Our Life's Journey: 2020-2022

I really don’t know where to start because it will be a long post. But I will try to describe everything as concise as possible.

It was June 2020 when I decided to stop taking any birth control pills. We didn’t start directly with baby-making intention but I want to see how my body will react on changes. The first two months were okay, it seems like my body went directly to its normal clock: normal period, no weight gain, and more hair.

Later on, as days get darker so does my mood. Since September or October 2020, I realize that my period didn’t come as I expected. There were months without a period and the one that hit me the most was December. I had no period for two months by the end of that year. I told my husband to get the matter check professionally.

Maybe it was my body, my mind, and my soul that didn’t synchronize but there has to be a medical reason for that, right?

So, I was at my gynecologist two times by the end of that year but felt dissatisfied. My gynecologist couldn’t give the exact root causes for why I didn’t have my period and why I feel bloated. She said it could be a cyst that rupture but I didn’t buy it because there is no sign of it. There was no blood work drawn and every visit seemed like only looking at an empty uterus.

So I decided to Google online some fertility specialists in town. I found one that I think has good reviews and contacted them. Like contacting every specialist in Germany, we had to wait for about three months for an appointment.

By that time of the appointment, the lockdown has been relaxed though German employers have been really kind with home office rules.

By March 2021, we were almost one year doing the home office. This arrangement made my doctor's appointment more bearable. Although 2021 turned to be a good year after all, when we were living it, it didn’t seem like that.

On the second visit to our reproduction specialist, I found out that I have really high AMH (Anti Mullerian Hormone) and a minor infection. Really high AMH and missing periods are indications of PCOS. When people my age should have around 1,xx AMH, my AMH was shooting high at 8,9. My RE told me it wasn’t something bad, it could even mean longer fertility. However, at the moment, due to high AMH, it is very difficult for my body to produce the good size follicles that the baby needs.

So I went to oral treatment in Spring that year and end up on the IVF table by the beginning of autumn. In total, we had together 5 to 6 cycles together. In these cycles, we had to visit the doctor on weekly basis: weekly blood works, medications, injections, tempting, charting, and of course a lot of other efforts that could make us tired as humans.

In summer 2021, we flew to Indonesia to visit my family. By that time our family situation, career, and financial conditions were actually very mature.

My pee-on-the-stick pregnancy test was also shortly positive when I was traveling to Indonesia. However, it didn’t stay that long. I was a bit sad but the fact that everything went so well in our life overshadows this disappointment.

What we also found out is that suddenly we have an excess capital of several hundred thousand euros. We invested much of this fortune and upgraded our life a bit. My sister is settled up in the Netherlands and doing great with her study. My career is stable, I got a good increase and I know how to do my job. I am not so shy with my Deutsch skill anymore. People need me at work and I know more people from time to time. However, things felt differently by my husband. The job that gave him a financial boost has also given him headaches in the past years. Moving nearer to my office means further away from his employer. He hates his traveling time and he complained every day about it. Due to Corona, the oil market was at its bottom low. The promotion that has been promised to him wasn’t guaranteed. He didn’t want to stay in that old plant; he wanted and still wants to travel the world and have a more international working environment.

So after that Indonesian trip, we told our RE to speed up the process and even escalate it to IVF because my husband found a job in another city. The job that will save us from burnout and gave us more quality time together.

Proceeding with IVF, felt very rushed. I was led from one disappointment to another disappointment. First, there were 19 good size follicles that the doctor identified in the beginning. It ends up being only 4 mature follicles that have been harvested from me. How can we go to 4 from 19 good sizes? It was one IVF mystery that we haven’t solved yet. The good news was all of these 4 mature follicles were fertilized and ready for transfer. We did the transfer by the end of September 2021 and 14 days later I got negative blood work from my RE office.

Enough with grieving, our life was actually very packed and hectic. By October 2021, my husband started his new job in the new city. We have two houses to maintain. His employer gave us a temporary stay in a nice aparthotel in the middle of Frankfurt city. Suddenly, I need to juggle work, two houses, and 1,5 traveling between my office in Dusseldorf and our new home in Frankfurt am Main. Being so busy with this new development, I put my fertility journey a bit pause. Of course, we changed clinic to Frankfurt and I did another blood work there but we didn’t move forward with the transfer.

By December 2021, we finally found our current home that we love and signed the lease for the next two years. I packed all of our stuff and our life into boxes and was ready to move. No friend was helping us with the moving because my husband’s employer also paid for the professional moving service for us. I was so tired from packing 50+ boxes alone and thought what else could I do to make things right?

Without any hope but being surprisingly at peace with myself, I got my first positive test the first night I moved to our new apartment in Frankfurt! No intervention, no meds, no plan, and it just happened. What a miracle!

I thought: finally all the blood work, doctor visits, work-related stress, and moving led us into this. But bear in mind, that it was the darkest time of the year, so I spent my days feeling tired and nauseated all the time.

Fast forward to May 2022, and there are plenty of things that happened between then and now. Our new apartment in Frankfurt is getting homier, our works are getting steadier, and our friends visited us from time to time. We even did a short babymoon to Sevilla Spain and visited my family in Indonesia.

I can’t believe that things turned out this way for us. Who could have predicted that the pregnancy comes at the least expected time? I still can’t answer so many questions and I still have doubts from time to time. But I know that whatever happens will happen… Que Sera Sera! Easy to say, but not easy to live by.

Currently, I am feeling very grateful and also hopeful about the future. My second trimester was a blast and I had so little discomfort most of the time. In fact, my body feels stronger and healthier. I gained 14 kg in the last 6 months! I know I have to keep an eye on my nutrition and my weight, but apart from these worries… I feel so calm and happy this summer.

Moral of the story: sometimes you don’t know what you are getting into because nobody connects the dots going forward. You can only connect the dots when it is backward. So think positively and always do your best given the circumstances!

It may seem so long, it may seem there is no light at the end of the tunnel, but you can change that and when you changed that… you will be glad that you did.

My pray:

"God bless us in Your wings.. and give this angel the life she deserves. Bless her soul and bless us along the way"