the one with our infertility story

SO MUCH FOR NOT TRYING….A story about life, love, and the quest for a baby

First comes love, then comes marriage….(a few years later) then comes Bri pushing a baby carriage, right? Jared and I got married September 4, 2004 with every intention of being married a year or so and then starting our family. He would have been happy to start our family right away, but I wanted to wait until I had finished school. (if only I could have known, right?!) I was teaching young children with disabilities in an early intervention program, and I was happy to wait awhile. Once I was getting close to finishing my masters degree, I was ready to start thinking about it. In July 2006, I went to talk to my doctor. She decided to do a complete blood work up to make sure that I was healthy enough to have a baby, still had MMR immunities, and all that good stuff. I started taking prenatal vitamins. We got the all clear a few weeks later and I went off the pill for about a month before we could officially start trying. So, I go off the pill and we are officially “trying”, or "not preventing" as we called it. Our official first month was September 2006, right at our two year anniversary. Everyone thinks that when you are ready for it, that it will just happen, and no one ever expects that there could be a problem. Our plan was to just let it happen when it happened. We didn't want to be one of those couples who would be nuts about trying to get pregnant. We wanted to go off the pill, but not really “try”.

So much for not trying.....About 6 months go by, I am a bit frustrated at this point and wondering what is going on with us. Along the way I have taken a few pregnancy tests, of course, to no avail. Remember that I had been the one who was happy to wait. Well, all of that changed when I saw how upset I was month after month. I decided that we needed to be a little more pro-active. I did lots of reading and internet research and we started using predictor kits.

During this time, I had several friends who got pregnant. The first few made me feel hopeful because I thought "We will be next!", but then the more people who got pregnant, the worse I felt because I started to worry that there was something wrong. In March 2007, I add another plan to our arsenal and began charting my basal body temperature every morning.

Infertile.....We hit the 1 year mark. I visit my primary care doctor with printed BBT charts in hand who then tells me that it is natural for healthy couples to take up to two years to conceive. She tells me to hang in at least another six months. She explains that it just takes some couples longer, and that we wouldn't want to spend money on testing that we may not need as insurance companies don't cover this kind of testing. At this point, I was making myself completely nuts analyzing all of my imaginary pregnancy symptoms.

In August 2007, I start a new job. I am having dinner with my new colleagues and one of them asks me about babies. I have never been one that was good at lying or at keeping things to myself, so I tell them that we have been trying for about a year with no success. My friend and co-worker tells me that she has several friends who have gone through infertility and that she could get doctor's names for me. I decide about a month later that it is time to take this next step. I decided that if there was something going on, I wanted to know about it sooner rather than later. I researched my insurance that actually does pay for diagnostic testing for fertility. So, I call and make an appointment-November 9th. I am anxiously waiting for this appointment and all the while thinking that I would get pregnant before the appointment and not have to go. Obviously, this does not happen.

We go to the first appointment. It was a horrible, awful experience. We go in and they ask us a gazillion questions about our health and personal life. Then the doctor does a physical exam. He then leads us toward his office. As we are walking out, I make an off-hand comment about our timing maybe just being off. The doctor says "No, there has to be something".

This one comment rocked me to my core. All along I just kept thinking; "it's because we have been under so much stress" "it's just not the time yet", etc, etc. I have worried that there might be a problem, but never actually thought there would be. He sits us down and explains the process of conception all in very medical terms. I am feeling very overwhelmed and upset, and he is talking all sorts of medical mumbo jumbo most of which I am not following (and keep in mind that I was pretty informed from my research). He then explains the barrage of tests that will then follow. He prescribes a lupron challenge test, an HSG, and a endometrial biopsy for me. As well as testing for Jared. We decided not to start the testing that month because that would mean that I would have surgery the day before Thanksgiving.

Needles, tubes, valium, and everything nice.....So in December I go in and have my first blood drawn, lupron shot, and ultrasound. On December 31, New Year's Eve....it's time for my surgery. I am a nervous wreck and on the edge of tears when I am sitting back in the surgical area all by myself and feeling very sorry for myself. Then the nurse comes in and gives me a valium-boy, did that calm the nerves! The procedure was a little uncomfortable, but overall not too bad. The doctor says my tubes are clear and that everything looks good! We have to wait until January 23 to get the results from our testing.

