The feeling of failure can be absolutely devastating for a person who is a self described perfectionist. I have found that many of my frustrations in business, fitness, relationships, and even the cleanliness of my home, stem from the fact that none of these will ever be PERFECT. My biggest feeling of FAILURE to date is my failure of being Fertile. This may sound ridiculous because it’s nothing that I can control. But when you really think about all of the other areas of my life that I strive for perfection, I have very little control over some of the biggest variables of those. In business, I can work as hard as I possibly can, but I can’t change my gender, my age or the biggest variable, other people’s personalities and work ethic. In fitness, I can control my workouts and nutrition. However, I cannot control my genetics and how those genetics cause my body to respond to my exercise output or nutrition input. I guess what I’m trying to say is that where all of the areas of my life that I struggle with every day failures, Infertility has trumped them all.
We have tried naturally for over 20 months. I have had over a dozen vials of blood drawn for hormone, genetic, and overall health tests. I’ve had an HSG test, multiple vaginal ultra sounds, and countless dollars spent on trying to figure out how to explain our infertility. We are now to a point in this journey where I feel like we are waving the white flag. I am admitting defeat, and succumbing to FAILURE. I am not sure where my feeling of getting HELP being equal to FAILURE has come from when it relates to Infertility, but it weighs heavy on my heart. When it comes to any of the other areas of my life that I mentioned, if I feel like I’m not improving, I seek out guidance from an expert! I never hesitate to ask someone how to improve my business or reach out for assistance on workouts and nutrition. Why is this different? Why does it feel like if I make that call and set an appointment with the Fertility Specialists that I’m falling off of the cliff and would never be able to go back to just trying naturally? Why does it feel like I’m giving up and admitting that I’m a FAILURE at becoming a Mom? No one put that stigma on me, but ME!!
I cry every month when I start my period and I know that I have FAILED again. I feel a sad achy feeling when I think of baby names or see new parents complain of how dang tired they are. I want so badly to feel those feelings and to have the chance to complain about all of the craziness that pregnancy puts women through. It’s time to take that next step. It’s time to get over my FAILURE and move on to getting the help that we need.
We discussed what the next steps would probably be if we decided to step foot back in to the Fertility Specialists office. Based on copious amounts of Google searching, we knew that there would be 3 options for us; Medication and timed intercourse (Sorry Mom :/), Intra Uterine Inception (IUI), or IVF. We were mentally prepared for everything but IVF at this point. The IUI sounded like a great option, but we needed more information.
One of the biggest decisions that we had to make was, Do we go back to see Mr Bow Tie, the Doctor that had scolded us for being late at our consultation months back….or Do we start all over with a brand new office and the unknown? We ultimately decided to start fresh with the new Fertility Center. I felt a pang of nervousness as I made the call. The voice that answered the phone was calm, kind, and helpful. And with a few items being sent to my email and a client portal being created, we had our first appointment scheduled with our new Doctor. I am now thinking of this as an adventure on a new path, instead of admitting defeat.
In the days that lead up to the appointment, I am still doing a lot of research. I had been told by my OB that medications like Clomid, would not work for me because they stimulated the ovaries to create more mature follicles. I have always had a very regular cycle and could even feel when I was ovulating….so this lead both my OB and I to believe that the medications could potentially over stimulate me. I also have reservations because we still do not have any cause for our infertility. How can this Fertility center possibly help solve a problem when we don’t know what the problem is???
The day of the appointment has finally arrived. My husband and I drive to the new fertility center, and we get to the appointment with MUCH time to spare. As we sit in the waiting room, I can’t help but realize that there is a huge difference in ambiance in this office in comparison to the first fertility center that we went to. This office was much more calm and inviting. I dare even say the motif was a little outdated, but that was actually pleasant compared to the sterile, all white office with neon lighting accents that we were met with at the first fertility center.
We are called back and my vitals were taken along with my weight…which was taken on a manual, mechanical scale…I wasn’t sure that Dr’s offices ever still used those! But hey, it does the job and it’s very practical. So, I can wrap my mind around that.
Now it was time to meet our Dr. We stepped in to his office, and he was very kind and welcoming to us. We quickly covered the steps that we had taken so far in our journey to figure out what was “wrong” with us up to this point. He whipped out a flip chart to explain the 3 different options…obviously none of this was new info because of my hours on the google machine! Once he covered all of the bases, he looked at us and asked. “Would you like to start with IUI for a few cycles to see how that works, or would you like to dive right in to IVF?”. My husband is much more decisive than I am, and quickly said that he would prefer to dive right in to the IVF. After all, we didn’t know whether IUI would solve our problem or not because we don’t know what that problem is exactly.
The process of IUI, on paper, is quite simple. I would call the Dr Office on Cycle Day 1 (the first day of my period), and they would send me a Flow Chart with instructions on what meds to take when, and also what days to start testing for ovulation. The day that I got a positive ovulation test, I would call the Dr office and they would have me come in for an ultrasound to measure my uterine lining, check my ovaries, count and measure the maturing follicles. If everything looked to be in order, then I would be given the “Trigger” shot which would trigger my body to release the mature follicle, and then approximately 36 hrs later we would go in for the IUI procedure. This consists of my husband providing a semen sample, they clean the sample and extract the sperm. There is a count done and the cleaned sperm is put in to a tube like apparatus that would be inserted in to me. This is a quick and dirty description but it’s essentially the same as AI’ing livestock…and being a livestock minded person, it just makes sense to me.
I want to try the IUI for a couple of cycles first before we look to IVF. IUI is much less invasive than IVF and less than half of the cost. After a bit more discussion about the IUI and hearing from the Dr that I would see benefits from utilizing the medications like Clomid, we decided to move forward with a cycle of IUI to see how it went.
The Dr then performed a baseline ultrasound to check my ovaries, follicles, and uterine lining. I hadn’t been made aware yet at this point how important the thickness of the uterine lining exactly was! Mine looked normal, but my base count of follicles was low for my age. The Dr wasn’t overly concerned by that, but it was dually noted.
There were several more blood tests to be done, including genetic screening to make sure that I wasn’t a carrier of any of the most common and devastating diseases. My husband and I also had to go for a blood draw for several different things such as hormone levels…and oh also, to make sure that we aren’t related…AKWARD! But hey, they have to cover all of the bases. Once we received all of the blood work back, we would be able to get a flow chart set up that would help line out what an IUI cycle would look like. This is the point in the process where I am cautiously optimistic, but I have the mindset that this WILL work for us!
We just need this little extra boost of help and we will FINALLY be pregnant. We were jumping in and I was no longer looking at this as failure. I look at it as a bump in the road, a page in the chapter of the book that is our life, something to make us stronger….whatever you want to call it. This was happening for a reason, and we are NOT going to give up! The excitement for the new journey really lifted my spirits and helped me to feel like we were on the right path. At this point I am in the “ignorance is bliss” phase. We just need one cycle of IUI and we will finally succeed. Boy was I about to get a life lesson in how fertility treatments can actually go!
PippSqueak Chronicles 