There are so many infertility blogs out there and I find myself attracted to them.  Because I started this blog after I already had kids, there is no record of my infertility that spans over 10 years of my life.  So, here is my story.

Rogene and I got married when I was 20 and he was 24.  We did not want to have kids right away.  We felt that getting married and me moving to my husband's home in British Columbia (on a visitor visa!) was enough.

I'd never really been around babies.  I was the baby of the family.  But my sister was pregnant and gave birth 4 months after my wedding.  Once I saw my little nephew, and held him, I wanted a baby too.  So we waited a year few months and then started trying for a baby.

When I didn't get pregnant for several months I went to my doctor in Canada for some testing.  They did some really strange testing… I remember an ultrasound to look at my ovaries (lots of smallish cysts!) and some blood test, and even a stool test (what?).  They didn't really say much except, "You're young!  Keep trying!"

Soon after that we moved to the States.  We had a lot of adjusting to do with our big move, so we put off any further testing, but we still really wanted a baby.  We still hoped for one.

My sister got pregnant and had another baby.  After holding my niece I REALLY wanted a baby.

So we started the testing again with my OB/GYN, who I will call Dr. Nice.  We did all the usual tests.  Blood tests, sperm analysis, post-coital test, ultrasounds and the doctor didn't find a thing wrong with me.  About my husband the doctor said, "He could populate the world!"  She prescribed Clomid and said "good luck!"  When that didn't work after a few months she said she'd like to do an exploratory laparoscopy.  Um, okay!  During the surgery they found some pretty bad endometriosis, scarring and adhesions.  Dr. Nice made an attempt at cleaning up the endometriosis, but realized she was in over her head and just finished up the surgery and referred me to a reproductive endocrinologist (RE).  I had some really bad pain after that surgery, so I was pretty scared of the idea of more surgery.  

We had a complete workup with the RE which I will call Dr. Meticulous (because he was), including some really fun tests like a hysterosalpingogram, a sperm penetration assay, and endometrial biopsy, and he suggested we try a few rounds of Dexamethazone/Progesterone/Clomid and IUI.  Which we did.  They all failed.  It got to the point where we had done every test, and we really didn't know anything conclusive other than that I had some pretty serious endometriosis.  None of the Clomid/IUI cycles had been even remotely successful.  These pictures of a two-sided Christmas ornament (I found them at A Little Pregnant) pretty much sum up the cycle of hope and disappointment that is infertility.

FRONT

BACK

About this time my insurance changed and I was eligible for 50% coverage for infertility (previously I had enjoyed 0% coverage for infertility).  BUT, they required that I switch to "in plan" doctors.  Which meant I had to change to a different RE.  Right in the middle of treatment.  So, we rolled with the punches, and did switch.  The new place was a clinic full of RE's and we never saw the same one twice.  It was very odd.  When we did IUI there a nurse did the whole procedure.  It was very impersonal and strange.  After our last IUI attempt, one of the random RE's there told me I had no choices left but IVF.  He gave me a handout with the procedures and prices on it AND the success rates which were so low!  Maybe things have changed but back then I think they said my chances of IVF being successful were 25% or less. 

I still remember that day like it was yesterday.  I felt very hopeless.  I wasn't ready to move on and do IVF, and I was sick to death of the side effects of the Clomid/Progesterone/Dexamethasone cocktail I was on (hot flashes, mood swings, weight gain).  How much worse would injectable drugs be?  Plus, doing IVF would mean I would have to take more time off work, and make the one hour (both ways!) drive to the doctor several times each week for ultrasounds at 7am.  Then, of course, there would be the un-fun egg retrieval process, where they stick a needle… oh never mind, it seemed too horrible to even think about at the time.  Plus, after so many failed IUIs I just didn't want to go through all of that, just to find out that after all that expense and all the effort that it had failed.  I was getting a little sick of the failure/bad news cycle we were in. 

I was also sick and tired of taking my pants off for exams at the doctor so often.  You might think that is funny, but think about if you would want to go in for your "annual women's exam" several times a week for months at a time.

