the baby story continues .. where are my eggs?

Most women have a mass abundance of eggs, in fact if your interested at about 16 weeks gestation a baby girl has 6 to 7 million potential eggs called "oocytes". For some reason most of them waste away and at birth she will be left with only 1-2 million. No eggs develop after birth. By the time this chica reaches puberty she will have around 300,000 oocytes. An adequate amount for a good reproductive life! Of course only a small percentage of these oocytes will mature into actual eggs. The average egg maturation is around 400 for a lifetime. Thats still A LOT of eggs!

Not sure i have the average amount, less or more. I have never been a "regular" type gal. So either i am storing up or protecting. Cant be sure which. either way my oocytes would like to remain mysterious. Some years i have only had 1 yes thats ONE period. Not even sure that was a result of any kind of egg production, perhaps just waist removal. As you can imagine this does get in the way of easy conception, yet somehow i have 3 beautiful kids {ok so storie was not naturally conceived because of this issue, but the other two right?}

last year early in the year i began to be plagued yet once again by the idea that there was yet another child waiting for our family. I was most disturbed and frustrated, i liked the peaceful feeling that we were done and what our lives were like, so for several months i chose to ignore the feelings and promptings. This didnt make them go away, in fact it intensified them! In early spring it was on my mind most of the day, and it was annoying, i didnt want it to be. But i realized i should start working through it and go through the motions of finding answers and solutions to what i was supposed to be doing. End of april 2010 at womens conference, a talk by Elder Oaks sealed the deal, not even sure that the talk really had directly anything to do with my personal problem but it gave me the answer i needed.

It just so happens during this same time period we were in the middle of insurance chaos and a transition, so i began to include future possibilities in that planning process. once that was in motion the next step was one of the biggest requiring that leap of faith and endurance i had not kept years prior, the removal of the IUD. Prior to this step i went through a realm of emotion and instability in the decision, a blessing or two, LOTS of crying, and oddly enough, some very strange physical changes and issues. Late May the IUD was removed, but it was yet to be seen if i had the faith to leave it out for longer then a month.

Obviously i did.

After a few months of the IUD being removed and expected irregular but strange periods i decided i should see a doc. Who ran all sorts of tests and found some strange results but nothing with definitive answers, just guesses. After a few more weeks it was evident that with my age being that it was and my EGGS in question fertility drugs might be the answer. I struggled with this decision as well, how can that be? If this was what we were supposed to be doing then why not just send me a kid right? was i not understanding? was i not learning or experiencing what i was really supposed to be? with hesitation i began the pharmaceutical provocation of my period and fertility drugs followed by lots of blood work. After several months of this and never once even ovulating i seriously began to wonder if any oocytes even existed in my body. I decided that i was on the wrong path and i needed to re-evaluate. The decision was mutual, nate was feeling it too and we werent willing to go to invasive measures to get a baby, we werent even sure we were supposed to have another. So the process came to a halt and we began to let go of the idea and explore what this process and these feelings might have served purpose for.

Over the next few months i began to be more "regular" then i had ever been in my life {on my very own without any pharmaceutical intervention}. I found this to be strange considering it was such a rare thing in my life. But continued to move out and away from the idea of a baby, with only occasional thoughts here and there, in fact i was contemplating IF we should consider some kind of birth control just in case i actually did have some eggs somewhere in there. But had not yet done anything, just sort of waiting for that day when i KNEW the answers having faith that it would become clear sooner then later.

Nate and I really dont have anything for a baby in this house, or even a toddler. Not a single sippie cup or blankie. nothing. We had given it all away years prior. I had started to collect a few items over our "trying period" but decided that i was indeed at peace and that my little fam was complete so i shipped what i had to pregnant sis-in laws and friends. {this is in no way a plea for the return of said items, i wanted to send them to you all!] I tell this only because it carries so much irony.

A few days after my shipping spree ... while anticipating another period I started receiving intense inspiration to go get a pregnancy test, I didnt give in until it got louder both physically and emotionally. No period had come and so i relented, drove to the dollar store, drove home. Proceeded to take a $1 pregnancy test mid day, so not "ideal" testing time of day, fully expecting it to be negative! and my crazy thoughts to just go away! But not so .... It was positive and i was pregnant. SURPRISE!

Hind sight is always 20/20 as i have said many times before. I especially think this pertains to the spiritual and emotional side of one self, specifically myself! It took me several weeks and lots of emotions to sort through the experiences that had gone down over the last year and what they meant. But i have found peace, I can see that for many reasons this could happen in no other way. Both nate and i needed this process to be able to do this and feel right and good about it, to know where and whom it came from and what the intentions of a grander design are.