I apologize upfront about these first few posts being long. I have five years to catch up. I will try to get them done in a post or two, depending on my time restraints. Hopefully they will not be too long and boring. Additionally, I am a very religious and spiritual person. I believe that God knows me, loves me, is mindful of my struggles, and talks to my heart from time to time through his Holy Spirit. Just to warn you as I begin this story, because much of the reason I have been able to deal with my struggles of infertility by relying on God's plan for my life and my faith in His love and support of me. And I will mention pertinent spiritual experiences I have had throughout my infertility journey. These experiences are very special to me, and I do not share them lightly, so if you wish to avoid them, please stop reading, and do not demean my faith.
Here it goes...
So I got married, just over five years ago. When we were engaged we decided that we wanted to have kids as soon as we could. We even laughed about how fun it would be to have a honeymoon baby. Needless to say, in our five years of marriage we have never used any form of contraception.
As our first year of marriage came and went, the fact that I was not pregnant yet was extremely difficult for both of us. It was a topic that we did not discuss often together, because it was very emotionally hard, but we also knew that our self and the other were struggling with it internally. We had looked forward to already having our first baby or being pregnant by our one year anniversary. Additionally, us not being pregnant was also made harder by two of my sisters being pregnant over our first anniversary.
By the time our one year anniversary came and went, with still no pregnancy, I knew that it would be a long road for us. I am in the medical field, so without even talking to a doctor, I knew that by one year of unprotected sex and no pregnancy, you were considered clinically infertile. As we talked about how to proceed, we decided that due to many changes in our lives (schooling, moving, starting a new job on the other side of the country) at the time, we would wait a few months to begin fertility treatments.
About six weeks after our first anniversary, one of my sisters had her baby. When she texted to tell me she was in the hospital to deliver, I went to visit her. On my drive home, I began pouring out my heart to God, asking him why I was not pregnant and why did I have to struggle so much for something that comes so easy to others. I even asked why he allows others who do not want a baby to have one, while those who do want a baby can't. I talked with God in my car for about 20 minutes - crying, expressing the inner feelings of my heart, that I had never spoken out loud to any one at this point. Once I was done doing the talking, I decided to spend some time listening for God's response. Almost immediately I was encircled by peace and comfort, a feeling I know can only come from God, especially in the heat of the moment I was in just seconds before. In this moment of peace and comfort, I got this overwhelming feeling that God knew me, He knew my struggles, and He loved me. In that moment, I knew that He only wanted what was best for me and that these struggles were all for my benefit and growth. Just before I arrived home, still in the immense feeling of peace and comfort, I knew that when it was the right timing for us to become parents, God would work whatever miracles were necessary for that to be so. And often I have returned to the feelings of that car ride and try to remember exactly how I felt in that moment, to try and bring that peace and comfort into my daily struggle with not being a mother.
So when our lived settled down a little, and we were all moved it, which was about 6 months, we went to the doctor to start talking about fertility treatments. The doctor said that we had to do all this preliminary diagnostic testing - both me and my husband - before we could make another appointment. Mine was relatively easy to do, because I was not working at the time so my schedule was mostly wide open to get all this done relatively quickly. My husband on the other hand had to do three semen analysis, which even doing one was difficult with his work schedule. He worked from 4:30am until about 7pm. For those who dont know, a semen sample has to be dropped off to the lab within one hour of the sample being collected. With my husbands work schedule, it was nearly impossible to get these samples to the lab within the time frame. No lab is open in the middle of the night for us to drop it off before or after work, and on all the holidays my husband had off work, the labs were all closed for the same holiday. So it took us almost 8 months to get all the samples done so we could get in to see the doctor.
Many of you are probably wondering why not go see another doctor, because this was the only doctor on our insurance plan within a one and a half hour drive from our house. Plus, our insurance, at the time, was one hundred percent coverage, and we were not financially able to pay for anther doctor out of pocket.
Once all the diagnostic testing came back, everything pointed to me being the cause of the infertility. My husbands numbers all looked great - number or sperm, size, motility, etc. Most of my tests came back normal as well, except my estrogen and progesterone (the female sex hormones) levels were low. Which is interesting, because about the same time, I was diagnosted by an endocrinologist with hypothyroidism and adrenal insufficientvy. My endocrinologist has explained that when your thyroid is low, most likely some of your other hormone levels will also be low.
After all my test results, my fertility specialist recommended the typical first-line of fertility medications, which is Clomid. He gave me a 5 pills to take on certain days of my cycle and then instructed me to come in on a certain day for testing after to see if my body responded to the Clomid. Based on the blood work, it appeared that my body did not respond to the Clomid. So we planned to double the dose for the second month. Just before the second month, my husband had a last minute training for his job and was temporarily moved out of state for this training.
I remained at home during that time, and went to see my fertility doctor again. At this visit, I told him of my recent diagnosis by my endocrinologist. His response was, "I am not exactly sure how your hypothyroidism will contribute to infertility but I know they are related, and so I am not really sure how to approach your treatment and medications." So in response to my fertility doctors comment, I emailed my endocrinologist and expressed my concerns of his lack of knowledge on how hypothyroidism and infertility are related and the recommended course of action. My endocrinologist recommended that we don't do fertility treatments, because he believed that with the correct treatment for hypothyroidism, my body would correct itself and I would get pregnant naturally within a year.
Shortly after this discussion with my endocrinologist, my husband found out that he would be getting let go from his job, and we decided to move back to the west coast so I could finish my college degree that I had started prior to our relocation to the east coast for his job. We also decided that since I had just over a year of school left, and per my endocrinologist's recommendation, we decided not to pursue fertility treatments while I finished me college degree and see if I was able to get pregnant naturally.
I graduated from nursing school in December and began working as a nurse in January.
Speaking of work, I will stop here since I need to get ready for work. My next post will catch us up to date on the remainder of my infertility journey.
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