Friday, June 16, 2006
We interrupt this life...
This post will contain the saga of our journey to baby number two. However, it's quite a long saga, so it's in draft stage currently. Details will follow but for now the basics...IVF #1 with a chemical pregnancy, IVF/ICSI #2 Blighted Ovum with D&C...and another D&C...lucky me, IVF/ICSI #3 pregnant with twins, lost one but one is healthy and growing as we enter the second trimester!
Primary Infertility
March of 1996...Project Babymaking begins.
We stopped all methods of birth control and anticipated a fairly quick pregnancy. My cycle hadn't been regular, so we knew it may take a few months, but we weren't too concerned. After eight months I headed to my OB/GYN, Dr. Old School, because I'd been spotting for a couple weeks. My mom thought I might be pregnant because that's how she discovered she was, when she had me. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Dr. Old School started me on Clomid which I took for more cycles than I care to discuss. Each month he'd have me come in for a blood test on the 21st day of my cycle to see if I'd ovulated, and according to him, each month I had. No pregnancy, however, to show for it. We continued with that almost a year and then I switched to a new OB/GYN.
The new doctor, Dr. Realist, was great and at least started some infertility testing and moved on to medicated IUI's. With him, it appears I ovulated every other cycle, and we discovered a few strange hormonal things. We tried 4 IUI's with him, before he told us it was time to move on to a Reproductive Endocrinologist. We'd been in the game about 2.5 years by this point and were still getting an "unexplained infertility" diagnosis.
On to Dr. Big Guns who was with a highly rated infertility clinic, and had a six month wait for an appt. He took one look at my ovaries and diagnosed me with PCOS, even though I didn't appear to have any of the classic symptoms, other than polycystic ovaries. He suggested moving on to IVF and told us that was really our only option. WHAT??? We went from unexplained to PCOS and IVF with very inhibitive costs. We decided to give ourselves some time to think and start saving.
The next year brought lots of tears, saving our penny's, Resolve Meetings, and I took a fertility class. It included lots of meditation, yoga, support, fitness, some counseling and sisterhood with women who were experiencing what I was...FINALLY! It was great to find people who knew how I felt without me even having to say anything. We finally felt ready to make an appointment with another RE.
Dr. Compassionate was wonderful. She listened to our concerns about how we wanted to proceed and felt comfortable with doing one more IUI before going all out with IVF. She planned to do a few more tests and did an ultrasound before we left that day. The night she called to say I was ovulating, crazy since it was only day 12 of my usually 34-36 day cycle. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle...a natural pregnancy!
Nine months later our son was born. He was 4 days overdue, made me go through 31 hours of labor and scared us with a true knot in his umbilical cord, but he was beautiful and perfect and still is!
We stopped all methods of birth control and anticipated a fairly quick pregnancy. My cycle hadn't been regular, so we knew it may take a few months, but we weren't too concerned. After eight months I headed to my OB/GYN, Dr. Old School, because I'd been spotting for a couple weeks. My mom thought I might be pregnant because that's how she discovered she was, when she had me. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Dr. Old School started me on Clomid which I took for more cycles than I care to discuss. Each month he'd have me come in for a blood test on the 21st day of my cycle to see if I'd ovulated, and according to him, each month I had. No pregnancy, however, to show for it. We continued with that almost a year and then I switched to a new OB/GYN.
The new doctor, Dr. Realist, was great and at least started some infertility testing and moved on to medicated IUI's. With him, it appears I ovulated every other cycle, and we discovered a few strange hormonal things. We tried 4 IUI's with him, before he told us it was time to move on to a Reproductive Endocrinologist. We'd been in the game about 2.5 years by this point and were still getting an "unexplained infertility" diagnosis.
On to Dr. Big Guns who was with a highly rated infertility clinic, and had a six month wait for an appt. He took one look at my ovaries and diagnosed me with PCOS, even though I didn't appear to have any of the classic symptoms, other than polycystic ovaries. He suggested moving on to IVF and told us that was really our only option. WHAT??? We went from unexplained to PCOS and IVF with very inhibitive costs. We decided to give ourselves some time to think and start saving.
The next year brought lots of tears, saving our penny's, Resolve Meetings, and I took a fertility class. It included lots of meditation, yoga, support, fitness, some counseling and sisterhood with women who were experiencing what I was...FINALLY! It was great to find people who knew how I felt without me even having to say anything. We finally felt ready to make an appointment with another RE.
Dr. Compassionate was wonderful. She listened to our concerns about how we wanted to proceed and felt comfortable with doing one more IUI before going all out with IVF. She planned to do a few more tests and did an ultrasound before we left that day. The night she called to say I was ovulating, crazy since it was only day 12 of my usually 34-36 day cycle. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle...a natural pregnancy!
Nine months later our son was born. He was 4 days overdue, made me go through 31 hours of labor and scared us with a true knot in his umbilical cord, but he was beautiful and perfect and still is!
And so it begins...
Well it really started almost ten years ago.
Ten years ago, my husband and I decided it was time to start a family. We had both finished college and were in our first jobs, we'd been married for almost 3 years and felt like it was the next step. With much anticipation, I finished my last pack of birth control pills...and we moved on to UNPROTECTED SEX! We were young and sure that I would be pregnant quickly. The story that follows proves that unprotected sex doesn't guartantee anything when you're fertilely challenged.
Ten years ago, my husband and I decided it was time to start a family. We had both finished college and were in our first jobs, we'd been married for almost 3 years and felt like it was the next step. With much anticipation, I finished my last pack of birth control pills...and we moved on to UNPROTECTED SEX! We were young and sure that I would be pregnant quickly. The story that follows proves that unprotected sex doesn't guartantee anything when you're fertilely challenged.
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