I know you’re thinking there are enough blogs out there to choke a million innocent internet hosts (or something, I’m not real up to speed on how all this technological stuff happens.) I’ve therefore decided I’d start with a little raison d’être to explain why I felt the need to start yet ANOTHER blog.
If you’ve talked to me in the last, oh, year or so, you know that I’ve been more than a little obsessed with getting pregnant. Some people do this on accident. Some do it the first time they “try.” Some are content to just let things happen. I’m none of these people.
With O, I started charting about 6 months before our wedding and we started actively “trying” (i.e. timing things perfectly) about 3 months before our July wedding. It took us 5 cycles (including an early miscarriage) to get pregnant with O. Not bad, huh? I was nonetheless a fricking nut job by the time I got pregnant. I think I knew too much and was drowning in details by then.
I’m a teacher, and there are certain times of the year that are optimal to have a baby. July is not it, but that worked out ok because we figured out a way for me to stay at home for a year with our son O. This “teaching timing” thing means I’ve always been a little uptight about getting pregnant. I get a great maternity leave if the timing works out and a really really crappy one if it doesn’t. 5 months of trying felt like a LONG time. I remember talking to Ben about a woman on a chat board I frequent who got pregnant after trying for 19 cycles. 19 cycles. Holy crap, how did they survive it? The ups and downs. The wondering. Interpreting every twinge in her body to determine whether it could indicate the arrival of her period, ovulation, implantation or maybe even <gasp> PREGNANCY!
Oh, how naïve I was.
We’re now starting cycle #16 trying for Baby #2. We’ve been talking about this hypothetical baby for a good year or two before that. Bought a house with enough room for the baby. Thought about how my job would work with #2. I even scouted out rooms at school where I could pump.
So obviously something’s not working. Now before you tell me that if I weren’t so uptight, I’d probably get pregnant, zip it. It doesn’t work that way. Me being “uptight” means we didn’t waste any of those 16 months with bad timing. If you were going to suggest a nice vacation because you know this woman sister’s cousin’s brother’s wife got pregnant on vacation after they’d given up trying, save your breath. Since we started trying, we’ve been on 3 vacations. Once to Hawaii, and once to Vegas even. If you’re wondering why we don’t just adopt, I’m wondering why you don’t give me $15,000 (ish) dollars to facilitate that process.
It’s just not that easy, for a lot of reasons. Even though my first pregnancy was not the smoothest ever, I LOVED being pregnant. I’ve always dreamt of being pregnant and feeling a baby moving inside of you is something amazing you only get to do for a short period of time. I don’t want to give up that amazing experience yet. I’m also an only child and always wanted to have at least two children (more on that later.)
So what’s the problem? I wish I knew. I wish my RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist–i.e., fertility doctor) knew. Here’s what we do know.
I do have endometriosis. This means the lining of the uterus has somehow ended up in my abdominal cavity and is growing, bleeding, causing pain and scarring. When I get my period every month, I either spend 2 days in bed with a heating pad or take a Vicodin (no ibuprofen when trying to get pregnant!) to deal with the pain. Too bad Vicodin makes me goofy!
I had laprascopic surgery in February to remove endometrial adhesions. Here’s why “just relaxing” wasn’t going to help much. My left ovary was no where near the fallopian tube. It was adhered to the back of my uterus. (explaining the pain I was in! Those ligaments were all stretched and twisted in ways they shouldn’t have been.) The GYN freed it up, but can’t guarantee it won’t “re-stick.” My right fallopian tube was kinked with scar tissue and adhesions, making it dificult or impossible for it to function, but he fixed that too.
That was February. We’ve done 2 IUIs (artificial inseminations) and tried on our own for a few months since then. We lined up all the many elements necessary to get pregnant, and still no baby. Before the surgery, we had done n 3rd IUI and a few other treatments too, so we’ve laid out quite a bit of money to make this happen already, and it’s feeling like we’re flushing it down my tubes. Each IUI has around a 10% chance of success and costs somewhere around $600-1000 (or more). Those are pretty bad odds!
After much deliberation (more on that later too!), we’re moving forward. The RE told us that success rates with IUIs climb for the first 3 months but then level off. Because I have polycystic ovaries (each of my ovaries make a TON of follicles ready and willing to develop into an egg every month), there are a bunch of treatments he won’t do on me for fear of HOM (high order multiples–I don’t want to be the Octomom, or Cathy and Ben + 8). That means our only choice is to keep doing what we’ve been doing or move on.
In order to maximize our chances, we’re doing IVF (in vitro fertilization.) It’s a much bigger investment (some where around $10,000-15,000 out of pocket, plus $5000 out of my medical flex spending plan), but the success rates are MUCH higher (at our clinic, 55.6% of embryo retrievals result in a live birth.) If we’re willing to go that far eventually, it was starting to feel like it made better sense to do it sooner rather than wasting more money on futile treatments.
So that’s the story, but it doesn’t explain why I started a blog. I figure there are 3 good reasons for me to blog about this.
#1, there are a million blogs about infertility out there, but not many about secondary infertility (people having fertility problems while trying for a second, third, etc baby.) In fact, there’s not much support for secondary infertility at all. I’m either selfish for wanting another baby or neglectful because I don’t love my son enough. Oh, and I’m crazy for spending the money to make it happen.
#2, people are going to be asking for updates, I assume, and it’s going to start getting old talking about it and explaining the process. Having a blog might help with that.
#3, therapy. This is one of the harder things I’ve had to deal with. It has taxed me financially, emotionally, physically and cosmically more than I can probably hope to express here. I need to get it out and am hoping someone else can find some solace here.
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