Hi I’m Amanda Trice, I am a 33 year old mother of 5, from a tiny town in Iowa. I own an in-home daycare, and I have been married almost 11 years. I am 1. NOT A WRITER 2. Not very witty and 3. Not an expert at…anything. This is merely to tell our story that could possibly help someone else struggling. Bear with me as you learn this journey with me and why my new motto for life is ‘Faith over Fear’.
Our story started in March of 2008 a little more than a year before my husband Chad and I were getting married. We were so young, but I had my heart set on my life plans. My best friend had just had her 1st son, and thus started our conversation on starting our family as soon as possible. I went off our birth control and started the long haul of what was being masked behind my medication. I began having pain, was not having regular cycles, gained almost 50lbs in a few short months and just felt..not like myself.
I had a few doctors appointments, that brought on news I did not want to accept. I had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, my blood work came back all over the place and I was not in a healthy place. I was, for a lack of better words, pissed off. I didnt believe the doctors and chose to ignore my diagnosis; but only for a few months as my symptoms progressively and quickly became worse. With all those symptoms also came depression.
We got married in June of 2009 and knew then we would be in a long uphill battle to have children of our own. After the wedding we began more doctor appointments starting with our local doctor who basically told me it was above their knowledge, at this time pcos was not commonly known as it is now. Then went with an ObGyn who then told me I was too overweight to have children…fun, did you know having pcos makes it 3x as hard to even lose 10lbs.. then we traveled to a womans clinic in Ames were we began a more understanding of what we were dealing with. Although sometimes the physical pain of it all was sometimes too much. I was in tears 9x out of 10 and became very negative..about everything. Why was this easy for everyone else? Why was this happening to us? Why? Why? Why?…with no answers. This doctor finally gave me the answers we were needing and looking for. PCOS was not curable, but WAS treatable. I could handle that…and I would get to finally have my first ultrasound to see why I was in so much pain. Only to find out I also had a begining stage of endometriosis as well. Perfect… I was being recommended to a fertility doctor in Des Moines.
Dr. Young was at that time our hero. If you’ve ever needed someone to cry to about your fertility doctors they would be it. And Mid Iowa was a safe place for us…at that time. We began everything. All the testing all over again and this time included Chad as well. Everything the doctor in Ames told us was true, but we now also had what they call secondary infertility as Chad also had issues that there wasn’t much we could do about. It was recommended that I have surgery, Ovarian drilling (yes it’s as painful as it sounds) Hysterscopy, ran dye through my fallopian tubes to check for blockages and a DNC all at the same time. Ovarian drilling was to drill holes into both my ovaries to promote them to release the eggs, the hysteroscopy to see where my endometriosis was at and dnc to scrape and clean out my uterine lining to start a cycle naturally without medication. At this point if I had even gotten one I would get them for weeks on end and they would be bad enough I’d become anemic. We had the surgery and waited.. it was very painful, as well as recovery. 7 weeks finally we recieved our first bout of hope and my body produced its first cycle on it’s own without help. We immediately began our first round of fertility treatments. Clomid 😫🤢 it’s a fun as it sounds…we did serveral rounds of that at full dosages with no results. Then moved onto Femera with also no results. At this point we had been doctoring for a few years. My sister was getting married, my marriage was on the brink of becoming a mess and we needed a break…so we did. We enjoyed a full year of nothing no doctors no meds and just re-enjoying each other and our friends and family. This was probably what saved our marriage and our sanity. While we took this break, we began to take Iowas foster care classes to be prepared for anything just in case. We knew domestic adoption was very costly, and the there were children out there that needed homes. That where we recieved our 1st life changing phone call.. my family member needing help, 2 children older needing some stability and my Aunt no longer able to do it without her beloved husband who had just passed a few months before. We weren’t even through our classes when we moved these two scared kiddos over an hour away to our home and a new school district. I only had a little bit of knowledge on how the system worked but we were all terrified. That was until Easter of 2012 when their birth mother called and told us, she would be signing her rights over and we would be allowed to adopt. Which we did that following year in November 2013. Our two oldest babies Quinn & Eliza.
After we settled into our new normal we went back to our doctors because I was still very sick and in pain again. We began to try different medications which made me sicker, tried fertility medications again with the same outcome…no reaction. Chad and I decided then. We were done, no more doctors, no more meds, I needed to be a mom to these kids and we just maintained so I could feel ok and not be in pain. I ended up having 3 more D&Cs and the years went on.
