Aloha and welcome to you. I am Kim, the hot flash part in babies and hot flashes! I have to pretty much start at the beginning of our story to let you know who we are and who the babies are! So, this first post is going to be a little long! I promise they won’t all be this way though. Not with two screaming kids around.

Mike and I always wanted to have kids. I should say that I have wanted to have a whole bunch of kids since I was about 8 years old. I had names picked out for at least 20 kids. I was always babysitting and grabbing people’s babies right out of their arms. I could have walked around holding a baby forever! It never seemed to change either. All the way through high school my only real dream was to get married and have kids. This was the only career I could see myself in. I know, not much of a woman’s libber was I!

I went to work right after high school and didn’t marry till I was 25. Mike is a wonderful man who is so patient! Good thing! I told him that I had never been on the pill, yet had never gotten pregnant and thought there might be a problem. I was very up front with him about this. He, of course, said it didn’t matter if we had kids or not! During the next 10 years we tried to have our own kids. First we just kept trying on our own. When I hit 32 or 33 we got insurance! A must if you are having problems conceiving! I found a really good OB/GYN and the real trying started. She found that one of my tubes was severely damaged. There is no known reason for it. Could have been an infection or, who knew what. So, first surgery was to try and clear the tube. The other tube was called a hydrosalphinx, say that 5 times fast! All it meant was that the tube was closed off at the top and the bottom of it. The tube was filled with fluid that my wonderful doctor refered to as “gutter water”.

After that first surgery, I had to do a fertility drug. I think that was to take my mind off the tubes till I healed up. Of course, the surgery didn’t help anything. They ran really crazy tests on us, and had us do things I won’t go into! Oh so romantic!!! After that and other weirdness, at the age of 36, Mike and I headed into the really crazy world of invitro fertilization! It is a roller coaster ride through hell! We did everything that they asked of us. At my age, They managed to get 9 eggs. 5 were fertilized and they decided to put all of them back into me. They told us we had more of a chance of never becomming pregnant than having a multiple birth. So, of course I got pregnant with 3!

We were so excited and happy. Mike walked around beaming like he had done something fantastic! We won’t tell him any different will we! I was just scared that something would go wrong, and it did! I started getting really bad pains within 2 weeks. The clinic we were going through just kept doing blood tests. They put me on complete bed rest and said everything was OK. The doctor that was assigned to me was old enough to scare the heck out of me. I had no confidence in him whatsoever. I would call and tell them that something was wrong, he would have me come in and do a vaginal ultra sound, blood work, and send me right back home telling me nothing was wrong. At 12 weeks I wanted to die. I was swollen and looked like I was 8 months pregnant. I was in agony. It felt like my body was ripping apart. I begged God to take me! I called the clinic one more time and told them that I was dying! I had to go up there and do the routine once more. Mike took me this time. I wanted him to hear this doctor tell me one more time there was nothing wrong with me. Not only did he say nothing was wrong, he said I wasn’t even pregnant. I told my husband to get this man away from me!

I screamed at anyone who could hear me that I was going to my doctor and they were all crazy! The nurse tried to calm me down and the girl who took my blood said she thought I should get to my own doctor. I got home in time to answer the phone. A different doctor from the clinic said they had contacted my regular doctor and they were expecting me. I hung up on him!

Then Kaiser, my HMO, called my house. They were like a wonderful, warm, family coming at me and surrounding me. They told me to head to the emergency room right away. They were waiting for me at the door of the hospital. They did something that the quack doctor had never once did. They did an abdominal ultra sound that clearly showed my little baby. Unforturnately it hadn’t survived. The other two had gone up that useless tube that was supposedly clogged up. They took the placenta with them. My doctor would later tell me that who knew they needed to make me infertile in order for me to have my own kids! Had she removed the tubes to begin with, the gutter water wouldn’t have leaked out of my tube and poisoned the babies, causing them to try to flee the water up my other tube! Story of my life! So, I lost my babies, my tubes, and my will to do much of anything! I had gone so long with the ectopic pregnancy, 12 weeks, that I had ruptured the tube and was full of blood!

I was 36 going on 37 by this time, and I felt like time had run out on me. Mike was wonderful through all of this. He supported me, got me home, got me healed up, and told me we could try it again. I joined all kinds of invitro groups online and met a lot of wonderful people. We started trying to save up the money for another attempt! We would have no insurance this time. The procedure was around $15,000 and we put down $1,000 on it. Then Mike’s dad died. We had to spend our money on helping to bury him!

It looked like it just wasn’t going to happen for us. We just weren’t meant to be parents. I heard it all from everyone. All things happen for a reason. Maybe this is for the best. Blah, blah, blah…..   Didn’t they know this was my dream. This was the only thing I ever wanted to do in my life? It was all taken from me in the blink of an eye. Okay, depression sunk in at this point. To make it worse, Mike was really depressed over his dad. They were so close, and he missed him so badly! Life at our house just stunk! I will close this one on that wonderful note!