The world of INFERTILITY
Every.Single.Day. A struggle that I wish upon no one. When the realization of having a baby may be something that could never happen. It may be more of a challenge than most people. It may cost us a lot of money, but hey we have insurance coverage. Quickly, we realized this was not going to be simple and straight forward. But why would this be easy for us, when it seems as though Dan and I have to struggle a little more than maybe what others do to get where we want to be. We both have excepted this as our normal in life.
September we found ourselves in the fertility clinic expecting quick answers, here is the plan, and lets have a baby! Shocking, this is not what happened by any means. It lead us to our amazing doctor wanting us to get more testing done. What kind of testing do you ask? Well, first lets start with just to have this appointment and see the doctor to discuss our issues cost us about $450! Yes, you sure read that right! This appointment included vital signs and weight for myself (this struggle has lead me to weight gain and being unable to feel safe in being part of CrossFit... the one thing that kept me sane & fit), talking to the doctor about our past medical history in great detail including my female parts, his male parts, life in general, and to finish off an ultrasound using the twat-wand (trans-vaginal probe) to count all the visible follicles in my ovaries (I had 13, which was a moderate amount- YAY!). At the end of this appointment, it left us with more lab work to complete, another study of my uterus, fertility urologist appointment for him, a testicular ultrasound, and lucky husband gets to go beat off into a specimen cup, once again. This was our to do items to complete before we could come back and discuss what our options were going to be.
Me, being the nurse I am, I went home and researched causes of why his counts and morphology was off and how we could fix it. I wanted to understand why women have chemical pregnancies and the causes. What was the usual work up for recurrent pregnancy loss? What could we do to naturally to help improve us both? My husbands brain was about to explode with all the information I was sending him. However, I quickly diagnosed him with varicocele. What is that you say? Simply put it is a varicose vein in the scrotum, supplying TOO MUCH blood to the testicles. Apparently, too much blood to the testicles is a bad thing and causes the DNA to fractionate in the sperm, kills them, and makes me pretty much useless. He gave his donation again to the clinic by beating off into the cup and results confirmed similar numbers leading us to our second diagnose of male factor infertility. Off to the fertility urologist we had to go. More to come on this adventure later!
After all my research shenanigans, I placed us a new protocol of supplements to help with fertility, decrease inflammation in our bodies, help his sperm health and my egg health, and a bunch of antioxidants. My husband hates pills, but he is still taking them 4 months later daily! I changed my food intake a little more, I am already on a gluten-free diet thanks to my hashimoto's thyroiditis, but back to a more Paleo diet I went. All of these items we are taking were later approved by our reproductive endocrinologist (RE).
We got all our blood drawn one morning at the lab together (because why not get your blood drawn at 0600 before work), which was an ungodly amount of tubes collected. Dan had about 22 tubes of blood taken and I had about 11 at this time. I cannot even remember all the levels that we had done, but it was the basic RE work up. It included a karyotype, hormone levels, and so much more. With my history of thyroid problems, I was also checked for many other autoimmune disorders. In the end, what came out of this was we are "normal" with no further concerns and a bill of about $600, between the two of us.
The last test needing to be done was timed based off my cycle. So on day 7 of my cycle, late September, I went into the clinic to have the doctor inject saline into my uterus this time. EASY PEASY, once again and off to work I went. Everything was "beautiful" in my uterus, no scar tissue or septum, which could be the cause of recurrent pregnancy loss. At this point, we are waiting on his fertility urologist appointment to see what he had to say about his testicles and spermies. Which confirmed all that I had told him and we were pretty much told at this point that IVF was in our near future and he would need an outpatient procedure to fix his varicocele in hopes one day we could have children naturally, but we don't really know if it will help.
This whole time left my hopes and dreams of being a mommy to more amazing children with the best man I could ask for all up in the air. I was lost. I felt empty. Pieces were missing that I did not know how to fill. We both talked openly about this with each other and our thoughts about how we would become parents to a beautiful little miracle. I am not a crier, however, this left me crying when I was asked a simple, "How are you?" or at the table at Islands restaurant after eating for who knows what reason this time. My poor husband had no idea what to do, but comfort me. All in all, we agreed we would try IVF, if that was recommended, which it was for now. We would figure it out as it came. I knew this journey would be rough, but I did not realize the pain and struggles that would be involved. Unplanned expenses all while having insurance coverage with a special advance reproductive therapy option built in, that still left us paying over $1000.00 in about 2.5 months. It was hard to hear what others often had to say for advice- I'LL GET PREGNANT IF I JUST RELAX or if I DECREASE MY STRESS or IT WILL HAPPEN or IT'S JUST NOT THE RIGHT TIME or DID YOU KEEP YOUR LEGS IN THE AIR AFTER or MAYBE YOUR NOT TIMING IT RIGHT. Unfortunately, wine cannot fix this either, I tried. This is a medical diagnosis that requires much more medical intervention. So please, keep those comments to yourself. A simple, I'm thinking about you or sending you thoughts, prayers, vibes will be mean so much more to us! I leave you with this, think before you say something to a couple struggling to conceive it will make a world of difference to them. Until next time....
Always in our prayers!
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