Falling or Flying

American (Mid-Southern), my boy and I decided to live right smack in between our two mental families (to limit the Jerry Springer drama to arm’s length). Hopefully, we’ll be starting our own family in the near future, but it’s been a very rough road….. before we even got to the joy of infertility. We’ve held it together so far (not sure how), and here’s the not-so-short version :

1. Main problem = endo. Had it forever. And ever. Mom had it, but never had any symptoms (she didn’t even know she had it – I just got lucky).

2. Got off BC in 2003 and Oh. My. God. Endo blew up. Pain disproportionate to invasiveness (not in a good way). Goody.

3. Wanting minimal intervention, decided to let nature take it’s course, and if we had problems we’d talk to someone. Eat right, exercise, meditate, yoga. All that bullshit.

4. 2005 – A move and 2 job changes later (one for each of us), we decide it’s time to worry.

5. Saw an OB I thought I liked (until I got to know him), got the endo (and ovarian cysts as a bonus) officially diagnosed (LAP). Tried first round (3 total) of Clomid. Worthless. I didn’t have a period for 2 months, my estrogen was so high. Back to the jerk (shame he went to school that long only to discover that he can’t read charts, at least not mine) asked again about Clomid, if we should try another round, his response was “I don’t know – should you?” and then he asked if the cysts were diagnosed on ultrasound. We reminded him that they were diagnosed through the LAP that HE did. Then we found out that there was a large pocket of endometriosis behind my intestines that he didn’t touch, because “we just didn’t want him getting into THAT” (while waggling his fingers at us). In a previous appointment, he’d told me how even one endometriosis lesion can affect fertility. What exactly was the fucking point of that surgery?

6. 2006 – see new OB – tries one round of Clomid (reluctantly) to make sure the first OB didn’t overtly fuck anything else up – zilch. Referred to RE immediately.

7. Ultimately find that I have a fluctuating FSH and estrogen levels, depending on the size and number of functional cysts present (I seem to get a new one each cycle, actually), I’m refractory to the Follistim – the higher the dose, the fewer eggs I produce. In the space of a year and a half, we got to try 3 IUI cycles because my hormone levels prevented any more. Never got over 2 developing follicles.

8. We’re told donor eggs, or adoption are our best options. We were also told we could screw around with this as long as we wanted, but in 2 years, we’d only been able to have 3 IUI’s. IVF with my equipment is out of the question. Takes us (me) 6 months to decide what we (I) want to do.

9. Start the donor search in January 2008 (age 38), find one we like and she’s actually available. Things are scheduled, money (lots of it) is exchanged and the games begin. 2 embryos transferred in April 2008 – 1 implantation, 1st + pg test I’ve had (well, okay – second if you count the chemical after the first IUI).

6. As of 6/27/2008, 10w4d pg with singleton, miscarry at home at midnight. G-F-Dammit. Now we get to do something….. I don’t know what. We’ll have to start all over. Nothing was good enough to freeze.

Oh my shit. I don’t remember life before this. These constant cycles of panic and “oh shit” and “now what”.

7. 7/24/2008 – find out from the blood work drawn after I miscarried that I have some issues. MTHFR mutation (heterozygous – not a big deal), positive for 4 APA’s (a much bigger deal) and a very positive Lupus Anticoagulant to confirm it all. Start low dose aspirin, Folgard (folic acid, B6 and B12 supplement to be taken for life) and start digging for information. If I actually manage to get pregnant again, I’ll be on aspirin and heparin shots throughout the pregnancy.

8. Make the decision to try again (of course), find another donor and make the arrangements for another IVF cycle this fall, if possible. We burn two months waiting on a local donor who backs out, we then find another one who is mature enough to just duck all phone calls after accepting our cycle (you can’t just say NO??!!) The next donor developed cysts/endometriosis after she got off the BCP and then two backup donors got snatched out from under us. Finally found a donor to stick around for the long haul, and DE IVF #2 finally kicks off 7/14/2009.