In the fall of 2008, I suddenly and unexpectedly got the itch. One of my nephews had just been born, and a close friend just got pregnant. Up until then I was in no way ready to have a baby. And then one day it just hit me. So, I tell this to Jimmy one night, and lets just say he freaked out a little. It took some coaxing and a few months for him to be on board with trying for a baby. I was so excited in December 2008 when I finally went off BCPs (birth control pills).
Then, every single month, for several months, I thought I was pregnant. I thought for sure I had symptoms. Well, as you know, I'm not a patient person, and I started getting frustrated. I researched everything, and talked to my doctor, who reassured me that it's normal for it to take up to a year to get pregnant. After 9 months of trying, my doctor agreed to do some blood tests on me, which came back normal. But insurance doesn't cover infertility testing until you've been trying for a year, so Jimmy couldn't get tested yet.
Then came January 2010... We received the bad news from the urologist that Jimmy's count was low and his morphology wasn't the greatest either. His solution?? Put Jimmy on Clomid, which is a female fertility drug. We had a good laugh over some of the side effects - breast tenderness, hot flashes, mood swings, etc. Fortunately, he hasn't experienced any of that :) Anyways, this was supposed to increase his count, but it takes 3 months for it to work. So, in 3 months he got tested again, and the Clomid didn't help. Bad news again...
June 2010: The next step for us was to do IUI (intra-uterine insemination). So, I started taking Clomid as well, went for an ultrasound, received my HCG shot, and Jimmy gave his sample. I had to wait for the nurse to bring me Jimmy's "guys" so I could take them to my doctor to have them "turkey-basted" inside of me. Well, she came out to give me the bad news - she couldn't get enough good ones for the IUI to even be worth trying. I just started sobbing.
July 2010: Next came our first consultation with the big guns - our RE (reproductive endocrinologist) Dr. Jarrett out of Indy. He also suspected that I had endometriosis, which had never been discussed before now. So, before we moved on to the next step, I had surgery to have my insides cleaned out. We were then going to try to do IUI one more time, but again, Jimmy didn't have enough "guys" for it to be worth doing. Dr. Jarrett recommended moving on to IVF (in-vitro fertilization), but my current insurance plan didn't cover infertility treatments. So, we had to wait until I could switch plans in January to move forward.
January 2011: We met with Dr. Jarrett and the nurses to get started with IVF. The first thing I had to do was pick up all the meds I would need for that cycle. The total amount that I had to pay out of pocket for them was $925! All I could do was say "at least I got paid today..." and cry. Anyways, I started my daily shots of Lupron, which were pretty simple and painless. Soon after that, I had to start another set of shots - these meds, however, had to be mixed - by me! I didn't really know what I was doing at first, and I was afraid I'd somehow screw it up, but I got pretty good at it. Now this medicine was thick, and it hurt going in! But no pain, no gain, right?
March 2011: I had my egg retrieval on March 7th. During this procedure, I was put under anesthesia, while they took a catheter and pierced each of my follicles and sucked out the eggs. They ended up getting 13 eggs from me (a normal, natural cycle creates 1 egg). Then they gathered Jimmy's "guys" and combine dmy eggs with his sperm. Also, the next few days after my egg retrieval the biologists called me periodically to let me know how our babies were developing. It's so incredible to think how our babies have been created!
As you all know, our first cycle did not work. I ended up having a chemical pregnancy, which means implantation occurred, but the embryo(s) didn't continue to develop. Dr. Jarrett said this was most likely due to chromosomal abnormalities, but said it was a good sign that body responded how it was supposed to.
April 2011: And now comes our second round of IVF. This time, though, we did a frozen cycle (used frozen embryos leftover from the first cycle). The shots sucked more this time around, but overall, the cycle was much easier - no egg retrieval this time!! We had our embryo transfer on Cinco de Mayo, and as you know, didn't get pregnant this time around, either. I really thought I was pregnant this time! I had so many symptoms, but I now know that they were just side effects from the meds. The meds they have you on mimic pregnancy hormones, so of course I was confused!
May 2011: Well, here we are again. Just waiting to meet with Dr. Jarrett and find out what we're going to do next. We still have one frozen embryo, but it's not guaranteed that it will survive the thawing process. So, I'm a little nervous to do another frozen cycle with no backup embryos available. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the expert says!
I know this was incredibly long, but I wanted to share our journey in detail for those that are interested.
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