Dragons group in his spare time that involves woodworking, woodburning, using epoxy resin, and other exciting stuff. He also still streams on Twitch pretty regularly and loves unwinding by playing games with his friends and family. He is still working at Visa, and has had a mix of working from home and working at the office.

This year Ashley became a moderator for a chapter of the organization ‘Mormon Women for Ethical Government’ - a non-partisan group for Latter-day Saint women that focuses on advocacy, peacemaking, media literacy, and ethical government. Ashley has been very active in a lot of political scenes as well as loving her church calling in coordinating service and meals for others who are in need. She also still works from home as a virtual assistant, doing a bunch of computer and social media stuff.

The twins haven’t stopped growing up, despite our pleas. They have a lot of shared interests, including stickers, video games, riding their balance bikes or scooters outside, and playing pretend together.

Lauren has been conditioned since birth to like the color pink, and she has embraced that in full force. She loves everything pink, as well as all things unicorn. She loves imaginative play, is more or less content to do her own thing, loves to sing to herself, is obsessed with taking pictures, and wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s a total Daddy’s girl and reminds me of that regularly. ;)

Jacob loves anything rainbow. He has laser-sharp focus on whatever interests him, often not noticing anything else when he’s doing something he loves. He has big emotions that we are still learning how to manage, is growing more determined at trying things he’s afraid of, and prefers to play with others over doing anything alone. He is super attached to Mama, and I’m soaking it up.

We’ve felt so much love and support in our lives this year. We are especially grateful for the love and comfort we find in Christ. We love you all dearly, and wish you the best holiday available to you. ♥

Infertility Journey Update: Hope and Loss

So we were able to start fertility treatments up again this summer, and got started with the IUI process. I will spare you all the details of how each cycle works, but I just have to say that giving myself shots is 100% terrifying. I've been able to do it, but only out of sheer force of love for our future kid(s).

So we've been doing IUI cycles, and each time we do I think, maybe this is finally it. With this help, maybe this month won't be yet another in the long line of disappointing months of the years. And we've had negative results, which are always heartbreaking in their own right. Because *infertility sucks*.

Last week, however, we found out that our most recent IUI cycle ended with a positive pregnancy test - we were shocked, and thrilled! And the timing couldn't have been better - my mom and dad were visiting the day after I got the news, plus the day I found out was her birthday (September 1st), and all of it lined up in a very fun and exciting way. The catch was that the hCG level, while definitely in the positive range, was lower than the clinic would like it to be, so they were going to test again in two days. If it doubled after two days, that was indicative of a growing pregnancy; if it stayed the same or lowered, it could be a sign of a miscarriage.

With that knowledge, I knew that we weren't technically in the clear yet, but I also didn't think that there would end up being a problem. With my last two pregnancies, I wasn't able to detect them with home pregnancy tests until later than most people are able to, which is especially surprising with twins. So as far as I can tell, I have a history of starting my pregnancies with lower hCG without it meaning anything is wrong. So, I reasoned, that's what was likely to be the case here.

I made "big brother" and "big sister" T-shirts for the twins to wear to surprise my parents, I downloaded a pregnancy app, I calculated about when I'd be due - in May, the same month Matthew was due. I realized I'd be able to wear the "due in May" shirt I bought when I was pregnant with him, and that brought comfort to me after keeping it for all those years since losing him.

We didn't tell many other people in the meantime, just in case, and would wait until after my next appointment when we would test my hCG again. But it was fun talking with my parents about how we might set up a new baby logistically in our apartment and fun ways we might announce the pregnancy.

You can guess where this is going.

I had my follow-up blood test, and the result was that my hCG hadn't changed. It wasn't a growing pregnancy. It was a biochemical pregnancy - basically, a very early miscarriage. The egg was fertilized, but either didn't quite implant or didn't grow properly, and didn't stick around.

To say we were heartbroken is an understatement. The tears came quicker and and fell harder than they have in a while. Josh held me while I cried (sobbed) into him, but I know it cut him just as deeply as it cut me.

I wished I had never gotten a positive in the first place, even though that would've been a hard result in its own right. But now I had let myself get excited, I had begun to imagine and talk about a future for our family with this new baby. And just as quickly, it was gone. The hole in my heart felt bigger and emptier than it has in a long time.

If I felt broken from my secondary infertility in the first place - and I did - I now felt like all those cracks just fell apart.

(Illustration by Conrad Roset for Marie Claire magazine)

We will find healing as we grieve. We know that from experience. And we will move forward with our fertility treatments. We will have hope, and we will not give up.

But man...


Infertility is a b****.

Miscarriage is a b****.


