Oh so grateful

So I am getting more and more baby hungry as time goes by. Having my adorable nieces and my wonderful nursery class is making things so much worse - I just want to have my own little kiddos!! Last December, Jake & I talked about it and were thinking we would start trying. I felt a little unprepared {I thought Jake would say he wanted to wait longer} and decided to go to the temple first before we stopped taking birth control.

Since I had only been endowed for a month at the time, I was really excited to have the chance to go to the temple with a serious decision that needed pondering and divine direction. Honestly though, I was not expecting Heavenly Father to tell me that it wasn't time for us to start our family. And I got that message loud and clear. I mean, the church loves families. Heavenly Father wants us to have babies! And I got a not yet?? What the?? 

I felt pretty strongly that I got a no because of my health. At the time, I was only able to buy clothes at plus size stores. I could order stuff online from Old Navy and Maurices but who wants to have to deal with returning the stuff that looks bad?? I decided to start losing weight and here I am 45 pounds lighter after almost 6 months. Learned a ton about how to eat and WHAT to eat and how different foods affect my body. Learned that I don't hate exercise. AT ALL. It has become my therapy and something I look forward to. Most of the time. I can wear clothes from normal stores now. This is really nice - I am glad I decided to lose weight before we got pregnant. 

At the rate we are going, I will reach my "goal weight" around November and that was when we were thinking we were going to start trying to get pregnant. No, I am not announcing I am pregnant. If anything, we may have to wait a little bit longer than expected.

A few months ago, Jake & I got physicals done with our family doctor to earn $200 Visa gift cards from Jake's work! And the physical itself was free so heck yes! While we were there, they did some blood work and my results for my platelet count came back really low. Like I should be in the hospital low. Thinking there was a mistake, they asked me to come back in 2 weeks and have my blood tested again. Platelet counts change in 10 days - they all "die" and are new so it's best to wait 2 weeks in between getting blood work done. 

The next set of blood work still came back low - too low. A little higher than before but definitely not in the normal range. Dr. Naylor suggested we go see a specialist or we could give it 2 more weeks and check it again. I decided to go with the latter and the results came back as low. Still. Dr. Naylor wanted to talk to me in person {gulp} about what that means. My appointment with him was yesterday. 

So my platelet count needs to come back up. We are hoping the cause of the problem is inflammation in my spleen. He prescribed me a steroid that will help with any inflammation that may be there. I guess it's like ibuprofen on steroids {HAHA pun intended}. I am supposed to take that for 4 weeks, getting my blood work done every 2 weeks. Because of the steroid, my count should go back to normal. Then I will stop taking the steroid and get my blood work done again 2 weeks later {6 weeks from now}. If, at that time, my count has started to come back down because I am no longer taking the steroid, then that means something is wrong with my spleen and we will need to look into getting it removed. GULP!!! 

My first thought, other than holy smokes, was what happens if I get pregnant? Most prescriptions are the type that if you get pregnant, a doctor will take you off of them. In this case, my doctor said we will most likely stay on it if I get pregnant. He will need to discuss that with my OB and a surgeon first but because of how much a person bleeds while pregnant I could bleed to death because my platelet count is already too low. Yeah that is comforting - not. 

I get stressed easily. Like SUPER easily. And at that point at the doctors office, I should have been freaking out and all sorts of stressed. And all I could think was "oh my gosh I am so glad we aren't pregnant yet!" Having my spleen removed is an option because we aren't pregnant. If I hadn't listened to that prompting in December to wait to start our family, we could be dealing with the risk of me bleeding to death during delivery of a little squirming bundle of joy. I am scared - don't get me wrong. But I feel so peaceful about it. I know that Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he told me to wait on getting pregnant. I thought it was because of my health - more specifically my weight. And because I thought that was the reason, I have done something to help change that so that my weight is not going to be a factor for much longer. 

I am pretty nervous about the next few weeks though - one of the big downsides to my low platelet count has been that I get really bad bruises everywhere on my body for no reason. I think that's why my nose got so black from the nursery incident. The steroids will help that, since my count will go up. But there are some not fun side effects too - like mood swings. Yay. NOT! I feel so happy now - hopefully exercise will keep the mood swings at bay and I won't have to deal with that. I am more than likely going to get nauseous. Water retention = weight gain. Blah. But hey it's only for 4 weeks. It can't be that bad, right? 

Here is to hoping that the next 4 weeks go by just like any other and that whatever is causing my low platelet count gets fixed with this prescription!