Infertility!!!

I knew all my life that I wanted to be a mom but I had no idea what it would take to get pregnant. I’m starting this blog to let everyone in on our journey to parenthood. There is a lot of detail and fertility talk just so you know what to expect.

So our infertility journey started in January 2011. Mark and I decided that it was time to start a little family and make a few mini me’s!! Scary thought kinda, little Mark and Amber’s running around. LOL I thought for sure that in a few months we would be able to announce to everyone… We are PREGNANT!! So I started reading up on ‘getting pregnant’ and all of its glory. I was so excited and ready to be a mom. Well after it didn’t happen I decided to go in for a little visit to my lady doctor. I told him it wasn’t happening and what we have tried and all the gory details…… He suggested we do a few tests and find out why its not happening.  Well we were not surprised to find out that we both had some ‘issues’. I was diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and Mark had a few things as well.

Our next step was to try some medications by themselves. After 3 more months… NOPE, NOTHING!!  At this point I’m getting a little discouraged and sad that this isn’t happening the way we had hoped. All our family knew we were trying and of course we got the question “why are you not pregnant yet?” from some. So I decided to address the elephant in the room and let everyone know WHY. I decided that for me it would be easier being an open book about all of it rather than trying to dodge the questions and comments.

So back to the doctor I went. Step two was to try medication with IUI (intrauterine insemination). I thought for SURE that this was going to work. I guess I should go back a little and say that during this time frame I got a job at a local dental office and which was just a few blocks away! I was excited to finally get a job and start working. Not to mention I got my license back AND qualified for car insurance again!!!! Mark was also working hard. He was traveling to Tulsa, OK every week and would return home on the weekends (That made things a little difficult to say the least). Anyway, our first IUI cycle came around in July. I'm going to give all the details so beware haha!! They started me on Clomid 100mg on cycle days 3-7 and prometrium days 17-27. On 7/23/11 I went in for our follicular ultrasound to see how many follicle I had (follicle are what hold the egg FYI) I had FOUR that were of good size; 2-19mm’s and 2-23mm’s!!! So we did our HCG trigger shot that night (HCG is the hormone that tells your body to release the egg) and the IUI on 7/25. Not a very comfortable procedure but tolerable. Next came the 2 week wait. UHHH this is the worst part. Having to wait to see if the procedure worked or not sucks. I turned to a fertility forum for support and it really helped. In those two weeks I was obsessed to say the least at every twinge, every sneeze, every little thing became a symptom. Crazy psycho girl I became. The hormones didn’t help any either. Poor Mark had to put up with my mood swings and hot flashes. I felt sorry for him most of the time lol! So my dreaded two weeks ended with a big disappointment. BFN or Big Fat Negative in other words. I thought I was going to lose it. I was very sad and mad. I couldn’t understand just why I couldn’t get pregnant. We decided to try another IUI in August. Here are my results from that……… Clomid days 3-7 and prometrium days 17-27. Ultrasound on 8/20 showed only 1 follicle at 20mm. IUI on 8/22/11. Resulted in a BFN again. September we did another IUI….. Clomid days 3-7 and Prometrium days 17-27. Ultrasound showed 1 follicle at 19mm and 1 at 15mm. IUI on 9/19/11. Resulted in a BFN.

Our IUI journey was not a success. My doctor suggested that we see a specialist. So we did. This brings us to November 2011. We saw a specialist that basically told us the only way we could get pregnant was through IVF. Wow, really?!? This procedure is really expensive. The only thing we could do was start saving. So we did.

Christmas came and went along with new years and every little bit of money we got, we saved.

With the new year came some news!!! Mark was being promoted to Director of operations at a San Diego branch! Much excitement came and it kinda helped with getting my mind off of obsessing over getting pregnant. It was always in the back of my head but it gave me a little bit of relief.

So we put the house on the market and moved to San Diego. And wow what an amazing place to live. We were so blessed to be relocated here. Family came out to visit and after a few months we were all settled in to our apartment. And once I got situated I started thinking a lot about getting pregnant again. So I made an appointment with a new doctor and went in for his opinion on a few things. He said that the other doctor was probably correct on the IVF treatment. However he did want to do a few things while we were saving up for it just to rule out a few things. He ordered a HSG and a laparoscopy. So we started off with the HSG. An HSG is where they shoot a dye through your uterus and fallopian tubes to make sure that nothing has abnormalities or is blocked. The results… All clear! My doctor then decided we should go ahead and do the laparoscopy. This was a little more invasive. I went under a general anesthesia and they make a few small incisions in you abdomen and look inside. Results….. Endometriosis. It was on my bladder and on my uterus and he was able to remove all of it. At my post op appointment we talked about what our next step would be (another IUI or IVF). Mark and I decided to go ahead with IVF.

This brings us to late June. In the mean time, we got a contract on the house in St. Louis!!! YAY That was an exciting day although Mark was on a business trip in Belgium. Yes BELGIUM!! He had fun but it was a little difficult trying to wrap up the negotiations on the house. In the end though it all worked out.

My next move was to make a appointment with a fertility specialist. After A LOT of research on Drs.  in San Diego we found the top rated clinic with the best stats and made an appointment. Our appointment is set for tomorrow (July 5th) at 1:30pm.

So that is the history of our infertility thus far. We are excited for our next step towards being parents.