Well, I decided to start a Blog about our journey thus far into the world of infertility. I don't know how often I will update, and I'm not sure who I will give the address to(if anyone), but I think it will help me to get some of my thoughts on paper(or the computer). Here's where we've been in the last 3 1/2 years. We started trying 3 and 1/2 years ago, not long after our nephew Cameron came along, when I was 31 years old. We had been married 9 years when we decided to start trying, which is a long time I guess, but we wanted to make sure we were ready.(Yeah right!) If we had known the problems we were to face, we would have started trying long before that. We have a couple of problems that we were dealing with right off the bat. I have endometriosis, plus a fibroid tumor, and Joe has an unusually high count of abnormal sperm. Two strikes against us. I had a laparoscopy a year before we started trying, followed by 6 months of a drug that put my body into menopause, followed by 6 months of birth control to shrink the endometriosis inside of me. Apparently it didn't work, because severe pelvic pain and no pregnancy led us to our 5th doctor and another laparoscopy to laser out the endo. This time there was extensive scarring and adhesions. My ovaries were stuck to my pelvis because of the adhesions. My fairly routine surgery that was supposed to take a little over an hour to complete ended up taking 4 and 1/2 hours! I had a very difficult recovery due to the signifigant lasering that was done. I have never been through child birth, so I can say that this is honestly the most pain I have ever experienced. While undergoing this difficult recovery, I was made to feel like a wimp by a couple of people that had undergone a laparoscopy and had recovered in a few days. Great for them, but it still took me 10 days to feel completely normal again, wimp or not! Well, now that I was cleaned out and had tests done to make sure my tubes were clear(which they were), we were excited to start trying again. Needless to say, we were to be dissapointed. After 2 years of negative results, we decided to do an IntraUterine Insemination, or IUI. I had no idea that this was such an extensive procedure! I honestly thought that all we had to do was show up with the sperm and they would shoot it into me. Boy was I wrong! We started with the fertility drug Clomid, on day 3 of my cycle to make sure I ovulated. This drug turned me into Dr, Jekkyl and Mr Hyde! My husband was afraid to even look at me for fear that I would either start screaming at him or burst into tears!(Both of which happened quite often during the time I was on the drug) Then began a series of ultrasounds to check my follicles for eggs, followed by an injection of some other kind of fertility drug. I had to go to the doctor for 4 days in a row, and had 7 ultrasounds before we brought the sperm sample in to be inseminated. We had to do that part twice, since I didn't ovulate like a good girl the first time we did it. We were so excited. We just knew that this was going to work.
All of this was very hard to explain to my job, since I didn't feel like sharing something so personal with them. When it was over, one of my co-workers confided in me that she was sure that I had cancer, since she couldn't think of anything else that would warrant going to the doctor so much. She was very relieved when she found out that wasn't the case. Well, then the wait began. It was a very long two weeks. I became so impatient to find out that I took a pregnancy test 2 days before my period was to begin. It was negative. We were devastated. It was starting to feel as though we would never get pregnant, and we had only been trying for 2 years. Still, Joe was optimistic that we would concieve, it was just going to take a little longer than normal. I was not as optimistic. We recieved the $700.00 bill for that IUI at about the same time that we found out Joe was going to be unemployed for the next 3 months. Great timing, and I was pissed because I didn't feel like we should have to pay for something that didn't even work! (If only life worked that way). It is impossible to go through infertility treatments when you are having finacial difficulties. We had to put treatment on hold and wait for us to get back on our feet. We still tried on our own for the next 12 months. By this time I was tiring of peeing on sticks every month to see when I would ovulate, and having sex only when the calendar said it was time. In the mean time, I was able to travel to China with Lisa and Scott for the adoption of our neice Grace. It was an awesome experience, and instantly I knew that I wanted to do that someday. Someday after we had a biological child or our own. It has been almost 12 months since that trip, and 42 months since we began trying and still nothing. We have pretty much stopped seeing any of our friends that have kids, because it feels uncomfortable being the only people at the party without them, and it's depressing. We have basically isolated ourselves from everyone that we know. In some ways it has made our marriage stronger, but it is lonely at times to never go to birthday parties or BBQ's. It's just too hard. I end up crying all the way home, and it upsets Joe that I get so upset.
Oh well, this has gone on way too long. In the next post I'll explain what has been happening in the last month and how our last doctor's appointment went.