OUR JOURNEY

I started this blog about a year and a half ago. It started as something for me to just type out some things I was going through with infertility. I have decided now to tell others about it and use it as a way to tell others of our journey. Some of this post may be repetitive from past post, but I was just going to bring everyone up to speed.
We have had a lot of bumps in the road for us. When Casey and I got married 7 years ago today! We had said that we would wait 3 years to have a baby, but then after only being married for a year and half Casey got the itch. He began talking about us trying to get pregnant. I had to think about it. I told him I would mention it to my OBGYN when I went for my appointment in April 2005. After talking to the doctor I decided I would go off the pill and we would just see what happens. This process is much different for a female. When this decision is made you really want to be pregnant yesterday! Nobody really wants to “try” to get pregnant. Well, maybe the first few months it is a little fun, but not after that; it becomes a job. We tried for about 4 months and then Mama C got sick. So therefore, we were not using protection, but there was not a lot of trying taking place. When I went back to the doctor in April 2006 I told the doctor that I was not really worried, but we had been off all forms of birth control for a year. That is when we found out that I was not ovulating. The doctor put me on chlomid to try and jump start me, hoping to make me ovulate. I did that for a few months and I had to go back to the doctor every 21 days to check my levels and see if I was ovulating. After doing this for about a year and a half the doctor realized I was an irregular ovulator. Then the doctor asked me if Casey had been checked. I said no, so he said that would be our next step. That took a little convincing. Finally Casey realized that he was being selfish and had the semen analysis done. Everything came back normal. So know we had ruled that out. I just had to be on fertility drugs every month since I was irregular. Oh joy! Being on fertility drugs cause you to gain weight, which I did, just as I was told. That was and is still very hard on me. No matter what I did I could not lose weight. I consistently gained about 8-12 pounds every year. So not only has it been stressful emotionally for me, but also physically.
The doctor called me in November 2008 and said that he has been reviewing my chart and he thought I may have endometriosis. Apparently, I have a high tolerance of pain and I had never really complained about the pain. I just assumed that is what every woman went through with her period. After my appointment he decided that I needed to have laparoscopic surgery. I had the surgery in December 2008. The surgery showed that I did have endometriosis and he cleaned me out and told me that my best chances of getting pregnant would be within the year. If I was not pregnant in a year than the endometriosis most likely was not the cause of our problem.
We had high hopes that this was going to be our year. Then November 2009 rolled around and still no luck for us. We got the call that we were being referred to the fertility doctor. This was so depressing to me. I really felt like we had lost. We were not able to get pregnant on our own, the natural way; the way that everyone else in the world seems to be able to get pregnant. Not to mention the prices we have heard that come with fertility doctors. We went for our consult and blood work and it cost $420 dollars. I also got the diagnosis of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. PCOS is where your body produces too much insulin and testosterone, causing belly fat and cyst to grow on my ovaries. Not what I need!
With all of this news we scheduled an Intra-Uterine Insemination, IUI, which came with a nice price tag, and we tried that 3 times, unsuccessfully. After our third IUI attempt we got a call saying we needed to have another consult. We discussed everything that we have been through and then the doctor suggested an SPA, a semen penetration analysis, which makes sense, but seriously? She also told us that we needed to discuss IVF. So we scheduled our SPA, which was $650. This is where we got some news. We had Casey’s semen checked 4 times now and everything had come back normal, but when they did the SPA, to check the penetration, for the procedure the semen sits in an incubator for 24 hrs and then it is put with hamster eggs. This is how they tell whether the sperm knows how to penetrate the egg. Well, Casey’s sperm had all pretty much died within 24 hours. So we do not know if it knows how to penetrate an egg, they were unable to complete the test since so many had died. The doctor said that she thinks our problem is that the sperm is not living long enough to make it to my uterus. Not to mention my endometriosis and PCOS. So our answer: Anything can happen, but as far as the medical world is concerned our chances of becoming pregnant on our own is slim. It looks like In Vitro Fertilisation, IVF is our only chance of having our own biological child.
That is where we are now. Last Wednesday we had our IVF class. It was about 3 ½ hours long. We learned all about IVF and what we should expect. Casey and I learned how to give me my injections and learned about all the medication. We learned that we would start the procedure as soon as I started my next period, which should be this week for me. So wow! We are doing this and it is happening soon! Please keep us in your prayers.