History really does repeat itself!

At one time or another everyone has heard someone say something like “you never know how strong you really are until you are smack dab in the middle of a situation. “  I never thought I would have been able to handle the things I have gone through in the past 6 months.  I have learned a great number of things about my husband and myself on this journey.  The most important thing I have learned is that God is a necessity.  I have learned how incredibly blessed I am in spite of this condition.  I have learned how supportive and loving my husband is, even when dealing with a CRAZY wife. I have a super support group in my family and friends. The most difficult lesson I’ve learned is I can’t control everything because in infertility you can’t control anything.

For those who don’t know our situation, here is a brief history lesson about our infertility experience.  When I was nine years old, I had a severe case of appendicitis. After an emergency appendectomy, doctors discovered my appendix was behind my bladder and not on the right side of my abdomen like it was supposed to be. It was severely infected and poison had been leaking into my body for about a week. Within a month of the appendectomy, I had an abscess where my appendix had been. The abscess had to be surgically removed.  An abscess is a severe infection. As far as we knew, I was back to normal. What we didn’t know was that the infections would cause severe trauma to my fallopian tubes over the next 10 years.

Fast forward to fifteen years old. I began having sharp pains in my lower abdomen. About a year later, when the pain was much more constant and intense, doctors discovered I had bilateral hydrosalpinx. A hydrosalpinx (hyrdo) is a fallopian tube which is blocked with fluid cause by severe trauma or infection (flashback). Bilateral means that both of my tubes were blocked.  Over the next year, the pain continued to get worse until I couldn’t stand it anymore.  In October of 2001, at seventeen years old, I had surgery to have my fallopian tubes lased open. My tubes were dilated to 6‐7 cm in diameter. The average size of a fallopian tube is .05 – 1.2 cm.  My left ovary, left fallopian tube, and the left side of my intestines were all attached to each other. My intestines were attaching all of that to the front of my abdominal wall. I also had bad scar tissue from the appendectomy and abscess. Doctors opened my fallopian tubes and detached my ovary, fallopian tube, and intestines and put me back together again. Doctors told me and my parents that I would probably only have an estimated 20% chance of having a child naturally. Well to a 17 year old kid that isn’t the end of the world.

I graduated from high school, went onto college, and then law school.  During the summer after my 2^nd year of law school, I met my husband. We began dating and continued a long distance relationship until I graduated the following May.  I graduated in May of 2009, took the bar in July, we got engaged in August, I started my first big girl job in September and got married in December.  Ironically, everyone jokingly asked me “when are you due” when we set our wedding date so soon after getting engaged.  If we had only known!!!

Kevin and I spent the next two years enjoying just being with each other.  We discussed having children, but weren’t ready.  When I got “the fever,” we started trying. Now, knowing my past, we knew it would be difficult.  I guess you could say I was in denial about what 20% chance meant. So I stopped taking my BC and began half way monitoring my periods and ovulation. All the time though, in the back of my mind I had doubts.  Those doubts were confirmed every time I got a BFN (Big Fat Negative). Every BFN was the same. I would feel funny (probably just gas), think “OMG is it possible,” go get a pregnancy test, reread the instructions so I know that I peed on the stick correctly (I know you are saying how do you mess up peeing on a stick, but after enough BFNs you think crazy thoughts), pee on the stick, spend the next 5-10 minutes dreaming and thinking about the what ifs, only to have all of those dreams and what ifs washed away by the tears streaming down my face.

After a while, I decided I needed to talk to my doctor.  I was terrified though. Even though I knew what he was going to say, I was petrified to hear it said out loud. This anxiety was a totally new concept for me.  Most of the time I am motivated by fear and anxiety (unless it is caused by seeing a spider).  So it was completely foreign to feel paralyzed.

In September of this year, I finally got the nerve to go to the doctor.  We learned that if I were to get pregnant naturally, it would most likely result in an ectopic pregnancy. In an ectopic pregnancy, the embryo grows inside the fallopian tube never making it to the uterus. This can be fatal to the mother and is always fatal to the embryo. Needless to say we didn’t try to conceive naturally. Enter Dr. D!  On the first visit, Dr. D confirmed that we would have to do In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) in order to have a child. He explained that IVF starts with giving myself shots for several days or weeks to make my ovaries mass produce eggs. Then I would be put to sleep, and a long needle used to suck out those eggs. They would introduce my eggs and Kevin’s sperm in a petri dish and let them get to know each other (fertilize) for 5 days. Hopefully, after that we would have embryos. Then 2 good looking embryos would be transferred to my uterus. After two weeks of more medication and shots we would take a pregnancy test to find out if we were pregnant.

But it couldn’t be that easy! Dr. D tested my Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH). This would tell him what my egg reserve (quantity and quality) looked like. We thought that because of my age, my AMH would be about 2.0.  It was .80! PUNY!!! Dr. D also told us my hydros were back and that my tubes needed to come out. The best news of the day was when he told us we needed to do an IVF treatment by December, at the latest February 2013. That was one of the few days in my life that I truly was speechless.  If you know me, you understand how big that is.  If you don’t know me, I make conversation with myself! I promise I’m not crazy!

Just one BIG problem with Dr. D’s time line.  IVF costs around $15,000 per cycle. Pocket change, right? Most insurance companies consider having IVF a luxury. REALLY!?!? To add to it, I had to have the surgery before we could do any treatments.  I had the surgery on November 13, 2012. My tubes were completely blocked, I had a cyst on my left ovary, and endometriosis. I have healed and am theoretically “back to normal” whatever that means.  Did you get all of that? Yep, that is our reality. That is just the physical, we haven’t begun talking about the emotional crazy lady that moved in after we learned all of this.  It’ll have you saying “poor Kevin.” But I don’t know if you are ready for that on day one.  So we’ll save that for tomorrow night! Good night and sleep tight!