As many of you know we are expecting a baby! Due July 21, 2018. We are beyond excited and actually quite surprised. I thought I would share our story and then get rolling with more blog posts of telling my husband, bump dates and updates!
I haven't shared much about my struggle with PCOS, and hormonal issues over the past few years. So I think I will start there to help you understand why getting a positive pregnancy test was so unbelievable for us.
In the Winter/Spring of 2016 I started experiencing some issues regarding my periods, pain in my abdomen, I gained thirty pounds very rapidly, and I started to have some facial breakouts. I started to feel sick all the time. I continued to workout and run regularly. I was very stingy with how I ate. But there was nothing that seemed to help. I began to spiral downward into a bad state of depression. I was so discouraged, I was doing everything I could do to the best of my knowlegde to get healthy and feel better. But with no results and feeling worse I became mentally not well either. I was so confused. I spent so much of my time crying and feeling like a failure. I finally started to feel like something was just not right.
Summer of 2016 I booked my first doctors appointment, had blood work done, an ultrasound and was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. The doctor told me that I needed to eat 900 calories a day and do 45 minutes of cardio, and that when I lost weight all the hormone issues, pain and cysts would go away. I went home and did exactly what he said to do. I ate the 900 cals a day and did 45 minutes of cardio a day. I went to my follow up appointment 3 months later and had gained more weight. The doctor then said "It's obvious that you haven't done what I've told you to do or you would have lost weight...". I was beside myself, I left that room crying, the hyperventilating type of crying. I called my mom and she prayed over me. She then called me back a few minutes later saying she found a doctor she wanted me to know go see. I went and saw the doctor she had found a few weeks later and told her everything. She informed me that she could help me. She explained all the things that were going wrong with my body, she broke down how my body was unable to maintain proper blood-sugar because of how out of control my hormones were. She gave me some medication, she told me to do less stress involved working out, she helped me understand what type of diet I should be on (I am sure you could guess, it involved more than 900 cals), and most of all she offered hope to me. One of the hardest things though that she said was "you will not get pregnant naturally, but I am going to help you..."
At that point I was so far from feeling like I could even think of being a mom and have a baby. Though the thought of not being able to get pregnant was hard and scary, I had a lot on my mind as far as what my health would look like in the future. I knew I had some healing to do both physically and mentally. Also something that I learned again through this journey is, depression is real. So real. It is so crazy how strong your mind is. How much it can make you believe, how once your in a bad place it feels %100 harder to get out when depression becomes a factor. It is a real thing. But I now had the hope, and refreshed willpower to work hard on getting better. It wasn't long before I started to feel better, loose some weight, and became mentally stronger too. A year later I was in such a better, positive place! On a side note - I am so blessed that Brandyn was always so encouraging, loving and kind through all of my ups and downs. He was so amazing through it all! And even though it was hard we both became closer to each other and to God.
So I was feeling better but I still had no idea if I would ever get pregnant...BABY ROSS PART 2 blog post coming soon, so stay tuned!
xoxo - K
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