A Day In The Life

Infertility is not something I would wish on anyone but for those of you that have never experienced it, it might be good for you to understand what I, and others like me have gone through to try and conceive a baby.

We all know how this works...you meet the man of your dreams, you get married and you get pregnant right? WRONG!!!  If you are one of the "lucky" ones and it worked this way for you, good for you..god bless! But for some of us, we need help and a lot of money!

When we started trying for our family, I never thought for a second there would be a problem, but by the 5th month of trying and nothing was happening, I started to panic. I was told by two different doctors to relax and quit trying so hard, that it would happen..neither of them did any tests and told me to come back in a year if I still hadn't gotten pregnant....a year?? Didn't they hear my clock ticking away...I was 35, not exactly a spring chicken when it comes to getting pregnant as I would learn.

I invested in Ovulation Predictor Kits, Thermometers, books, supplements, not to mention all the pregnancy tests, went online to "talk" to other women in the same boat...my life became consumed with trying to have a baby...sex became "timed"..it became a job more or less and I never thought for a minute about how my husband felt about all of this..I was a crazy lady on a mission!!

Finally after a self induced break (we moved to Arizona), I became pregnant...woohoo!! I was on top of the world but after 12 weeks, we learned that the baby was not in my uterus but in my right tube and would have to be terminated to save my life...I not only lost my one and only baby, but my fertility as well. It was a lot to take in and sent me into a deep downward spiral of depression.

We learned that my remaining Fallopian Tube was damaged beyond repair and that it would be a miracle if I ever were to get pregnant again...I believe it was less than a 2% chance. We met with specialists and were told that the only way we could have a baby at this point was through IVF since it bypassed the Fallopian Tubes... ok, great when do we start?? Not so fast.....as we started all the tests required for IVF, we received another blow...I had limited egg quantity left...what?? wait, I'm only 36, how can this be??? The technical term is called Premature Ovarian Failure....our chances went from 20% with IVF to less than 5% with my old eggs, but they would be happy to take our money if we wanted to try..all  for the low, low price of $25K. 

I remember sitting in the car after we left the specialist's office with all the words that we were just told swirling in my head...we couldn't even talk to each other..years later when I saw the movie "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" and Jennifer Garner's character basically gets the same news, I must have had that same look on my face..we were devastated.

Now comes the part where a miracle is supposed to happen..because everyone knows someone who knows someone that had the same thing happen and they got pregnant so you of course buy into that because you are so desperate for a baby you start to believe it can happen for you too...so the whole vicious cycle starts all over again...tracking your temperature, buying ovulation kits, and timed sex all in the hopes that a miracle will happen....and it never does and then you accept that the miracle is not going to happen and start saving your money to do IVF.

It doesn't always work the first time...are you kidding me???!!! I used a 23 year old's eggs and it didn't work...someone kill me now...all the money, all the drugs, all the time and it just was explained as bad luck..I am still scratching my head about that and it's been 5 years..

I will say that for those of you that are fortunate enough not to go through this roller coaster of Infertility..be mindful of blurting out "We only did it once" or "We weren't even trying" with a giggle..you never know who is listening and going through the hell that I went through.