Infertility Road...

I think the best way to start off this blog is to talk about how we arrived at our decision to adopt. I am going to warn you - this is going to be a LONG one. This decision was preceded by our journey on infertility road for the last 3 years. Lee and I officially began Trying to Conceive (TTC) in May of 2005 the month we got married. For the next year and a half (until October 2006) we were fairly relaxed about our attempts. We were newlyweds so "trying" certainly wasn't an issue and although we certainly were disappointed month after month we didn't obsess over it. But, there does come a point where you have to take action... and we knew that we wanted to be young parents (or in Lee's case- an older young parent- heehee). So I consulted with my OBGYN who told me that the 1st step was to check Lee's swimmers and if all was okay to proceed with a common fertility drug called Clomid. Well, per his doctor and his urologist Lee was good to go...however my OBGYN (a 60 something female know-it-all) wasn't satisfied. We basically determined that a urologist would know more about my husbands plumbing than a woman who has been looking at ONLY woman's plumbing for the last million years, so we decided to proceed with our investigation with a Reproductive Endocrinologist. We moved forward with our appointment with them and were VERY encouraged by our Specialists confidence in our age, Lee's Semen Analysis results, and my clockwork cycles. I proceded to go through a month of blood work, followed by a month doing a test called an HSG (The test to see if my uterus and fallopian tubes were clear of any obstructions). All these preliminary tests showed all to be fine. Alas more encouragement!! The next step would be what is called a Clomid Challenge Test. Since I was already going to be taking a drug to stimulate my ovaries, we opted to combine the Clomid Challenge with an IUI (intra uterine insemination). We were extremely hopeful and excited for this process... I mean basically they are getting the sperm right up there next the egg, how could it not work? Well, needless to say... it did not.

A few days after we found out it didn't work we had a follow up with our doctor to put Plan B into action. This is when we received the results from my Clomid Challenge Test. Abnormal. It was then that the first big blow occurred. I had a High FSH level coupled with high estrogen... which indicates diminished ovarian reserve and poor egg quality. At age 27 this is an uncommon issue as it is typically a problem with woman over 35, not with someone as young as me... but that is how the cookie crumbles, so to speak... With this new diagnosis the possibility of getting pregnant naturally went down to under 2%, potential with IUI went to 7% and IVF was around 35%. There were choices we had to make: should we do IUI again?, should we do IVF?, should we try IVF with an egg donor? We opted to try IUI again, shoot 7% isn't that bad right? So another month of Clomid and IUI and another negative pregnancy test later, my impatient side got the best of me and we decided that we were going to move into our best chance, IVF (InVitro Fertilization).

So in June of 2007 we began all the pre-testing, poking, prodding and drugs necessary to get my body in gear to be a mass producer of eggs in the next few months. For anyone who doesn't know much about IVF I will give you a brief overview: you basically are taking drugs to overstimulate your ovaries to create more eggs (you normally only create one a month), once these eggs are mature they are retrieved from your ovaries via a LARGE LONG needle and fertilized by sperm (in our case...Lee's sperm) in a petri dish and then transferred back into the uterus where they hopefully hunker down for the next 9 months. So... I began giving myself the shots in my stomach (the aspiring nurse in me, actually enjoyed this...sick I know) and going for my daily blood tests and ultra sounds to see how I was progressing. We ultimately ended up with 5 fertilized eggs (5 BABIES!!) and transferred 2 three days after the retrieval, unfortunately the other 3 died by day 5. The 2 they put back in me were of excellent quality and the doctors felt really confident this was going to do it. Unfortunately, two weeks later my blood test was negative- my other two babies didn't make it. It was odd because although I was devasted, and I of course cried... I had almost come to a peace about it... I had known I wasn't pregnant before I got the bloodwork results back (as if God was preparing me) and I was just well...exhausted! After this failed IVF our chances of getting pregnant went down even farther, conceiving naturally is now under 1%.

My body was exhausted, my heart was exhausted, my mind was exhausted and I just wanted to move on... Initially moving on was planning to try IVF again in the new year and just remaining optimistic and hopeful... but in October during dinner one night, I said out of nowhere to Lee "What do you think about starting the adoption process? We have always known we are open to it, why not get it going because who knows how long it's going to take." and Lee said "Yeah, definitely, let's do that." So here we are... since that moment all of our decisions about adoption have just fallen into place, and it just feels right. Our agency has been wonderful so far and we truly feel that we are meant to be doing this. We have determined that we will not be proceding with any more fertility treatments and it is like this invisible weight has been lifted off our shoulders.

I truly believe that God has his plan for us all... and we don't have to understand his plan, but we do have to accept it and realize the good things behind it. Don't get me wrong, although adoption was always an option for Lee and I, I would be lying if I said it was my first option. I have had to mourn the loss of never experiencing pregnancy, never getting the morning sickness or big round belly that so many woman take for granted. I have had to mourn the loss of ever seeing my husband's dimple's on my child's smiling face, or passing down the hands that I share with my mom and grandma to my daughter. I have mourned the loss of the five babies we created during the IVF process that didn't make it into this world. But I have to say overall this journey has also given me so many positive things as well... it has given me sensitivity to woman in this world that are experiencing infertility (I think the statistic is 1 in 25 couples are faced with some degree of infertility) - I will never again innocently ask "When are you starting a family?", "Why don't you have kids yet?", or the dreaded "Just relax, it will happen"... there is no way to know what a family is going through to have children and although stress does factor into fertility it is certainly not the sole contributor or as in my case even a factor. I have also realized (even more than I already had) that I have the BEST and I mean BEST husband in the world! Never once has he ever made me feel defective (although I have often felt that way myself) for not being able to give him children. And he has consistently stood by my side as my rock always there with a hug or for a good cry. The husbands in infertility situations are often overlooked, but this is just as difficult for them just as it is for their wives, just in different ways. I have also learned a lot about myself through this process, I have seen the jealous and bitter sides of myself that I didn't know existed, but realize are completely normal. More importantly I have seen how strong I can be. Everyone has to deal with their own level of disappointment and loss and God only gives you what you can handle. I have been blessed to come to the realization that I have to let go and let God guide me where I am meant to be. In the months following our failed IVF I asked God to give me some guidance and help me realize what I needed to be doing to get to my family and those prayers led me to adoption and I truly believe this is what we are meant to be doing, we just needed to experience the "infertility road" to realize that it doesn't matter how we grow our family just that in our heart of hearts we are meant to be parents and our baby is out there waiting for us. So here we are... on the journey to our little one, certainly stronger than we were 3 years ago, and ready for wherever this road may take us.