I’m just about 32 years old, and I’m still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up… soOooOo let’s all let that one sink in for a second. It’s funny, looking back on my life up until now, I just realized that I’ve never been absolutely certain about much of anything. That’s not to say i’m not happy and proud of all of the decisions I made that led me to this point in my life—it just is what it is.
I respected my teachers so much when I was younger, that I thought I wanted to be a teacher (am I a teacher now? Nope).
I was recruited by a bunch of D1 colleges to play lacrosse, and I accepted a scholarship to what I thought was my dream school (did I play all four years? Nope! Oh, and I transferred.)
Every time I think I’ve found the perfect job, something goes wrong (double the work with no increase in pay, layoffs, acquisitions… you name it).
My point here is I’ve never been absolutely certain of anything. Except one thing: I’ve always wanted to be a mom.
So I’m going to take you back to one of the hardest times in my life— crazy to think, but it was only about three years ago. Jay and I got married on September 19, 2015. I decided to go off birth control shortly before the wedding. I always had those crazy dreams that I’d get knocked up and not fit into my dress, or not be able to drink or have fun. HA. Oh the worries I had when I was young… so I figured my best bet was to stay on the pill until the month of the wedding.
We knew we wanted to start trying right away, and it was crazy that it actually worked out that I would be ovulating on our honeymoon. PERFECT TIMING, right!? Yea, it would be for a girl who actually was ovulating. But unfortunately, I wasn’t. And even more unfortunately, I didn’t
know it until after about nine months of trying, nine months of being “late” for my period, nine months of peeing on ovulation stick after ovulation stick, squinting to see if there was a line, and wasting tons of $$ on pregnancy tests each month I was “late.”
When it didn’t work in September, we were okay with it —saying, “Oh it never works the first time… we’ll be fine!
When it didn’t work in October, we told ourselves we weren’t actively trying… we were just “not not trying.”
I remember crying on Christmas eve after getting the negative pregnancy test. I remember crying at one of my closest friend’s 30th birthday parties after going to the bathroom and getting my period. I remember crying…. a lot.
In March, I had my yearly checkup with my OBGYN. I explained to her that I was actively trying to conceive, and it just wasn’t working. I told her that I tried everything—first the app, then the sticks, and even taking my basal body temperature. In addition to a ton of other things like experimenting with vitamins, essential oils, acupuncture, preseed, yoga—you name it, we tried it.
She asked me about my periods, and I told her the truth—they were WACKY! I was late every. single. month. In the beginning, this got me excited. I thought, maybe there’s a chance I’m pregnant. But as the months went on, I just realized my cycles were super inconsistent. She asked me about my period when I was younger, and the reason I went on birth control to begin with. I never actually thought about it until that moment, but the original reason I went on birth control was to regulate my period—not because I was sexually active. So it clicked in my head, and hers, at the same time: There was something going on here. I’ve always had a condition—it was just masked for the previous 14 years by birth control regulating my cycles. She suspected that I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, otherwise known as PCOS.
I feel like I just blacked out for the remainder of the appointment. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. I was so upset. I had no idea what PCOS was or what any of it meant. “I’m not ovulating? Do I even have eggs? Will I ever be able to have children?” All of these questions filled my head, and I left the doctor’s office absolutely devastated. I remember sitting in the parking lot frantically calling infertility doctors in between bouts of tears.
I finally got an appointment at Reproductive Medical Associates of Philadelphia (RMA). Fast forward a few weeks, and both my blood work and ultrasound confirmed my diagnosis.
A few weeks later, Jay got tested, and he was all good. I actually just found my ‘happiness journal’ (I bought it to keep myself sane during this time). On 5.3.2016, I wrote, “We got the BEST NEWS EVER today—Jay’s sample was allll good! I am SO happy for him!!” … and later that night I (unfortunately) added, “Good night turned bad. I cried uncontrollably for no reason talking about all of the showers and parties and events I have to go to. I am so messed up.”
UGH. just reading that takes me back to this time and makes me want to cry. I was messed up, and it 
wasn’t my fault! I was in a shitty situation, and social events made the situation even shittier. People who didn’t know what I was going through would ask me when I was going to have a baby or say things like “you’re next, what’s taking so long!?” And I’d have to fight to hold back my tears. And then people who knew what I was going through would either avoid talking about it or ask me about it—and it was a lose/lose situation either way. I was pumped full of hormones, and I was hormonal. So sueeee me!
In between March and June, I had to visit RMA on a weekly basis. I got blood work and ultrasounds each time, and I had to get two procedures done during that time period as well, a hysteroscopy and hysterosalpingogram, aka HSG test. Based on my initial ultrasounds, my doctor thought that my uterus might be heart-shaped, which could pose a problem for carrying a baby. The point of the hysteroscopy is to diagnose problems of the uterus—so they inserted a hysteroscope (thin, lighted telescope-like device) into my uterus and transmitted a higher resolution image onto a screen. I didn’t know what I was looking at, but it turned out to be a good day when I found out my uterus was all good!
