Infertility Journey

    Well as you know I have had quite the struggle and journey with infertility and fear of infertility. When I was 18 years old I had been having a bunch of severe abdominal pain on and off and it kept sending me to the ER. Finally they did a bunch of different tests and decided to do a Laporoscopy surgery and found I had Endometriosis. They removed it and told me that it could affect my fertility and could very likely come back. I was scared to death that I would not be able to have children. Having children has been my life long dream and aspiration. I never wanted a job I never wanted to do anything but be a Mom. My Brother-in-law gave me a blessing that said I would be able to bear children but I was still very scared. A couple years later I was having some pain again that reminded me of the pain I experienced when I had the Endometriosis  so I went to the Dr. and he told me he wouldn't treat me with surgery again but he would give me the Depo-Lupron shot that would shut down my hormones and put me in a state of menopause for 3 months and it should dry up the endometrial tissue.
     Soon after that my husband and I were married and had decided that since we had the potential to have fertility problems we would go ahead and not prevent pregnancy. I had one cycle and then SURPRISE we were pregnant! It was fun and exciting and scary all wrapped into one.
    Flash forward to when my daughter was 3 months old... My milk had dried up and we were trying to decide whether to start using birth control or whether we should let nature take it's course and go ahead and not prevent having a second baby. I was scared to death to do this and hoped and prayed that I would be ready and able to do it. Well weeks turned to months, months turned into a year, and a year turned to 5 years and I had still not been able to achieve a second pregnancy. During those 5 years I had just assumed that my Endometriosis was back and that as soon as Russell graduated and we got medical insurance on me that I would get it treated again and we would get pregnant. I felt very sad during this time watching friends have second and third babies but I was always happy for them and just figured my day would come.
      Well the time finally came that we had insurance so I went to a Dr. and asked to have another Laporoscopy surgery to treat the Endometriosis. I came out of surgery and received news that most people would say was great and that was that I didn't have Endometriosis anymore. I was devastated because I had spent 5 years thinking that this would be the answer and that we would be able to have a baby.
       Well a few months later I received the shock of a lifetime and that was that I was pregnant! I was so surprised because I thought there was no way it was possible. The positive line was really faint so I wasn't 100% convinced that it was true. After a week and 4 more faintly positive tests I finally decided to call the Dr. and schedule my first appointment. Not one hour after I hung up the phone did I start bleeding. I was devastated! I called the Dr.s office back in a panic and they told me to lay down and then to come in first thing in the morning and they would check things out. I stopped bleeding that evening and found a little relief in that. I went in the next morning and they did an ultrasound. We could see the yolk sack but not a baby. My Uterus was filled with blood all around the sack also which was not normal. The Dr. said it was still really early so they couldn't tell whether it was viable or not. They did some blood work and monitored my HCG for the next few days. It went up and up at a normal rate so they thought I might be okay. A week or so after that they had me go to a radiologist to get another ultrasound and that day I got the worst news of my life! The sack had stopped developing and that I was likely to miscarry within a couple days. I was 9 weeks along. They gave me a prescription for pain medicine and told me to call them if it didn't pass and they would have to do a D&C. Luckily it passed on it's own so I didn't have to do that. It was seriously the most devastated I have been in my life. It took me a really long time to recover emotionally from it. The Dr. told me I was likely to get pregnant again and everything would be fine.
      Exactly a year later I again came up with a very faint positive line on a pregnancy test. I immediately called my Dr. so that I could come in and get my HCG test and see where my hormones were. She called me back that afternoon and said they were at 25 which meant I was barely barely pregnant. She had be come in and have it tested again a few days later to see if it had gone up or not. It had gone down to 24 so she had me retest because they thought there may have been something wrong with the test. After the retest they called back again and said it was at 30 so it had gone up a little but not much. I was so hesitant to get my hopes up that I didn't. I just figured that it was too good to be true. Well it turned out that it again was not to be and I lost this one as well. Luckily I wasn't as far along so I didn't have time to get attached to the idea, and it wasn't nearly as painful (physically or emotionally).