I am so anxious about this appointment. While I want to know what is going on and I am hoping that it is just a little thing that can be easily fixed with some medication, I am also scared to death that we would find out we have worse problems. In the meantime, I also read every book on fertility and conception known to man, and poured over the fertility websites. I couldn't believe how little I knew before all this started.

January 23, 2008...honestly goes down in my book as one of the worst days of my life. When we go into the office, I ask for Kleenex as soon as we sit down because I know it is likely that I will cry. The doctor says "well, I don't want to make you cry". This comment makes me think that we must be fine since he isn’t worried about my tears. Hah! Was I wrong.....

He then proceeds to tell us that there are issues with both of us. He tells us that most doctors would go straight to IVF! What?! The only way we are going to have a baby is to spend 12,000 dollars?! I am shocked and devastated. He then prescribes a barrage of vitamins (super prenatals, baby aspirin daily, and folic acid for me and multi vitamin, vitamin E , vitamin C, and folic acid for Jared) for both of us to take that could possibly improve both of our "cells". He then also tells me that even if I did get pregnant that he was very concerned about my ability to maintain a pregnancy. I can't even describe how all of this information was presented to us. It was all very matter-of-fact, this is no big deal, and completely lacking any compassion. We leave and are crushed. It is so overwhelming to learn that something that you want so badly might not ever happen, and it is highly unlikely that it will ever happen naturally without major medical intervention.

Despair and desperate.....It had been about 2 weeks since that appointment. I had my good days and bad. I felt like my faith has been rocked. I have always believed that things work out the way they are supposed to and that everything happens for a reason. It was so hard for me to believe that this was what was supposed to be in store for us. We decided that it was time to get a second opinion on our diagnosis and treatment plan. I requested all of our records from the last doctor and scheduled an appointment at the Nashville Fertility Clinic. I requested a female doctor thinking that maybe a female might have more compassion for this sensitive situation and thus have better bedside manner than the last one. I am hoping that we can get a better explanation of what is going on with us and have a better action plan that does not involve $12,000 as the first line of defense treatment. I am feeling hopeful, though in the back of mind I know that is kind of dumb given the news we have been given. Even if they did tell us exactly the same thing, I needed that second opinion. I had hoped that they will be able to give us better information and give us more options.

Great news....The new fertility clinic was so organized and supportive and understanding. I could have kissed the nurses and doctor that we worked with. The difference was night and day! They basically told us that the doctor that we had seen for our first work-up was a quack! He apparently tells every couple that they need IVF! The new dr was concerned about some things they had seen in Jared's testing that should have been further explored. They put him on some precautionary medication. She then tells us that she wants us to give us a shot with a medicated IUI cycle. I never thought I would be so excited about this, but we had hope again!

March 14, 2008 was our first IUI cycle. The procedure itself was a little difficult and uncomfortable (it is not supposed to be, but my body was uncooperative) but we were very enthused about the results. You thought I imagined pregnancy symptoms before....well, this month it was out of control! I was convinced that everything was a sign that it had worked!

Well, it didn't. We were pretty disappointed, but thought-it was just one shot. So on to next month. We decided to do another IUI in April. Results were good again and we were hopeful.

We were still really struggling with all of this, but I had to believe that God had a bigger plan for us than I knew about. Infertility became a part of me and a part of our marriage. It always will be now. I knew even at the time, that if I became a mother it would make me a better mother. Even at this point, I wanted to share my experience to give other women support. There is nothing else in life that I can think of that we have so little control over.

Well, number two didn't work either. Again, I was fighting feelings of devastation and hopelessness. I continued to look for the right path to take. It was hard because not only was I looking for what was the right thing to do, but we also had to factor in all of the finances that it takes. I wished more than anything to get pregnant and stop the never ending cycle. I was 28 years old. I wanted to be able to think about something else. I tried to focus on all the many blessings in my life, but it was hard to forget the one that was missing.

