The cost of a Child

If you are lucky enough to be my Facebook friend, it means that once upon a time we had a good relationship, and I have no qualms about telling you my personal business. I am about to share something with you, something that is very tender. If you don't want the details of our story, don't read it. It will include female anatomy and bodily functions!

Last year, I left Facebook because of everything I was personally going through. I couldn’t physically, emotionally, or mentally keep up with it. Life has hit really hard in many ways, but the most bothersome is what other typical women can do so well and my body can’t do. This will be the first time that I speak out publicly, other than in my unique Facebook support groups.

Nick and I are barren.

I will let those words sink in, and then I will tell you what that means to us.

Nick and I knew a long time ago that children weren’t going to come naturally to us. Whatever gave us that clue... maybe the fact that we have been married for 11+ years and we still don’t have a child.

When we moved to Boston, in the back of our minds we knew that this would be the place to discover what had been wrong with us all these years. Finally, doctors who listened to us. Finally, doctors fighting on our side.

The horrible, awful truth came out, and I want to shed some light on things that many people don’t know exist. In fact, there are only a few doctors in the world who treat it, and I happen to live near one. Coincidence? We don’t think so.

Asherman’s Syndrome: where the uterus has adhesions (scar tissue), typically due to a D&C, but they can form in other ways. Some cases are mild, moderate, or severe, and the scar tissue can be in the cervix, located in a singular place in the uterus (mild), or everywhere (severe). I was, unfortunately, a severe case, although I had never had a D&C or other surgery to cause it. Everything was scarred shut, including my cervix.

Right before my surgery to remove my scar tissue, I was also told that I had a low ovarian reserve (aka a low number and quality of eggs). This was another devastating blow to my womanhood.

If you thought that my womb being filled with scar tissue and my eggs being crap wasn’t bad enough, we also found, through a biopsy of my uterus, that I had gone through menopause. It wasn’t active at all.

I had no idea that not having a period for over a year qualified as and was considered the start of menopause. Looking back, I figured out that it had to have happened in my mid-to-late 20s.

At this point, we had no choice but to either give up on our dream of becoming parents and call it a loss or have surgeries and go through hell to figure it out.

We chose the latter, and surgery after surgery, pill after pill, we finally got to the point where my uterus was reactivated and 80% scar-free, and we were cleared for our first round of IVF (In Vitro Fertilization).

We had no other choice because of all the factors: the 20% of scar tissue covered both of my tubes, I had a low egg reserve, and I didn’t ovulate on my own.

I was on the highest dose of several medications that I injected into my tummy multiple times every day. This process was unpleasant, but we were hopeful that the results would be worth it.

Finally, the time came to see if all of our $$ was wasted, and happy news came!

We were pregnant.

We were so happy, but also hesitant to tell people and to really enjoy the news.

As we entered our 6th-week appointment to hear the heartbeat for the first time, we were giddy. The ultrasound tech did her thing in silence and then called the doctor in. They began to whisper. She said we were done and started to clean up.

I quickly asked if I could hear the heartbeat.

She put her hand on my knee and very gently told me that there wasn’t one.

They handed me a box of tissues, apologized, and walked out.

I was so shocked that I couldn’t even cry at that moment.

We went to see our doctor immediately after, and as the receptionist read the letter from the previous test, she looked at the tears rolling down our cheeks and brought us to a room where we could be alone.

We were told that the pregnancy was simply not viable, but they would double-check everything in a week to be sure.

It was the hardest week. After reading and hearing a lot of miracle stories, I thought I was also going to have one of them, but I didn’t.

The pregnancy wasn’t viable, so we scheduled a removal for two days later in the OR.

The pain, numbness, and faith-shaking emotions we went through during this time were heart-shattering.

The doctor took out the sac, and just like that, I wasn’t pregnant anymore.

Or so I thought.

A few days later, I started experiencing a lot of bleeding and told them what I was feeling and seeing. I asked if it was normal because it didn’t feel normal.

They reassured me that I was fine. I had a scheduled test the following day, and they would see then.

It turns out that my HCG levels were still very high, and I knew exactly what was wrong.

I ignored that doctor’s office and went back to see my Asherman’s Syndrome doctor the next morning.

I had an ultrasound that showed that a large chunk of baby stuff was stuck in

Summer is over

We can't believe summer has come and gone so quickly. We definitely had some amazing highlights.

