First Day of School

The twins had their first ever first day of school today. I can't believe they're in Kindergarten already. It feels like a whole new phase of parenthood to have kids in school. My thoughts on all of this are probably a bit disjointed, so bear with me ;)

I had hoped that this school year would be normal compared to last year, and it is a bit, but with everything how it is right now we are still sending them to school with masks. They don't love it but thankfully we have some fun ones for them to wear, and their teacher will help them if they have trouble putting them on or anything. I wish the pandemic wasn't the way it is, but until then, we are doing our best with the situation.

They've been so excited to start school, especially after meeting their teacher and seeing their classroom. Recently it's been "x more tomorrows until school!" every day. I had them start with being in the same class together in Kindergarten, and we'll see how things progress from there for if/when they eventually do separate. It's been comforting to know that they'll have each other for now.

Although honestly, I have nothing to worry about. They're old for their grade, they're smart kids, they're good at listening to teachers, and they make friends so fast. They're going to be fine. I know that.

But they're also my babies. Thinking of them riding the bus, going to school, and ultimately starting a new phase of life where they gradually rely on me less and have to figure things out for themselves, it's a lot. I don't know what will be too new, hard, or scary to them. And this might sound dramatic, but I also know that in a way this is the beginning of the end. Over the years they will come to rely on themselves and their friends and need me less. That's what we want, but it's still a lot. (And I can't help thinking of the song There Goes My Life by Kenny Chesney, give it a listen if you feel like crying)

I was excited to take the typical first day of school pictures though! I can't wait to see how they progress through the years.

She wanted to take a picture like this too, and she added Movie Maker to her dream jobs :)

Sending them off on the bus this morning was really cute. Their backpacks are at least half the size of their bodies. And they already have some friends in their class. They got to play with a friend for a bit while waiting for the bus, and then when they were getting on they all held hands. I can't handle that amount of cuteness!!

It's also a complicated feeling in other ways, sending them off to their first day of school. I'm reminded that that's a milestone we never got to have with Matthew. And I always thought I'd have other sibling(s) in tow as we sent them off and welcomed them home, that they'd be so excited to see them and that I would get more individual time with the younger one(s) in the meantime. Of course none of that came to be.

Instead, this is our first *and* last time sending kids to school for the first time. It's mostly sweet, but still bittersweet.

Ultimately though, I'm excited for the twins and excited to see them keep learning and growing. These kids, you guys. They are my heart. ♥

Love,
Ashley

Infertility Awareness Week - What Our Experience Has Been Like

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. Having secondary infertility has affected my life very deeply, and to spread awareness and understanding I decided to put together this post about what secondary infertility has really been like. It's one of the hardest things I've been faced with. It’s important to note that everybody’s experience with infertility is unique and personal, so while I am sure there are commonalities with my experience, I also don’t speak for everyone who has been here.

What is it like to have secondary infertility and be unable to have more children?

It’s buying so many ovulation tests that never seem to help enough to get pregnant on our own.
It’s buying so many pregnancy tests that always turn up negative.
It’s getting your hopes up every time your period is even a little bit late, only to be crushed when it shows up month after month.
It’s trying to get pregnant for years while watching friends and family continue adding kids to their families.
It’s remembering how much you loved feeling the movements inside the womb, and never getting to feel that again.
It’s anticipating the excitement of pregnancy when you are getting ready to add to your family, only to be more and more heartbroken that that never comes.
It’s waiting to see how your family dynamics will change when you add more children, only for things to never change.
It’s talking about the fun ways you and your spouse might want to announce a pregnancy, and never getting to use any of them.
It’s imagining the bond that your current children will create as they meet and get to know their baby brother(s) or sister(s), and never being able to experience it.
It’s hearing your kids talk about how they want to have more siblings that they can play with, and wishing you could have given that to them years ago.
It’s keeping all of your baby clothes for years for your future children only to have to get rid of them without ever using them again.
It’s giving yourself so many shots and feeling a bigger emotional toll from it than you expected.
It’s having all the fun taken out of sex as it becomes more of a chore for both of you because of the pressure and timing.
It's all the testing and procedures and never determining a cause for your infertility.
It’s the mood swings of hormones from medications.
It’s bruising and puncture marks all over your belly from injections.
It’s getting your hopes up with every IUI cycle, only for it to fail time after time.
It’s getting your hopes even higher when you try IVF, only to be crushed when even that doesn’t work.
It’s crying at the doctor or on the phone because once again you received bad news.
It’s paying thousands of dollars for fertility treatments and coming up with nothing.
It’s imagining for years the complete family you want to have someday, only to ultimately learn that you can’t have any more kids.