      Well after another year went by I hoped that I would have another pregnancy since the last two were almost exactly a year a part (due dates Sept. 30th & Oct. 4) Well the year mark came and went and still no baby. So we talked and decided we would go see a fertility specialist since by this time we had been trying to have a baby for almost 7 years!
      In October 2011 we started seeing the specialist. She ran some tests and told us that my progesterone was low, and that our fluids weren't compatible. She had also scheduled an HSG (tubal contrast test) but the day I went in for it I felt strongly that I needed to not go through with it that day. So we decided that we would just try taking the progesterone and see if that would help us.
    After six months of that I had a late cycle and thought for sure I was pregnant. But once again I was disappointed!  So we both decided that we needed to move forward again into figuring out what was going on. I set up the appointment and went in to do the HSG test. Man that was so uncomfortable! The worst part was that I could watch the test and I could see that the contrast wasn't going into my left fallopian tube at all and that the contrast was only going 3/4 of the way up my right tube. I was so devastated. I immediately called the Dr. office on the way home from the Radiologist and asked if there was anything they could do if my tubes were in fact both closed. The nurse told me she would ask the Dr. and then call me right back. They didn't call me back that night and I was in agony! The next day I called again and she said they were waiting on the results from the Radiologist and she would call me as soon as she got the results. Still no call back that day. Finally the next day she called and said the Dr. would like me to come into the office so she could go over the results with me. I pretty much knew what the answer was and I wasn't about to go pay $100.00 for them to tell me what I already knew so I told her I wanted the Dr. to call me and tell me over the phone. Later that day the Dr. called me and said that yes both tubes were blocked and there was nothing she could do about it. She said our only option was IVF (In-Vetro-Fertilization) and she gave me the number to an IVF specialist. I was devastated. Just in case you didn't know IVF cost $15,000 on average for one cycle! And on a teacher's salary that is just not something that we would be able to do.
       I called the IVF specialist office and asked them if they could do anything for tubal blockage and they asked that we schedule a consult so we could talk to the Dr. about it. We were pretty sure we would walk out of there with him telling us that it would be $15,000 if we wanted to have a baby.
      Well to our surprise we didn't leave feeling that way. He told us that the HSG test is only accurate if it says the tube is open. He said if it comes back with bad results there is a 60% chance that it is a misdiagnosis!! 60% chance!!! He told us that he prefers to do a Laporoscopy/Hysteroscopy surgery to go in and diagnose it with his own two eyes. In the surgery he would go in to look at the inside of the uterus, the openings of the tubes, the areas around the uterus, ovaries, etc. He would also inject contrast into the tubes and watch for it to flow through and spill out in the manner that it is supposed to. He told us he was very confident that I had at least one tube open. He said that if we did have one tube open we would be able to IUI (Intra-Uterine-Insemination) which is only $1,500 per try instead of $15,000.
    We left feeling so relieved and confident that this was what would happen for us. A few days ago I had the surgery and to our great joy and happiness I do have one tube open!!! The right tube is open. There was a polyp near the opening of it in the uterus so the Dr. thought that may have contributed to why the contrast hadn't gone all the way up that tube during the HSG test. My left tube however is not flowing. It was fused to my colon with scar tissue so he detached it and then put in a dissolvable spacer in it so it will heal and not fuse back together. This really explains why I have had so much pain on my left side during my cycle & ovulation. He said that after he removed it the contrast still didn't flow through so it may have scar tissue inside as well. He said that he wants to try the IUI for one cycle and see if it works and then we may have to move onto IVF but I really feel that it will work with one cycle. So next week I get to start giving myself daily injections of FSH and taking some oral pills as well to stimulate my ovaries to produce good eggs and then hopefully through good timing we will be able to have a great result!!! I am scared to death to do the injections though! But at this point I will do anything to have a baby!! Please keep us in your prayers and hopefully we will be able to conclude this infertility journey with a little bundle of joy!