1. We graduated with our Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language.

2. We traveled Europe with Lon and Jennifer.

3. We lived with my brother, his wife and family for a few weeks with Nick's brother and family. Duncan and Devan were looking for a place to live because Duncan got into med school!

4. We went to Maine and did a lot of swimming and relaxing. Sorry no pictures taken.

5. I ran away for a weekend in Nashville to see Shania Twain live with my sister.

6. Brought Joe to Boston for a week and change.

7. We bought a car and we moved to a bigger apartment... With a ton of windows.

We had a fun and crazy summer!

Salamanca, Spain I miss you

Right now it's a cold and rainy spring morning in Boston and as I was sipping on some tea I started thinking about the warmth that Salamaca, Spain brought into my life. I had a lot of intention to finish this blog a long time ago but I lost track of myself. 

The Madrid airport is the hardest airport to navigate! We were in and out of it several times and each time we saw multiple foreigners lost and confused.  When we arrived to Madrid for the first time it was late and of course we had to call our hotel shuttle to pick us up, but how could we call without a phone? We learned very quickly that people do not speak English there and our Spanish was very limited but that didn't stop me. I went up to the information desk and asked a man if I could use a phone to call our hotel and he agreed. We got to our hotel and passed out in enough time to miss breakfast and head back to the airport to catch our bus to Salamanca. In all the drama, I realized that my brand new laptop was not with me. The hotel called the airport and everything was just a huge mess. We retraced our steps and finally at the info counter I had been at the previous night, I located my laptop. Now, it was time to find the buses and purchase a ticket. After walking for a long time we figured out that tickets could only be purchased online. AGAIN, we did not have a phone with data and the airport wi-fi would not allow us to use it on our phones.  I took out my laptop and said a prayer and poof the wi-fi allowed me to access it. I was able to purchase the tickets but now the problem was, WHERE DO WE CATCH THE BUS??? There was not 1 sign NOT 1!!! We asked and people would say go to terminal 4 or 1. We went to both of the terminals and saw nothing. Finally we found someone to tell us that at terminal 4 you have to leave the airport and go towards the rental area and the buses are there. We found our way to a line of foreigners and asked if they were waiting for the bus. Finally we were on our way to Salamanca. When we arrived to our beautiful city we decided to walked from the bus station to our apartment to meet our new landlord. We were shown our room and around the house; met our roommates, saw the mound of dirty dishes, the disgusting bathroom, and kitchen. IS IT to late to change our minds? Our fourth roommate we met at 1 am (AM stands for MORNING!) because he thought it was fun to watch movies and have a party when our rooms are half joined together. He didn't speak ANY English and so our conversation went like this:

Lauren: "Hola"

Not amigo: " Hola"

Lauren: We are trying to sleep!

Not amigo: no intendes

Lauren: *Puts hands together and under head and makes snore noises..... then looks at him and covers her ears and starts screaming! YOU ARE TOO LOUD!!!!

Not amigo: lo siento

He closed his door and turned down the music and then everyone started whispering! We could still hear every word but at least we could sleep through it. We found out the next morning that another roommate was moving at the end of the week and we asked to have his room. They agreed and we had three weeks of peace and quiet.

Although our living situation was less than ideal we picked an amazing University and town to take classes. We fell in love with everything immediately.

We did a lot of exploring and leaving our comfort zones, and once we figured out the town it was time to leave. Still, we tried to enjoy it to the fullest while we were there. We ate out a lot once we figured out how to get cheap tapas and the best breakfast pastries in the world. Who wouldn't want churros dipped in a thick chocolate sauce for breakfast?

A popular shop was the tobacco shop, so we decided to see what all the jazz was about... just kidding! Remember that I hurt myself really bad before we left? Well I bought some tobacco and put it on my skin to help the bruising and pain. It worked and it also stained my skin... haha

One day we decided to take a walk because Nick really wanted to take a midday siesta in his hammock. We walked a mile or more before we found the perfect spot. This beautiful area was on the other side of the city. Once we crossed over an old Roman bridge we walked down a path and played in the water. Nick found the perfect spot and took a nap while I studied and then went exploring.

The bridge! and you can see the city behind Nick.

Did I mention that we ate a lot of food? One thing I would say to any traveler is don't don't go in somewhere just because you are nervous. Suck it up and just do it. Yes we ate some really bad food because the menu was not translated into English, but you live and you learn(speaking from experience. I ordered a meal on our second day and got food poisoning!! Picture of that food is on the far right) This pizza was at a beautiful restaurant. We ate outside and did a lot of people watching. The water was expensive and so was the pizza, but it was worth it. OH AND THE OLIVES!!! SO DELICIOUS!

