National Infertility Awareness Week - MY Infertility Story

Before I get to sharing my story, here are a few things I want to preface this post with:

1. This post will be LONG...I want to get it all out there.

2. This post may jump all over the place...thank you for sticking with me on it.

3. This post was written in one sitting, with no edits, so I apologize if my grammar, etc. is off.  I felt the best way to write my story was as if I was actually talking to you about it..

So, here we go.....

I've wanted to write this post for a while now, but kept putting it off.  I am not a super private person {I mean, I have a blog, come on now} but my infertility is something I have only shared in depth with a handful of people.

This week {April 22- 28} is National Infertility Awareness Week.  I stumbled up the Resolve website a few weeks ago and knew this would be the week to woman up and write this post.

I guess my infertility problems started back when I was in High School.  By 16, I had only had my period a handful of times, which was strange to me because all my friends had their periods like clockwork.  My doctor at the time looked me over, ran tests and told me I was a normal teenage girl, and the sometimes, when girls are very active {I played school soccer and league soccer from ages 6-19} they don’t menstruate normally.  That said, she did put me on birth control in order to regulate my periods.

Skip ahead 9 years.  I was a newly married 25 year old woman.  I wasn't crazy about having kids that young {yes, that was young to me}, but knew that both Gary & I DID want kids within the next year or 2, so I got off my birth control since I had read that it could take up to 6 months after that to get pregnant.  6 months passed and nothing happened.  Around that time, my mom gave me an article from one of her magazines about an endocrine condition called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome {PCOS}.  I read it and my gut told me that was what I had.  So I made an appt. with my doctor.  We talked, she ran tests, did an ultrasound and told me that there was nothing wrong with me, and to keep trying. "If you relax, you'll get pregnant."  Ummm....6 months after THAT I went to another doctor, who ran the same tests and told me the same thing.  Do you know how HARD it is to relax when someone tells you to just relax?!?!

It was so frustrating....I KNEW something was wrong with my body, but nobody could tell me what it exactly was.

That next January {I was 26 1/2 at the time} Gary & I had to change insurances.  It took me a few months to even make an appt. with my new doctor because I was afraid she'd tell me to "just relax."  Instead, she sat with me for 45 minutes, going over my whole history.  Within minutes of sharing my story with her, she told me that a 20-something year old woman who was NOT on birth control and sexually active on a regular basis who was not getting pregnant is not okay.  And shame on my other doctors for not looking deeper.  I kid you not, I sat there crying.  Finally there was a doctor who didn't think I was overreacting.

After some tests, she called to tell me I had PCOS {thanks Dr. Mom for that article years ago}.

Within a few weeks, she had me on Metformin and taking Clomid to up my chances of pregnancy.  Every month or so, she upped my dose.  I was charting my temperature every morning and keeping track of everything that could help us in the fertility department.  Still nothing.

This time was really stressful for Gary & I.  Infertility treatments are NOT cheap.  Even with just the Metformin & Clomid, we had to pay about $250 a month out of pocket for each round of ultrasounds {Clomid ups your chance of getting cysts on the ovaries}.  A few times, we had to not do treatments because there were cysts on my ovaries.  My doctor worked with me to make this process as inexpensive as possible, but there's only so much wiggle room.  This was also during a time when Gary & I were taking HUGE pay cuts at work and Gary's trusty Honda died, so we had to buy a used vehicle.  Money was tight to say the least. 

But we made it work...because we had to.

It was a few months later when our lives went from bad to worse. Gary's dad was diagnosed with Esophageal cancer.  Within 3 and a half months, Gary's dad passed.  It was like the ground opened up and swallowed Gary whole.  He was dealing with the grief of losing a father and not being able to have a family.  I was just trying to keep Gary functioning while feeling beyond guilty that my body wouldn't give him the child he deserved.  It was a dark, depressing place for both of us.

After a few more months, my doctor suggested I get a Hysterosalpingogram, which is an x-ray of the fallopian tubes.  What nobody tells you is that it hurts like hell.  I have NEVER been in that much pain before.  It was like someone was cutting up my insides with a machete.  Times a million.  As soon as Gary got me in the car, I told him I am never going to go through that procedure again.  The "good" news was that my tubes were clear and that it supposedly upped my chances of getting pregnant the next month.  My doctor thought since the odds may be higher, we could start HCG shots.  

So in addition to the Metformin, and Clomid {not to forget the Provera that I needed to take to START my cycle}, I was now getting HCG shots in my upper ass.  Oh joy.  Round 1 - No luck.  Round 2 - No luck.  Round 3....there was no round 3.

Between the time of Round 2 &3 Gary and I had a major talk.  We were both tired of trying.  Sex was no longer something we enjoyed because the past 2 years it could only be had on certain days at certain times, certain positions, etc.  Gary was still trying to heal from his father's passing.  We were having a hell of a time affording treatments anymore {which led to more stress}.  We had both gained weight from the stress in our lives.  We were just NOT in a good place anymore, individually or as a couple.

After 2+ years of trying, we were done.

And, secretly, I was thrilled.  I've never felt as emotional and physically drained as I did those years of trying.  I had lost my spirit, my humor, my love of life.  I had become one of those women obsessed with having a baby.

Slowly, I became the woman I had been before and Gary & I went back to being the couple we used to be, but closer, because of all the crap we'd been through.

Fast forward to today...I'm now 31 and still childless.  99% of the time I am okay with this.  1% of me still feels shame that my body can't do what it is supposed to do naturally.  But I don't dwell on it. 

We have an awesome Godson, and a few other kids in our life that we try to spoil the heck out of {then we get to give them back}!!

Gary is going back to school the next few years, so we've kept with our decision to NOT try for children.  We've had many discussions about our options over the past few years.  Some ideas have included adoption or surrogacy.  Right now the idea we've been toying with is choosing to remain childless, but it took a long time to even get to the point of talking about it.  For years I felt that maybe I wasn't enough for Gary - that we needed kids to continue growing our relationship.  I now see that this is soooo far from the truth.

I'm not sure what the future will hold for Gary & I when it comes to children.

What I do know is that no matter what happens, Gary & I will take that journey together.


****for more information about infertility, please go to this link.  Resolve is a GREAT website with a ton of information!***