Our 2nd life changing phone call happened unexpectedly in August of 2015, we renewed our Foster/Adopt licenses but decided we’d only adopt for now. We got a call for a 2 year old tiny, barely verbal blonde little girl. We had 1 hour to make the decision on if we would take her….we did. We welcomed Emmalyn Rae, oh boy did she steal our hearts immediately 😍 it took 1 day for us to be wrapped around her finger and she knew it 😉
We were a complete set at 5. We’d enjoy each other and settled in as a family. Only to have my health take another turn, that put me in the hospital, and that’s were we’d meet the ladies who I’ve always said saved my life. Danni Anderson and Susan Hornback. I was having uncontrollable cycles, I was severely anemic, dehydrated and in a massive amount of pain. I had a large ovarian cyst rupture and it was putting a toll on my body. I could deal with it with medication or finally have a ablation that would make any chance of babies down the road non existant. I wasnt able to bring myself to that point and we opted for medications and serious frequent doctor appointments that were closely monitored. I had 2 more sets of cysts that ruptured a few months/years apart but because we were closely monitored and knew what medications worked for me, it was doable.
I felt good finally, getting into a healthy routine. Worked on me, lost 20lbs and decided wed renew our licenses again this time for Foster care as well. That may have been scarier than all my health issues. For a year we said no to numerous phone calls that we would get daily. None fit, we wanted a baby boy this time to complete our family. And in September of 2019 we said yes for the first time. We moved in a teeny tiny baby boy, a whooping 13lb 6 month old, with a ton of issues, we were in for it with this one. We began the process of getting him healthy again, having visits with birth father, dealing with agencies to get him developmentally on track, eye apts and a pediatric neurologist. All while we fell head over heels in love with him. Which then brought on extreme panic at the idea he may not stay with us, and started the extreme emotional rollercoaster we were on..until January 2020 when we got the brakes slammed on us with the BIGGEST news everyone was unprepared for.. I had began to feel terrible, extremely emotional, was sick to my stomach, my initial thought was I was starting a cycle that I was in for it, I hadn’t had a terrible one in over a year and figured this is it. I was also an emotional wreck due to SJ and the idea of him leaving, which was unbearable for us. I’ll never forget the day. Jan 5th we went to Chad’s moms for his birthday dinner, our favorite meal that his mom makes, but earlier that day I had a huge panic attack. I had cried all day long, I shook and felt terrible it was a dosey for me but I sucked it up and went anyway for our kids who wanted to see their cousins and grandma. We sat down to eat and I seriously could have thrown up at the table, I picked at dinner and Chad knew something wasnt right. Shortly after we left he asked me what was wrong with the food, and I told him something wasnt right. I did not feel right. I had what I thought was a short cycle just a week before but told him to pick up a pregnancy test anyway so I didnt have to take one the next day at the doctor. She always made sure to check me just in case due to my irregular cycles. I had already had an apt scheduled for me to go on anti anxiety meds to help calm my nerves. We put all the kids to bed and I took the test immediately laid it down and disnt bother to look at it right away, I had taken several of these tests with the same results every time. I turned to look at the test after a bit and in the screen it showed what I never thought in a million years I could have….A positive pregnancy test.
I yelled for Chad and he and I could not believe our eyes. There was no way this was possible we had been told over and over this was not possible without very expenssive medication. But here we were a positive test and a 10 month old foster baby. I cried calling my mom and needed her to come up and see the test herself so she could tell me if I had officially gone crazy and was making things up in my head. I sure wasnt, it was a clear positive test and she laughed at me 😂 I went to bed that night not excited I immediately began to worry that I now was going to lose both Sj and this baby, that there was no way I could have a healthy pregnancy.
I called Danni’s office that next morning and told them we needed to switch my appt to have a pregnancy test done, the nurse, who also knew my history, excitedly told me absolutely! We took the test and waited what seemed like the longest half hour of our lives. I didnt figure this accurate enough nor would I have a viable pregnancy. I’ll never forget her face as she flung the exam room door open her huge smile and tears in her eyes. She yelled with the door open and nurses behind her, ‘Amanda you are infact PREGNANT!!’ I hit my knees and balled. We were so scared..there was no way se could have a baby. She began to calm my fears and tell me everything looked great but we had a concern with my progesterone, which I always have an issue with. I was to go on medication and watched carefully. I’d have an early ultrasound but I was between 5-6 weeks along. I’d have one done at week 8.
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