Fertility Problems

Every time a friend announces their pregnancy my heart breaks a little. I am struggling with fertility problems and while I am genuinely excited and happy for my friends, the news always reminds me of the one thing I want, but can’t seem to have.

Back in August right in the midst of all the other difficulties Nic and I were enduring, check out this post for a reminder, my doctor confirmed that I don’t ovulate and also discovered that I had a slight variation of Polysistic Ovaries Syndrome (PCOS), for more information on the disease click here. I sort of knew it was coming; I had gone off the pill in February and was having very irregular menstrual cycles. We waited three months to see if my cycle would naturally get back on track (I didn’t have much hope for that happening because one of the main reasons I started the pill in the first place was irregular periods). Then I tried a few months of progesterone pills hoping they would kick start my body into ovulating, but no luck. My doctor and I discussed Clomid, but decided to wait until after Australia since it involves so much monitoring. I scheduled an appointment for August 25^th. That is the appointment my Dr. decided to do an ultrasound and discovered the PCOS. My doctor seemed really positive and told me annovulation was one of the easiest fertility problems to treat, but I was pretty devastated by the news. To think that at 26 years old, I would not be able to get pregnant without the help of modern medicine was crushing to me.

A few weeks later, September 6^th, I had another appointment, and began my first cycle of Clomid. Taking the pill seemed relatively easy, I just took one every afternoon for 5 days and waited to see if any of the horrible symptoms I read about on-line would happen to me. I did have a few days of cramping and two days of pretty intense moodiness around days 11 and 12 of my cycle, so when I went back to the doctor for another ultrasound on September 14^th to see how my ovaries were looking, I was feeling optimistic. Unfortunately, ovulation wasn’t looking very likely that cycle and the technician found a polyp on my uterus. She said to give it another week, so I tried to remain positive, but it was pretty disappointing news.

The day after my disappointing doctor appointment, I saw another “I’m Pregnant” announcement. I had actually already heard that this particular friend was pregnant, and I am truly excited for her, but in that moment I was suddenly overcome with sadness. I am only just beginning my fertility struggles and I am already starting to understand how the women felt  that I read about on blogs and message boards that just can’t bear to find out yet another friend is pregnant when they have been struggling with infertility for months or even years. I used to think how could anyone not be happy for their friend? How could they not put their own issues aside? Now I get it. Of course you are happy for your friend and you hope with all your heart that everything goes perfectly for them. The problem is just that the friend reminds you of your own struggles, losses and pain. This is supposed to be such a special time for any woman and I am making a promise to myself right now, that no matter how much pain it causes me every time I realize someone else has the one thing I want so badly, I will be happy and supportive of my friends.

I minimized my own happiness when I got engaged because I was trying to protect the feelings of another person and now I feel somewhat robbed of such an exciting time in my life. I would never want to do that to anyone else and hopefully someday soon I will be the one announcing my pregnancy and I know I won’t want to hide my excitement for fear of hurting someone else.

One of the things I have struggled with the most during this journey is keeping it a secret. I have always had this idea in my head of announcing my pregnancy. I envision my family and friends being so surprised and excited. Nic and I had decided a long time ago that we wouldn’t tell anyone we were trying (if you know me at all-you know this is the MOST difficult thing for me to do). We didn’t really want people to ask a lot of questions if it did take a while or we had problems, but mainly we both loved the idea of the “surprise announcement” so much that we knew it would be worth it. Once I started having problems though, I struggled with what to do. On the one hand, it would be really helpful to have some support. This has been emotional and it would be nice to have a few people to lean on. I also usually discuss all my medical issues with “my team” (my mom, her nurse friend and her doctor friend). It has been very difficult for me to not get their advice and help me come up with an action plan or at the very least some additional advice on other things I can do to help my situation.

One thing that I think is going to get a lot harder is the “When are you and Nic going to have kids?” question. In the past, I pretended to be annoyed with this question and made up so many excuses that a few times I forgot we actually did want to have a baby and were actually trying…and a few other times I was so convincing that I almost talked myself out of wanting to try. I always did, deep down, enjoy this question though… mainly because it meant that other people are excited for me to have a baby. I know that I have been guilty of asking this question too and it always comes from a place of love and excitement so whenever I get asked that question, after my very convincing reply, I smile to myself and think I can’t wait to share my exciting announcement with you someday soon. I knew my first bunch of questions post-fertility treatment were going to be difficult. It was going to be hard to give my same lies, when all I had been thinking about, praying about, is having a baby.

