A storey of hope!

Here is an inspirational storey from Steph. I met her on todays parent and did a prediction for her. Although her ttc was a stressful journey, and had its ups and downs, there was certainly a silver lining to look forward to. This storey is to show you, that although what you may be up against seems "pointless" to continue and it seems "easier" to just give up, sometimes its the perserverance, that pays off in the end:)

"After only taking 9 months to conceive our first daughter, we were not prepared for the long road that fertility would take us down when trying for our second child. When DD#1 was 22 weeks old, I got AF for the first time. DH and I discussed TTC again and decided to get started right away as we knew that since I was 36, it might be harder to get pregnant the second time around. Little did we know that it would take 2 years. After TTC for 9 months, in May 2005 I contacted my OBGYN to have some testing done. I could not get in to see him for another 4 months so I went to my GP and got a referral to the Ottawa Fertility Clinic, knowing it would take forever to get in there. My OBGYN had all the testing done in advance that was required by the Fertility Clinic. I had bloodwork, hysterosalpingogram, ultrasounds, paps and a variety of swabs. Finally there was a cancellation at the clinic so our appointment was moved up to December 2005. In the meantime, I bought a ClearBlue Fertility Monitor (my best purchase EVER). Little did we know that when we visited the clinic, we were actually pregnant. Very Happy Christmas to us! BFP on Dec 22, 2005. I called the clinic to cancel our place on the IUI list but they said to hold off as they hate jinxing anyone. Good thing as on January 18th, I started bleeding. We had a number of ultrasounds done and the heartbeat was there. We were relieved. But on January 30th, the heartbeat was no longer and I had a D&C on January 31st. It was the hardest thing that my husband and I have ever had to live through. I spent weeks crying on and off. How could this happen? We ended up having an IUI done on March 17th, 2006 (all those meds and shots GROAN). It did not take. It was our last chance to have a fertility treatment as the clinic was moving and would not be ready to do more procedures until summer. While we waited, we tried the Sperm Meets Egg Plan (SMEP) and I got pregnant again in late May. Again, I started spotting and this time my HCG levels never got off the ground. I miscarried again on June 6th. I was fed up. In July, we tried the SMEP one more time. We knew that we were on the eve of the 2 year anniversary of TTC. We didn't put much into it as we were in the middle of putting our house up for sale and finalizing the touches on the house we had built. Cheri told me "APRIL" back in September 2005. I thought I would have to get pregnant in August to give birth in April until someone pointed out to me that I would actually have to get pregnant in July. When this was pointed out to me, I knew right then and there that I was pregnant. I bought a Clearblue Digital test the next morning and there it was: +. To be honest, we never really believed that we would have that baby. I bled 3 big bleeds from week 5 to week 13. I had 6 ultrasounds in that time as I was a nervous wreck. I literally was making myself sick. Until I had that baby in my arms, I was not a believer. But here I sit with my 7 month old Megan in my lap while I type this (did I mention Cheri said GIRL!). She is VERY real indeed. And she was worth every minute."
Steph