I have been reading some other blogs lately and there are several out there on people dealing with infertility. Although Justin and I did not meet the technical definition of "infertile" as we were able to successfully conceive before 12 months was up, we did have fertility issues when trying to conceive (TTC). I wanted to share my story and although I'm not sure if anyone will read it, please don't judge us. There may be people who read this who have been trying for years and still have yet to conceive and of course their circumstances will probably be vastly different from mine. However, it wasn't all peaches and cream for us in our journey to have McKenna either. Here is our story...
We got married in May 2009, and Justin had turned 32 in April and I was going to turn 32 in November of that same year. I went off the pill in March 2009 and we used backup birth control until our wedding night. We figured if it happened it would happen, basically we weren't doing anything to prevent pregnancy. We didn't actively start trying to conceive until July 2009. We went on our honeymoon to Riveria Maya, Mexico, and I headed down with an ovulation predictor kit and the great desire to succeed at getting pregnant. Each morning I used the OPK and each morning it came up negative; however, we still did our fair share of trying to get pregnant on that particular vacation (hey, it was our honeymoon after all). No luck that month. No luck in August, September, October, or November either. At this point I was getting frustrated and very anxious. I hadn't truly realized that it could possibly take that long to conceive, although of course I had read that it could take up to a year or more. Also keep in mind that I come from a family where my Mom had me when she was 18 and my younger sister had her first at 16 and pretty much everyone in my family is as fertile as they come, so this was really annoying for me. Finally I made an appointment to have a consult with a well-known OB in the Medina area; we met right at the beginning of December 2009. What I liked best about this OB was that he didn't trivialize our situation; he didn't sit there, look at me and say, "Oh, you've only been trying for 6 or 7 months; come back and see me when you've hit a year and you're still not pregnant" like I've heard that a lot of other OBs would do. We talked about my cycles (unusually long) and he also said that he would send me for some initial testing to see if we could figure out what the deal was with our inability to conceive. I had some blood work done, poor Justin had to submit a semen sample, and later in December I went to have an HSG (if you don't know what that is, look it up...definitely not the most comfortable procedure in the world). I figured if I couldn't deal with the discomfort of the HSG how would I ever deal with labor and childbirth? I ended up sucking it up for that test. After all the testing was done I was given a diagnosis of PCOS (polycystic ovary/ovarian syndrome) which basically means that I don't necessarily ovulate on a consistent basis every month and that sometimes the ovum can get stuck before it bursts through the ovary and form cysts on the ovary. This also accounted for my really long cycles, which had not been regular since I went off the pill (I had been on the pill since age 16, with a year in college on Depo Provera and one semester in college where I went off it because I was engaged and out of the country at the time). The OB told me that if we kept trying we would finally hit the jackpot, but then when my period came in January he told me that he would prescribe me Clomid if I wanted it. I was weary of TTC at this point and figured it couldn't hurt to try it. I had read several stories and heard from several people that Clomid didn't work for them, they had to try several different doses several different times and it still didn't result in a pregnancy. I had this picture in my head of that being our situation, having to try hormone shots (I absolutely hate needles) and having issues for a long time to come. I took the lowest dose of Clomid possible and we hoped for the best in February 2010. In March my period was late (not out of the ordinary, since I have PCOS) but I had been instructed to call the doctor's office if I was late and then they could give me some other type of medication to have me start my period. When I called the secretary asked me if I had taken a pregnancy test, and of course I hadn't. I had grown weary of the monthly testing and the results always being negative. The next morning I took a test and it was a First Response test with the pink lines. It appeared to me that there was a faint second pink line. The next morning I used my last (more expensive) Clear Blue Easy digital test and it came up as positive almost immediately. I went into the bedroom, turned on the light and basically shoved the test right in Justin's face (which I am so sure he appreciated). Later that day I called the doctor's office and they had me go to the hospital for a blood pregnancy test, which also came back positive. With the help of one round of Clomid, we had done it...we had finally been successful at TTC. Now, I did have to take several blood pregnancy tests until my betas got to a certain number, but we got there. It took us around 10 months with the Clomid to be successful in our quest to conceive. I also found Fertility Friend online to be very helpful, as I tracked my cycles on there and was able to find out approximately when I would be ovulating (probably the best $30 or so I had spent in a long time). I also used ovulation predictor kits-just the cheap ones, where you get a box of 30 or so with the little blue lines on them. I hadn't realized when I first tried to use them in July on our honeymoon that you need to test a couple or a few times a day, not just in the morning when you wake up. Better not to buy the box of 7 digital ovulation tests if that is what you plan on doing (testing multiple times).
With all that said, my heart breaks for friends of ours and other acquaintances that I know of who have been trying for way longer than 10 months to conceive. We have some friends who have been trying for years and have had every test possible and have tried everything from Clomid to injections to IVF and it just hasn't worked. No particular cause has been found. I thought that in sharing our story I would give hope (and maybe some comic relief) to people who may have struggled with or who are currently struggling with fertility issues and/or infertility. I wish the best for my friends and acquaintances who are still TTC.
When we decide to have our next child, we'll see how it goes. It does scare me a bit that I'll probably be 35 or 36 by the time we try again (hey, wait, you may be thinking, that's not old at all...keep in mind my background...Mom had first child at 18, younger sister had first child at 16...yeah, compared to that, I'm OLD). Maybe it will just happen on its own, maybe it won't. We'll have to wait and see.
Until next time, I remain,
Jenuinely Yours
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