So, after the failure of the last IUI, I talked with the doctor. She wanted to pursue a diagnosis of endometriosis. She sent me to an OB/GYN surgeon for a consult and we decided to schedule a laparoscopy to diagnose and treat endo. The doctor felt very confident that I did have endo, but not as confident that was what was causing the infertility. I was scheduled for surgery on May 29.

The surgeon only found 6 small spots of endo. She told Mom and Jared that she didn’t think that was enough to be affecting my fertility. I was very frustrated by that because I felt like I had surgery for no reason. I had a bit of a rough recovery from surgery. I woke up the morning after surgery thinking that I had not had surgery yet. I sat up straight in bed and told Jared we had to get to the hospital-and he was trying to figure out what I was talking about. Then I felt the pain in my abdomen and realized that I had already had surgery. Later that day when I took my bandages off for the first time, I freaked. I felt very sick. I don’t know if it was from seeing the incisions or because I had taken off the anti-nausea patch. I called for Jared and he had to come get me and lay me down on the bed. I told him that I didn’t think I had been very brave, and he said that he thought that volunteering for exploratory surgery so that we could have a baby was pretty damn brave. He was such an unbelievable support to me through all of this and I will always be grateful to have such a wonderful husband.

My RE disagreed with my surgeon and believed that the endo that they found might be enough to be affecting my fertility. She told us to try on our own for a few months. I did talk her into medication because it is not that expensive and I thought it might give us a boost.

After surgery, I found a peace about our "battle" with infertility, and I wanted to put it out there because it is not something that people should deal with in silence. I started this blog so that I could share my story. We had wonderful doctors that we worked with, and I felt very confident that we would have our dream some day.

We booked a trip to Mexico for mid-July. It just so happened that we would find out if our first cycle after surgery worked just a few days before we departed. The closer I got to the time the harder it got. I tried very hard not to feel sorry for myself. It was hard because we had so many young families around us, and I truly questioned whether we would ever have that. I tried so hard not to lose hope, but I did. I started thinking about adoption. I really, really want to carry and give birth to a baby, but I felt that just may not happen for us. I wondered if we should start the adoption process (as I know it is lengthy), but I just wasn't sure I was ready. I also thought about IVF-was that something we could do? But the huge costs and no guarantee of a baby, were hard for me to imagine.

Complete and total shock....July 16, 2008 I got a positive on a HPT. We were ecastatic and excited, but also nervous and scared to death. I was nervous to get too excited because with all of the difficulty we had getting pregnant, I just didn't know if it would stick. The rest of the story you guys already know from my blog.

I wanted to share my roller coaster story for the many couples out there who are still struggling. And also to help others see a little window into the struggle that so many couples have when trying to start a family. I consider myself very lucky now. There are so many people who have tried years longer than we did and I have so much compassion for those people. There are couples out there who go through rounds and rounds of IUIs and medication and shots and IVFs. I only had a somewhat small dose of all that and it is unbelievably stressful and overwhelming. It is truly not something you can understand until you have been through it. People can say very insensitive things without even realizing it. The most important thing that you can do if you have a friend struggling is to listen. Sometimes they will want to talk about it and sometimes they won't. You will feel like there is nothing you can say-and there really isn't. Also realize that sometimes that she won't be able to go to baby showers or spend time with children-it can just be too painful. It is unbelievable the reminders that are out there for people struggling . All you want to do is not think about it, but then everywhere you turn there are reminders that you are infertile.

I hope that my story gives hope to someone else. I was truly at a point that I thought we would never be able to have a baby, and now I am a little over a week away from the arrival of our little bundle. I am incredibly grateful for this little blessing in our life. I will always consider her to be our little miracle.

I have posted this video before, but if you haven't seen it, it is really worth watching. It is sad and hard to watch, but it really does a good job of conveying the pain that is infertility. I remember watching it before I knew others that suffered with infertility and I felt very comforted knowing that I was not alone in what I felt.

http://www.tearsandhope.com/