Love,
Ashley

Feel What You Feel

Coronavirus news is everywhere. We all know that's the big thing right now, worldwide. It's scary, overwhelming, and who truly knows what all the effects of this pandemic will be, short- and long-term?

I think it's important to find gratitude in our lives, no matter how big or small, and I believe that a lot of good can come from that. But I also am a big believer in allowing yourself to feel what you feel. If you're mad, be mad. If you're grieving, let yourself grieve. Whatever the circumstance is, giving ourselves space to feel what we need to is important.

So here I am.

Don't get me wrong, we're doing fine, we're able to provide for our needs, and the twins don't really know any better. Life as we know it is okay.

But.

Here is some of the not-so-fun stuff that I've been feeling.

I'm anxious. Just this underlying anxiety that never really seems to go away. We have some stability in our home and our lives, but who knows if that could change? Or what about our families? Our friends? Who knows who will be affected, or by how much? How many people might I know who will get sick, or maybe even die, by the end of all this? Or if any of us get sick, what could be the impact on our family? What will the financial future of our families look like? What about that of our country? And what will it mean for all of us moving forward?

And what if the effects are far-reaching enough that food and essential supplies become scarce? More-so than what is happening with panic-buying and stocking up. What if it becomes legitimately hard to find what we need to survive? Is that even a possibility? Because thinking about that scares me.

I miss my family. I live far away from most of them anyway, and there are lots of ways that we stay connected thanks to technology, but knowing that you have to be isolated while there is so much going on in the world, it feels like it just brings out how much I miss them even more. I wish I could be with them.

I'm also worried about Josh's mental health. We've mostly adjusted to him working from home, but I know it wears on him to never go out. And I know a lot of this is hard on him in other ways. What if everything compounds and his depression and anxiety take a turn for the worse? His mental illnesses have taken us down some very dark roads, and I'm terrified of that happening here and now.

And I wish I had a little baby. It feels like I'm grieving a baby I don't have yet (which feels both similar and different compared to the grief I have about Matthew). I never thought when we started trying to get pregnant again back at the end of 2017 that we'd still be waiting. I know it's not an easy time to be pregnant or be giving birth, but it still hurts. And having fertility treatments cancelled doesn't help. I just wish I had a baby to be holed up with, to snuggle, to spend my energy taking care of, to shower with love. I'm emotionally tired and I hate that aching in my arms and my heart.

I believe that things will be okay, one way or another. But there is a lot of hard in the meantime.

Whatever you are feeling is valid. Hang in there, you're not alone. ♥



Love,
Ashley

Life Updates

Wow. It's been 1.5+ years since my last blog post. I guess that's what happens when you share stuff mostly on social media, right?

One of the big things going on right now is that Josh applied for a promotion at work. This position feels like it would be such a good fit for Josh, better for his mental health (arguably the most important feature, especially for us), and of course, better pay. ;) It's been a slow process and we've heard that the positions may have been filled at this point, though we haven't confirmed that. So, even if he doesn't get it this time around, he'll apply again when it becomes available again, because they apparently regularly have openings as the company takes on more clients. So though we'd obviously love for him to get the position now, we're still optimistic about him getting it sometime in the future.

The other big thing going on right now is that I recently officially started fertility treatments due to secondary infertility. We'd been trying for over 2 years, and finally visited Utah Fertility Clinic in Pleasant Grove. We love it there already! We started with a bunch of testing - blood tests, semen analysis, etc - and everything was good with all that stuff, so I got started on treatments that would lead up to IUI. So far this has included prescriptions, a vaginal ultrasound, a water ultrasound, and an HSG. P.S. the water ultrasound and HSG are NOT pleasant. But they're manageable. P.P.S. the twins are learning a lot by going to appointments with me, haha. ;)

When they did the water ultrasound and followed up with the HSG, they found some tissue in my uterus that shouldn't be there, probably scar tissue. It's not necessarily the cause of my secondary infertility, but taking care of it does improve our chances of getting pregnant and keeping that pregnancy as we continue with treatment. So we stopped me where I was in my current round of treatment, and I went in yesterday for a hysteroscopy (no, not a hysterectomy!). Basically they knock you out, go in with a camera, and then surgically remove anything that shouldn't be there. Now I just have to wait for my next period again to start treatments over again. Thankfully Josh's work allows him a certain amount of days paid leave for emergency-type medical whatever, and apparently this falls under that, so he was able to take yesterday and today off to get me to and from the procedure and then help at home while I recover. I'm super thankful for that. <3

That's all the big stuff right now! The twins are crazy, cuddly, opinionated, spirited 4-year-olds, and that keeps us plenty busy beyond our other obligations. And we love it.

Love,
Ashley