The really scary thought in my head is that I only have one (maybe two) more cycles to hope that I get pregnant on Clomid. If it doesn’t work, then I am going to have to go to the next, way more intense, phase of fertility treatment and that terrifies me. Not only do I know for a fact I will need to tell my family and friends (if the challenges of the Clomid cycles haven’t already forced me to do so), but I’m sure the emotions that I am feeling now would be increased ten-fold.

On September 20th, my nurse called and told me that I would not be doing Clomid next cycle and that the Dr. would like to see me on CD 7 for a sonohysterogram and simultaneous ultrasound to determine the size of the polyp. Depending on the size of the polyp the doctor will decide if I need it removed or not. The polyp doesn’t stop ovulation, but it can prevent pregnancy. So it sounds like I have two separate issues: 1-I don’t ovulate and obviously need to for conception to occur. 2-I need to take care of this polyp because if I do ovulate and conception does occur, implantation may not happen or a miscarriage may be more likely. I was also informed that Clomid doesn’t cause polyps.

On September 22, during our scrapbooking trip in Vegas, I finally told my mom what was going on. The entire first day of our trip I was on the verge of tears, but just couldn't get up the courage to tell my mom and Tomi what was going on. That night at the very end of dinner, I finally told myself that I needed to just say it. I took a deep breath and said to my mom, “I have something to tell you.” Even though my voice wasn’t excited at all, my mom was sitting next to me so she couldn’t see my somber and worried face. She immediately perked up and said, “Are you pregnant?” with a huge grin on her face. Tomi who could see my face looked really worried and quickly shook her head no. I burst into tears as I told my mom that I was having fertility problems. For the next tearful hour I went through all the details. My mom looked really sad and upset about the news, but she was also really helpful. She told me all the things Nic couldn’t, such as, that she understood how I feel, that it is ok for me to be so sad, that it will all be ok, that she will help me do whatever we have to for me to have a baby. She made me feel like being this upset wasn’t me just over-reacting and both my mom and Tomi agreed that it must have been so hard to deal with this on my own for all this time.

On the 20^th, I left work to drive up to Valencia to meet my mom. She drove us to my appointment for my sonohysterogram. When we got there the ultrasound technician did an ultrasound to make sure the polyp was still there. Then the nurse, dr. and ultrasound technician all came into the room. The dr. inserted this catheter like thing that sort of felt like a pap smear, then they started to inject the saline into me. It felt sort of weird and I cramped up slightly. Then they put some plug thing in and performed the ultrasound. My doctor said that she definitely wanted me to get it removed and seemed all positive and almost happy about the whole thing. I don’t really get how needing surgery is good news, but I guess knowing what the problem is and being able to fix it is somewhat good news. My doctor gave me the name of the doctor she recommended for the surgery and that was it. It was a very simple and painless procedure.

On October 27th, my mom and I met with Dr. Kornafel. We discussed my polyp, she did an ultrasound to look at it, and we discussed my surgery. I started taking provera again last night to bring on a period and once I get it, we will schedule the surgery for around day 7. I’m a bit nervous, but I’m also ready to focus on ovulating and getting pregnant.

On Monday, November 14^th, I had my surgery. The night before I was actually surprisingly calm; I took a bath and went to bed early. Before bed I had to take this medicine called Misoprostal 200mg. I fell asleep easily, but was woken up about an hour later by very intense cramping. Apparently the medicine I had taken dilates you. I was sort of freaking out about the pain, but it didn’t take me too long to fall back asleep. The next morning my mom drove me to the hospital. We spent most of the morning hanging out with Sandy. I got my first IV and was pretty calm considering this was my first surgery. The follow-up was scheduled for 3 weeks later so we could discuss our plan going forward.

At the follow-up, we discussed that I would try 2 more cycles of Clomid before going to the next level, which is shots. Dr. Kornafel also wanted me to do some blood sugar tests to see if I would also need Metformin and she wanted Nic to have a semen analysis to see if we would need to inseminate me or not. She also told me during the ultrasound that she thought I may have ovulated recently. I had had some ovulatory symptoms, but didn't want to get my hopes up. She said to me, "Wouldn't it be crazy if you got pregnant naturally?" Well, if you have seen my other blog posts, you know that that is exactly what happened. Both of my doctors were so surprised and so happy for me. After a much shorter fertility journey than I expected, I feel so blessed to finally have my "Im Pregnant" time and even more blessed that Nic and I were able to do it naturally.