Thoughts from The Lowder's

In honor of Infertility Awareness Week I thought it would great to hear the stories of other couples faced with infertility. Amber and her husband Travis are also being sponsored by Pound the Pavement for Parenthood! In fact we are sharing the same race day! After an intense road on their adventure of infertility Amber and Travis were inspired to move towards adoption! They are going to make amazing parents and we are so excited for the little bundle of happiness that will come to their family. Below is their story. It's beautiful and empowering. And here's the link for their family blog...www.travisandber.blogspot.com and the link to their adoption blog www.lowderadoption.blogspot.com. Spread the word and help them find their miracle! 

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Our Road of Infertility...

You never know when this life changing trial is going to choose you. It isn’t in us to expect that you’re going to struggle to bring a child of your own into your home.  We never prevented pregnancy. After about a year of nothing happening we went into the Doctor. All the labs came back normal, which is weird considering I have endometriosis, chronic anovulation, possible PCOS.  It wasn’t a surprise that I had these things wrong with me as they do run in my family and even with my identical twin sister. But I figured that they were able to get pregnant so it was just a matter of trying hard enough and getting in to the doctor.

I was really hopeful after my first appointment. We started out small with Clomid, but didn’t really respond, so we tried Femora and it seemed to regulate me but they couldn’t confirm that I ovulated. So we got more aggressive and did the HCG shot to up our chances. After that didn’t work, we went in and did our first IUI and it didn’t work and neither did the next 2 IUI’s. We went in and gave ourselves a fresh slate by me having a laparoscopy and getting rid of my endometriosis and checking that I didn’t have cervical cancer. Which I didn’t thank goodness.  It helped my periods too so we were hopeful again. So we tried our 4^th IUI and it failed, the next one we couldn’t do because I developed a cyst. That’s when I noticed I was gaining a lot of weight; I became depressed and sad at our situation that all around me it was happening for other women, but not me. So we took it to the next step and tried being as aggressive as we could and did IUI’s with femora, with HCG, with injectable drugs to increase my eggs. We were trying everything suggested to us: yoga…vitamins…herbs….chiropractor. At one point a doctor was telling me to eat more bacon and butter and salt and that cholesterol was a myth!! Like I said we tried everything we could and after 2 more failed attempts, we threw in the towel and our doctor said it was time for IVF. We had done all that we could do. After several different well-known doctors and all the treatments they all recommended; we were left empty handed.  It was a moment I will never forget. The disappointment and hurt at moments seemed to swallow us up. I hate shots and felt like we had pushed past what we ever thought we could do emotionally or financially.

We were devastated, but we pushed through and started to save up for IVF. When we were getting closer, and we were just about to take out a loan for the procedure, all of a sudden it didn’t seem right. We were devastated at these feelings but as the dust settled we started thinking about adoption and a little flame was lit. At first we were hesitant, but we became educated and then the fire within our hearts began.

So now we are in the process of adoption….it is a different kind of hard.

The biggest thing I have learned from doing Infertility is that yes it isn’t fair sometimes how it doesn’t just happen for some people. I think we both definitely went through depression, disappointment and even down right anger, where we felt like we couldn’t keep doing this. Even sometimes to point of just saying we are done trying to bring children into our home. But somehow we are lifted and we keep going.  But I think trying to focus on that we will have children by means of fertility treatments or adoption and sometimes just taking it moment at a time helps. But it is a hard road. But I know we will appreciate those little ones that finally make it to our home. But it definitely is one of the hardest things we have had to go through. But we are doing it and we love being in support groups and we are wide open about our story…so if we can offer anything to anyone…we are here!!!

Love-Amber and Travis