The HSG test was a radiology procedure that I had done at Jefferson Hospital. The point of this procedure was to determine whether my fallopian tubes were opened or blocked. It was another good day when I found out that I didn’t have any blockages! (And shoutout to my amazing mom for driving me into the city and coming with me to get this test done.)
FINALLY, things were starting to look up, and I was given the okay to start my treatments. I was put on Provera to induce my period, and then I could start taking the ovulation medication (Femera) once my period came. The timing, for once, worked out perfectly for me! I had a work trip when my period came, so I was able to take the meds while I was away, and then the week I got back, I’d be monitored to see if they were working.
More tears came while I was away (surprise, surprise.. right?) I had to deal with my insurance company threatening to not cover my procedures all while trying to hold myself together and give professional presentations at a work conference.
I was so happy to finally come home and be able to see if the medication was working. I had an appointment the day after I got home, and the ultrasound showed that a few of my follicles were growing! YAY! More good news (Although I refused to believe anything was good at the time). They suggested that we do an Intrauterine insemination (IUI) right away to increase our odds of conceiving, but we SAW MY EGG, and we asked if we could just try like a normal couple this time. We agreed that the following month, we’d do an IUI.
So I went back to the doctor every day for about a week and watched my little follicle grow into an egg, and when it was at 22mm, the doctor gave me the OK to give myself a shot to make it drop. That was a Thursday night. He then told us to have “timed intercourse” on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
You’d think this would be fun, right? Ha—WRONG AGAIN! Well, OK, it was fun on Friday. It was another one of my best friend’s 30th birthday celebrations, so we celebrated pretty hard… probably too hard, because the next morning, Jay was almost too hungover to “perform his duties” and I cried again (which I’m sure didn’t help the situation). But I was the one who had to go to the doctor every day, I was the one getting things stuck up me and needles in my arm every other day, and I just wanted all of that to mean something! I wanted it to work SO bad!!!
**Side note, he was definitely the most supportive husband in the worldddd during this time and in his defense, he gets pretty bad hangovers…BUT THAT’S BESIDE THE POINT! According to my calculations, Saturday morning would be the EXACT TIME my egg dropped so it was THE BEST CHANCE WE HAD. To this day, I still tell him that was the day we conceived. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I almost wished I would have just done the IUIs because in reality, the word “timed” takes all of the fun out of the word “intercourse,” and it put a lot of pressure on both of us!
But anyway, we did our “homework” Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And then we had to experience yet another dreadful two week wait. Those two weeks were pretty long. Probably the longest out of all of the two week waits I’ve ever experienced. My doctor told
me not to take a pregnancy test because the shot actually had the pregnancy hormone in it, so a test would show a false positive if I took it at all during that time. FINALLY, the time came where I could go to the Dr. and get blood work to determine if I was pregnant or not. It felt so weird not peeing on any sticks that month or not doing all of the things I was so used to doing for the previous nine months. I honestly was pretty numb at this appointment. I pretended it wasn’t happening, and I had very low expectations.
I didn’t want to get my hopes up, so I just decided to remove my mind from my physical body and hope for the best. Then the best ACTUALLY happened. About three hours later, I got a call. And it was my doctor’s voice. Not the nurses who typically call me with my blood results. I have the chills writing this .. I remember that phone call like it happened yesterday. It was the best news I ever received in my entire life. I was happy, scared, excited, probably every emotion I could possibly experience all at the same time. I remember sitting down and uncontrollably shaking. I wanted to wait until Jay got home to share the news, but I just couldn’t. I think I called him about 15 times before he finally called back. He knew it as soon as he saw the missed calls…. and up until this point, that day (6.3.2016) was the best day of both of our lives.
I won’t bore you with the details of my 37 week pregnancy, but I will tell you that my sad story had a very happy ending. Joelle Paige Lubragge was born on January 23, 2017, and that day was THE best day of our lives. I am now a mom, and Jay is now a dad.. and these titles (for us) are better than any other titles we could ever be given in our lives.
We consider ourselves so lucky that we were able to create a life, her life… and we thank RMA and the amazing scientific advancements in medicine every single day for making our dreams come true. Our little Joey Beanerz is now a year and a half, and we absolutely adore her. It has been so amazing watching her develop her personality and grow into such a beautiful (and crazy) little human!! I love her to death, and I thank my lucky stars every day that she is here with us.
So I think I’ve learned a lot about myself during this time, and during my 32 years here on earth.
And if I could give anyone out there like me one piece of advice, it would be to JUST KEEP SWIMMING. (yes, I totally just plagiarized that from Finding Nemo, but I’m a mom now, give me a break!)
Things may not make sense now, but just keep swimming, and some day you’ll be like me looking back at your happiness journal laughing and crying at the same time while writing a blog post when you should be going to pick up your daughter from her grandparents house…
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