I HATED that this process wasn't private.  I HATED talking about it at work, but how can you not when you have to ask for time off for the appointments, and everyone knew where I was going?  People would ask how it was going and it made me so upset.  If I was pregnant I would have told them!  Making me say that I was not pregnant, that it had not worked AGAIN was like torture for me.  I HATED feeling weepy all the time.  I HATED crying in front of other people.

Some of you are probably thinking, "Why not just give up and adopt?"  Good question!  I have nothing against adoption.  I think it is a wonderful way to build a family.  But at that point, I didn't want to do adoption because I was so ANGRY at all I would have to go through.  It seems silly now, but it felt very real to me then.  I was ANGRY that to get a baby I would have to sign up, that a social worker would come to my house to do a home study to evaluate if we were "good enough" to be parents.  If I got pregnant myself I wouldn't have had to do anything… nothing!  Teenagers get pregnant and nobody evaluates if they are ready for parenthood.  It just chapped my hide that someone was going to come tell me if I was good enough to be a parent.  If everyone in the whole world who was a prospective parent had to go through it, it would have been no big deal to me… but I felt singled out.  And it felt like yet another indignity I had to endure if I wanted a child.

Also, I HATED the idea that I could make up a letter with a picture of my husband and I that prospective birth mother's would read.  I HATED the fact that there are people out there who are circulating their letters and THEY MIGHT NEVER BE PICKED.  EVER!  It seemed an unfair way to do things.  I felt that if you were deemed "worthy" by a social worker of being an adoptive parent you should be able to line up and take your turn getting the next available baby.  Now, I realize that if I were in the shoes of a birth mom I would want to pick the family my baby would go to.  But I didn't want to be the letter writer.  (I worked at an office where we would get those types of letters in the mail several times a week and they were heartbreaking.  It made me sad to see the pictures of all those hopeful prospective parents.)

Also, I couldn't decide on open or closed adoption.  Now that I've read more about adoption, I'm all for open adoption.  If I could adopt a child, and have that child know the birth parents… keep in touch with them, I would LOVE that.  But at the time I was scared and closed adoption, where the birth parents could not find the child, seemed safer somehow.

They told me that the only real option I had left was IVF or a major endometriosis surgery.   No thanks on the surgery.  I was terrified of surgery.  I needed to think about the IVF.  It was prohibitively expensive, and did not have a good success rate.  If we spent our money on IVF and weren't successful, we went home empty handed and also with an empty bank account.  If we used our money on an adoption, we would be pretty much guaranteed to come home with a baby.  What to do, what to do.

Meanwhile, I checked out every book in the local library about reproduction and infertility and read them all.  I wanted to be informed, it helped me feel a little more in control of the things that were happening to us. 

**Before I go any further I would like to say that my views on IVF are mine alone, and I in no way condemn those who chose to do IVF or any other ART.  I know many children who are the result of IVF, and I can't imagine the world without those beautiful children.  I do believe God gives doctors the knowledge and ability to help heal things like infertility.**

My best friend gave me a book called "God, Why Can't We Have A Baby?" and I read it cover to cover.  It was a different way of looking at ART, and one that really made me think about what I believe.  I believe that life begins at conception.  This book made me look at that belief, made me question whether or not I could purposely create little lives, and then freeze them, or use them knowing that some or most of them would die, or donate them to a stranger for either implantation or research.  I wanted to do IVF… I wanted to scrunch up my eyes and cover my ears and say "LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU" and pretend that I had different beliefs.  Since I couldn't make my peace with IVF I decided to just put off the decision.  I went off Clomid after being on it for a year and could not believe how much better I felt.  We needed a break from all the treatments, decisions, and unhappiness.  We needed to have some fun!  I decided I wanted to lose weight and feel good about myself so I went on a diet (phen/fen was still on the market back then) and started exercising and rapidly lost 56 pounds. 

This "fun" lasted for probably 5 (or more) years.  I still wanted a baby really bad.  I still felt infertile.  I still cried when someone I knew got pregnant.  I still avoided baby showers.  I remember one time I saw a girl with twins, and I was SO ANGRY that she had two babies and I had none.  That is SO UNFAIR!  We should each have one, then we both would be happy.  Through all of this I didn't have peace about either adoption or IVF, so I did nothing. 

**Part 2 coming soon**