Ok, so I have never done this before....but I thought I would give it a try...
I am thinking that I should start out with a little about us...
I am 30 years old and the middle child of 5 kids. My parents experienced infertility for 6 years and adopted my two older sisters before they had my brother, sister, and I. I met my husband while working at a retail store 9 years ago. We started dating on 10/10/03 and less than a year later he asked me to marry him. We got married on 6/23/06. We have 2 dogs (a yorkiepoo and a soft coated wheaten) and one cat. I love my fur babies like kids and lately they seem to be costing me as much too!!!
On 6/9/09, in a grand gesture, my husband flushed my birth control pills down the toilet. We expected we would be pregnant within a few months. Then, as AF showed up, month after month I started to get discouraged. Would it ever happen? What was wrong with us? Looking back at it now, I always felt something was "off". Why wasn't this working??? My husband and I had a lot of fights in these days...I was obsessing about being pregnant...I needed to stop worrying about it. Then in October my best friend decided that her and her husband were going to start trying. And just as expected, 4 weeks later, I got the call from her that they were expecting...
This seemed to be the norm for the next year or so, at least once a month we would receive notice that another "friend" was expecting. Every new announcement would send me into tears...it seemed like everyone was joining this cool new club that I wasn't invited to. I was waiting for the one year mark to hit so that my dear husband could go to the doctor for a test. Now, I don't know exactly what I was expecting....part of me thought that once the first year was up we would go to the doctor who would tell us right away what was wrong and once we fixed it we'd be pregnant in no time. Boy was I wrong.....
My husband and I met with his urologist who told us that everything seemed fine and then ordered the "test". Wait, I thought we were supposed to have answers now....not just a test. So we finally decide the date for the test...and (again, I don't know what I was thinking) we have more waiting to do before we can get the results..."the doctor will call you in 5-7 business days." What??? It's not like the doctor is shipping the results to us via UPS ground. All he needs to do is pick up the phone and call me for crying out loud!!! The doctor calls us and tells us that he wants to me with us to discuss the results. So we get there that day and the doctor (who looks like he is just out of med school maybe) tells us that everything looks fine, we should do another test in a few months, and that I should meet with an RE to have myself checked out. Whoa....where were the answers??? I thought we were supposed to have answers now?!?!? So now what, more waiting and more tests???
The RE that we were referred to turned out to be right now the street from where I work and in network. So I made my appointment for September and waited. Surely at the RE's office they will be able to give me some answers...When the appointment day got there I really didnt know what to expect. I picked out my outfit carefully (some bizarre part of me thought that if I looked the part that they would deem me ready to be a parent and somehow that would help our getting pregnant) and went to the office. We went through a complete medical history and I met with the nurse who would be handling our case and I met with a financial planner. The doctor told me that she didnt see any cause for concern, that she wanted to run a HSG test and that she thought an IUI would work just fine for us. What??? Still no answers??? Are you kidding me???
I felt (and still do feel) so unprepared for this. I dont know what questions to ask the doctors. What about this test or that medication? The HSG test went fine and the doctor said that everything looked good. She said she wanted to do an IUI. After discussing this with my husband and our insurance we decided we would wait until March of 2011 so that we could save up the required amount of money for the procedure ($600 for the actual procedure, the insurance would cover the medicine, blood work, and ultrasounds). Suddenly we began to think of everything in terms of the cost of this IUI procedure. "Honey, we dont need to buy a new couch for $800, thats $200 more than an IUI."
Then, on December 23rd of 2010 I got some great news...my company had worked with Aetna and would now be covering some of the costs associated with IF when the new plan year started over in May of 2011. We decided we would wait until May to try our first IUI because that would save us about $500. We were waiting for my first period after May 1st and then we were gonna do it....really gonna do it. And of course, it turns out to be the only cycle since we started TTC that was way longer than it should have been.
Now I dont know what I was expecting, but the whole IUI process is much easier than I thought it would be. For the first time in over a year I had hope. And that hope lasted for exactly 14 days...exactly the day that my brother and future sister in law were staying at our house and working on some wedding planning. When I came down stairs with my eyes all red from crying and they asked me what was wrong.....I just started sobbing. I dont think I've ever been that upset that AF showed up.
The following month we did IUI #2. We were experts by this point. We knew what to expect & how long everything would take. We kept hoping that the second time would be a charm...then I went in for my blood work 4 days later. I got a call from the doctors office telling me that my progesterone levels were low and they were putting me on supplements. Oh, ok I thought. Then the nurse tells me that, "though the pills look like oral medication, they are actually inserts..." "Whoa, wait a minute! You want me to do what with that pill???" When AF had not showed up by the time I was susposed to go in for more blood work I was hopeful. Sadly, that hope lasted about 4 hours....until the nurse called me and told me that the results were negative.
That is the shortened version of our IF journey so far. We are waiting to do IUI #3 with injectables (instead of clomid) for a month or so. We wanted one normal cycle in between and, as it always does, life got in the way (I didnt realize how much ttc takes out of a person until a month "off"). If #3 fails we will seek a second opinion before moving on to IVF.
I have decided to start this blog as a way to talk through my thoughts...one thing I have learned is that I am not alone in my thoughts and feelings. The bitter, jealous and angry person that I may sometimes be is normal....and just knowing that helps alot......
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