(Pictured: all the syringes from my self-injections)

It’s loving your little family with all of your heart, and also feeling like it will never feel complete.
It’s feeling jealous and bitter about friends and family having babies while you can’t, and feeling guilty that you feel that way because you also love them, are genuinely happy for them, and would never blame them for having more kids and would never want them to not be able to.
It’s looking forward to trying again to breastfeed because having twins as your first was too overwhelming to keep it up, only to never get to try again.
It’s hoping that maybe next you will have one baby because you never got to feel the magic of devoting yourself to one tiny infant without worrying about another infant, and never getting to experience that.
It’s people telling you that maybe when you take a break it will happen, and that never being the case.
It’s having random meltdowns because something (big or small) triggered your grief.
It’s picturing your kids in your old baby swings and bouncers as you assemble them to sell and aching to see babies in them again.
It’s not bothering to go through any of your baby clothes as you sell them because when you tried to you ended up cradling them like a baby and crying.
It’s not pursuing more extensive options to grow your family because it’s too much financially and emotionally, but having to navigate the deep emotional impact of being done.
It’s having a list of baby names you and your spouse want to use and never getting to use them.

It's planning on things like walking with a baby to the bus stop to greet their older siblings home from school, only for those plans to never be realized.  
It’s dealing with the normal emotions of having had your last children, without getting to cherish any “lasts” because you never thought you wouldn’t be able to have more.
It’s feeling overwhelming loneliness even though you have a great support system, because infertility has a way of just always feeling lonely and isolating.
It’s not fully relating to those who have primary infertility because at least you had some kids before being infertile, while also not relating to those who haven’t had any infertility problems.
It’s feeling so grateful for the family that you have, while simultaneously being so heartbroken over not being able to have any more.
It’s holding on to the hope that eventually it will work out, and it never does.
It’s never being able to see your kids be helpers for a new baby.
It’s having to unfollow people you love because seeing all the pregnancy and baby announcements and pictures hurts too much.
It’s crying in the shower, crying when you go shopping, crying any time that the grief hits.
It’s trying for years and years to have more children and never having them.
It’s being absolutely certain that there are more children waiting to join your family, and then being just as certain that it’s okay to be done, and not knowing how to reconcile that.

It’s feeling not okay and not knowing how to be okay.

Infertility sucks.  



Love,
Ashley

Our Infertility Journey: A Different Path

Our infertility journey has turned out to be a really complicated one. Many of you know some of our recent updates either from GoFundMe or from me posting on Facebook, but to bring it all together this is what we had shared at that time:

"Our first round of IVF didn’t go like we hoped. I went through the daily injections for almost the whole round of meds, leading up to the egg retrieval, only for my body to decide to ovulate on its own (despite the medication that was supposed to prevent that). Without being able to fully prep for and time ovulation for egg retrieval, we were not able to do the retrieval at all and instead tried to salvage it with another IUI. You never know, right? Unfortunately that still didn’t work, so we ended up back at square one, just with a bunch less money spent on the medications I had been taking.

Saying that it was devastating is an understatement.

We’ve had some appointments between then and now, and are starting another attempt at IVF. This has not been an easy road but we continue to have faith. We ask for continued prayers and well-wishes as we move forward with this again. We appreciate everyone so much for their love and support, and are beyond grateful for the incredible generosity we have felt!!"

That brings us to our follow-up attempt at IVF. One of the things we discovered through the various testing we had done between cycles was that I have extremely low AMH. Like, absurdly low. Especially for someone my age. What this indicates is basically that I have very low ovarian reserves, a.k.a. not a lot of eggs left to work with. Based on this and my body's response to the last round of meds, my doctor put me on an almost entirely different round of medications for my new IVF cycle (what is referred to as a "min stim" cycle), that tends to have better results than the typical meds I was on for the previous IVF cycle. All of this information was very scary to me and what it might mean moving forward, but we were also hopeful that now that we knew about an issue we could work with it better.

So I started with my new IVF cycle, and as I took my daily meds (which included way less shots than previously, so that was a bright spot) and as I had my regular appointments of ultrasounds and blood tests to track my progress, we still ran into problems. Ultimately we discovered that my ovaries weren't very responsive to the medications, similar to the previous cycle. With the various meds and dosages that we had tried up to this point and based on what we continued to see at my appointments, my body just wasn't responsive to the meds and IVF was no longer a viable option for us.

This was heartbreaking news. We felt so hopeful about this path, and knowing it was another dead end was so hard to learn. At this point we were told that if we wanted to continue, our best options now were using an egg donor or doing embryo adoption. They both have their own high expenses and complicated paths, but they could be viable options for us.

However, after lots of discussion, pondering, prayer, etc., we agreed that we were both ready to be done. The toll that the highs and lows from fertility treatments has been heavy, financially and especially emotionally, and we can only keep it up for so long. We both feel at peace with this decision, though there is still *a lot* of heartbreak that comes with it.

This decision and our new journey brings a new mountain of grief that we will learn to navigate together. There is a lot to grieve when we hoped for so many years to bring more children into our family, and we will probably carry that grief with us for a long time.

But there is also gratitude wrapped up in this journey. We are so thankful to everyone in our lives who has been so loving and supportive to us in every way. None of it has gone unnoticed or unappreciated. And I thank God every day that he sent us the twins, because I couldn't imagine coming to this point and them not having each other. We will grieve, yes, but we are also so grateful for the little family that we have now. ♥



Love,
Ashley