Monday, March 15, 2010

First time for everything

So I know there is an abundance of blogs devoted to infertility and the struggles couples face – so the question is why add another? And I answer you with the same answer I found for myself when reading these – it’s therapeutic, it makes you feel not so alone, it’s enlightening and let’s face it, it’s funny. Only infertiles can make fun of the process and the heartache. I need laughter in my life – if not I’d go insane. There are a few blogs I read on the subject that are my daily dose of laughs. These women are FUNNY and I thank them. I only hope that at least one woman may find my dreadful stories humorous.

Ok – here is the back story on me. I always thought I wanted children. I can remember being 19 or 20 and thinking that I would have my first at 22, second at 25 and possibly third at 29. I’d be a mom of three all by the time I was 30. (boy, is hindsight 20/20) All these womb inspired thoughts came along with the fact that I had been with my high school sweetheart for many years and I was going along with the playbook rather than probably doing what I really wanted to do. Four years later, I was single and couldn’t have been more out of the baby making mindset. Then I met my husband, C. He was fun, smart, caring, etc etc, all the things I wanted and more. We moved into together after a few years of dating, got engaged and then married in 2006. I remember getting back from our fantastic honeymoon (Tahiti – AWESOME!) and laying in bed one night and my DH saying “let’s have a baby.” I can recall my exact response – “absolutely not!” I had just finally felt like I wasn’t following a script and was, for the lack of a better word, content. I liked going away. I liked being able to sleep in on the weekends. I liked deciding to run to store on a moments notice without worrying about anything except if my hair looked like shit. I was comfortable with my husband and our life and didn’t “need” a baby to make me happy.
Throughout the next couple of years we had light conversation about starting a family. He was happy either way – I guess I was one on the see-saw. We made the decision to stop birth control, but I made sure we conveniently never hit the mattress “around O time.” Finally in the summer of 2008, we decided to “not-not try” thinking it wouldn’t happen (I have history of Endo) or at least take a while to happen. But Voile! First month I got pregnant. You remember that episode of Friends when Rachel thinks she’s pregnant, and Phoebe lies to her and says it negative and Rachel cries because she realizes that in fact she does want it. (I still love Friends) – that was me. I saw that positive test and all the doubts I had went away and I was so excited to become a mom. Unfortunately I experienced what 20% of women do, a miscarriage. I was just about 8 weeks and obviously devastated. However I use humor to cover up almost all my bad feelings and in fact when I finally did m/c, C came into the bathroom and we said goodbye to our "toliet baby" together. I know, we have a sick sense of humor, but it helps us cope.

After that, I made it my life's mission to get pregnant again. I was obsessed to say the least. I was an OPK taking, HPT buying, message board writing, googling fool! C was freaked out - here was his wife, who just a mear four months earlier didn't know if she wanted kids, demanding that he needs to have sex with her even though he was deathly sick. "It's time. It's time!" I was a maniac.
A few months later, right around Christmas, I found out I was pregnant again. "It's a Christmas miracle!" everyone would say to me. I never really got excited like I did with the first one, in fact I had a really bad feeling about it, but choked it up to an emotional effect of the m/c. However, I guess my feeling was right, because at almost 7 weeks, I found out I had an ectopic pregnancy. It was a whirlwind experience. I found out and left the docs office at 1:45pm, I was in the ER at 2 and in surgery by 3:30. They removed my right tube, along with a "perfect looking" baby. Great! In a post op visit, she showed me the pictures of my tube. C said we should have taken them and showed them off to all our friends who have kids and say "Here's a picture of my baby. Isn't it cute?" I told you, we're sick!

I know this is getting lengthy, so I'll give a quick summary of the following 14 uneventful months to get us here. Finally after 6 months of trying, saw an RE, got on Clomid for 4 months, did an IUI, dumped that RE (as per husband) and saw a new one last month... that kind of brings us up to date.

The new RE has confirmed what I have thought going through the Clomid cycles. My right ovary has more eggs in it than my left. (remember my right tube is gone...) So he believes that my success rate with another IUI and injectables is about 10%. However with IVF, the chances are around 50%. I like those odds better. So we decided to move onto IVF. We were ready to make the car payment - I mean baby payment as soon as possible, but then found out that I could get it covered if I just took the leap and became an employee at the company I freelance at. So now that's were we are. Waiting to get hired and then we are ready....