If you know Nick  then you must also know his love for Pizza. All the foreigners had their favorite pizza place that they would recommend, but Nick wanted to know which one had the best pizza, so we did an experiment. We went to EVERY pizza place within a few blocks of our place and ordered the same pizza (Nick's favorite is pepperoni and mushroom). I can't remember the names of the places but I do remember that all of the pizzas tasted different. They all had distinct different crust, sauce, cheese, and pepperoni.

A fun tradition that we have when we are visiting a place for the first time is going to the grocery store and buying a lot of different snacks that we have never seen before. Then we eat them!! Here you can see store bought flan and some kind of mint cookie. SUPER GOOD!

Seriously this trip feels like a lifetime ago. I truly miss it and all the fun times we had. I miss all of the olives, tapas, soda, pastries, smothering hot nights, freezing mornings, and most of all I miss all of the friends we made and our Spanish classes!

Our favorite Spanish teacher! So great!

Our last few days... we finally figured out a great cheap place for Tapas and finally hanging out with friends. Overall, if you want to live abroad I have learned that 1 month is not long enough. It took us 1 month to figure things out and to start feeling comfortable, so I would definitely recommend 6-8 weeks to get the place figured out and enjoy it!

I hope you enjoyed our memories just as much as we do!!

The Rock of Gibraltar

We left Seville in the afternoon and drove a couple of hours to see this huge rock.  It's one of Pillars of the old world. From our parking spot the rock looks amazing. As you can see it was a beautiful clear day and that made me happy because it turned out to be the LONGEST day. I'm so happy that we kept things happy and positive because all of us almost lost it today. We parked the car in Spain and walked into Britain. As went through customs the first time and got to the bus area and realized that we already had tickets but we had to talk to our travel agency and guess what.... they were in Spain, so we walked our cute butts back over there. We found the booth fairly quickly and it was closed... So we walked through customs a second time. We spoke with nice people along the way and they were very helpful with directions.

We took a one-way ride up to the top because we planned on walking down (you will learn later that this was a bad idea) As we exited our gondola there were signs everywhere warning about monkeys. These monkeys did not care how close you got to them, but you didn't want to be close... I promise. We watched as baby strollers were attacked, back packs were attacked, people who were holding things in their hands.... you guessed it... were attacked. These monkeys were crazy.

well except for this tiny baby, he was cute.

We stayed at the top for a long time because as we stood there we watched clouds form around us. For me this was the highlight of the whole day, and we saw Africa! Below you can see Africa in the distance. SOOOO cool!!

I was hoping that the monkey would fall off but he didn't :/

Here are two great pictures where you can see a cloud forming. We took a lot of videos because it was really neat. 

Because we had been eating and driving a lot we decided that we needed to walk down the rock. We met some kind people halfway down who told us about this picturesque suspension bridge but they didn't know how to get there. Well, we found it and had some fun breaking the rules. Rule #1 don't rock the bride... oops We made it out alive!

As we neared halfway we had a decision to make... left or right. We chose to go right which led us to this. 

and then to a beautiful, tall, gate with a sign that said DO NOT ENTER FALLING ROCKS.
We all started thinking, "How are we going to jump this fence!" We started talking strategies on what we were going to do and as we got closer to get a good look, Nick found a narrow path down the steep rock. We didn't hesitate and we were down and back to the streets of the little town in no time.  Well, really, the whole walk took us like 2 hours.  A lot longer than we had originally anticipated. Now the questions were, where can we find a bus, and where is food? Food was the higher priority so that happened first. We shared a $20 pizza at a restaurant with the worst service we have ever had. The bus wasn't so easy we had to walk a mile or so to find it and then when we got on we only rode it for about 5 minutes before our stop :/ We crossed back over to Spain and headed to our car and, finally, we were Granada bound.

Seville, Spain

Two Americans and an Australian went on a road trip........ sounds like great beginning to a hilarious joke. Well it was, as all three of us and our luggage had to fit into this tiny car, at least it was a convertible.

I skipped our last class on Friday to run and grab the car because the rental car shop closes for 3 hours so they can take a siesta (gotta love Spain). I was running late so I literally ran there because it was 30 minutes away on foot. I made it just in time to see a beautiful sign "be back in 5" I was not the only person waiting for their return. Finally they came back and it was my turn to speak the best Spanish I had because I had been practicing what I was going to say in my head all day so I wouldn't sound stupid. I approached the counter and the jolly man said, clear as day, "Hello, How are you doing today? What's the name on your reservation?" I was shocked but determined to practice my Spanish so I answered in Spanish, " Me llama Lauren Stevens" He responded, "Oh you prefer Spanish, Okay" Then he proceeds to speak very fast and I gave him the deer in the headlights look and he said, "That's what I thought!" I made the transaction in English :(

I took my time checking over the car and figuring out where the buttons were for everything then I took off to find a parking spot near our apartment. I was shocked how easy it was to jump back in to driving a 5 speed because I hadn't driven one in 8 years. As I was concentrating on both finding a parking spot and not killing the car I had to drive around the block twice before I found a parking spot. On my second time around someone yelled at me. I quickly recognized the man from church. We had been over to his house a few times and he doesn't speak any English. I pulled over and he yells, "Esposo correr" I thought my husband is running.... NEVER.. and Yelled back, " Ropas en Melletas, Adios" and I drove away slowly as I was so confused. Next thing I see is Nick in front of me huffing and puffing and it hits me like a ton of bricks, OH NICK WAS RUNNING AFTER ME!! JAJAJAJAJA! Turns out that I passed him in front of our apartment but didn't see him. He decided to run after me yelling and screaming in the street like an idiot. I never heard him.

We packed up our stuff and went to pick up Kylie, we were running late and had no way to tell her so when we got there she was nowhere to be found, so we waited. She arrived and told us that she second guessed herself and walked across the street to make sure she was in the right spot. She added her bags, jumped in and we took off for Seville!

Our ride was wonderful here are some of the views.

The bull billboards are everywhere and they were fun to look at. We wondered why they are there and if there is a certain purpose to them. Turns out there is a really cool reason read about it here.

We arrived in Seville with plenty of time to explore but we had to find our AirBNB first. We got lucky and found a great parking spot so we jumped out and went searching on foot. Nick was told through text we would have a parking spot available to us and all we needed to do was talk to the "gordo, gordo hombre" (she wrote those words in the text) As we were searching we knew we had the right building when we saw the fat man guarding the door. We said hello and walked upstairs to our apartment. When we exited we didn't see him so we decided to search for the parking garage on foot first before we got the car. We found the garage quickly and went to grab the car. When we arrived back to the garage it was open so we went in and parked. As we opened our car doors we heard the gate closing. We all got a little worried at this point because we didn't know how to make it open. Nick ran to see if the metal door was really closed and if he could open it. It was shut and there wasn't a button to let us out. We had an "oh shiz" moment then we knew we had to act if we wanted out!

Nick and Kylie picked me up so that I could see out of the top and then I proceeded to yell at people walking by. Finally a lady stopped and in my panicked Spanish I told her our situation and to please to get the "Gordo, Gordo Hombre" she left and a few minutes later returned with the fat man. He let us out but he would not open the garage so we could get the car out. The conversation turned a little heated so Nick, trying to think quickly on his feet, showed him the messages from owner of the apartment. The man became enraged and started yelling at us and then he just walked away. As he walked away Nick looked at his phone and realized that the man had read and realized that he was the "Gordo Gordo Hombre" Whoops!

A minute later a woman pulled up and opened the garage with a clicker. She laughed at our story and helped up get the car out.

 Us inside the garage.

Us outside the garage.

Once we parked the car in a free area we ate and walked into the main part of the city. The views on the way were beautiful. If the sun was going down then it's around 9 or 9:30 PM.

Right when we entered the city we were attacked by a man who wanted us to purchase a fan. Kylie and I walked away..... we thought Nick was right behind us but when we turned around the man had Nick and wouldn't let him leave. We walked over and snapped a picture. The man displayed his fans for Nick and then realized we took a picture so he posed for the second one. Nick bought a fan.

We decided since we only had so much time to spend on Saturday that we would go see one of the places now. Our 25 minute walk turned out to be a 1 hour walk but the sight was worth it. The
Basílica de la Macarena was beautiful!

We walked back to our apartment and we took pictures a long the way.

The next morning we got up and walked into town again to visit the Plaza de Espana. Guess who passed us on a bicycle? Yup, the gordo, gordo hombre. Then, we passed him as he took a smoke break. We couldn't help but laugh.

Next on the list was the Real Alcázar de Sevilla. It was a beautiful palace with amazing gardens and tile work. It was one of my favorite places out of our whole trip!

After we finished our visit we jumped in the car and drove to our next destination.