KamiND: Here's mine.....As a kid I loved to play the board game called Life with my siblings. It’s that game where you get the little car and either a pink or a blue peg (depending on your gender) and you go through “life” ,starting with college and a career, getting married, having children, and then retiring, with the one ending up with the most money winning the game. I remember that if I got past the section of the board where you could possibly land on a spot that said you had a baby girl or a baby boy and I hadn’t landed on one, I would insist that we start the game over. To me, winning the game meant having car filled with children. Even as a child playing a simple board game, the thought of being childless was so sad and simply unacceptable to me... DH and I met when we were freshmen in college. We dated throughout college, enduring a couple of breakups but then getting back together, all the while knowing that we ultimately belonged together. After graduating the spring of 1992, we got engaged in the fall and were married the following July. We both wanted children ( I guess I wanted them a little more than he), but decided to wait. There was travelling to do which we did – a trip to Australia, a couple to Europe, there was career building to do, as well as simply having some fun as a couple and living carefree for a few years. When I turned 29, the desire to have a baby became very intense for me and by this time DH was ready for family life to include a little one. I figured that a pregnancy would just happen since that’s the way things seemed to be, for the most part, with my parents and also with my sibs. I began to worry that a pregnancy wasn’t happening after several months. We started charting my temps, and then moved on to ovulation predictor kits which we used for many, many cycles, with no success. I decided that it was time to look into my fertility status and consulted with my gynecologist who then referred me to a RE. My RE ran tests and all checked out fine – my hormone levels as well as DH’s counts, motility, etc. were all normal. Our diagnosis: Unexplained. We decided to do three cycles of clomid/iui’s. I responded well to the 50 mg/day of clomid with 3 to 4 good follies per cycle and no negative effect on my lining. All three cycles, however, turned out negative. We were crushed. I just couldn’t believe that we were IF and the possibility of us never having a child of our own crept into my mind. Our RE’s next suggestion for us was to move on to inj/iui’s. I guess I wanted to first know WHY we weren’t getting pregnant before spending our money on further IF treatment, so we opted for a diagnostic laparoscopy. My periods had always been excruciatingly painful so I questioned the possibility of endometriosis. My lap turned out normal, in fact, my RE said he had never seen such a healthy reproductive system. I was thankful but at some level disappointed that we still had no diagnosis. So, WHY couldn’t we get pregnant??? We ttc naturally for a few more cycles while deciding what our next step in treatment would be. Of course our “miracle” didn’t happen – still no pregnancy. By this time I was having a tremendously difficult time with the emotional impact of my IF. All of my siblings now had children and my best friend, my BEST friend, actually hid her pregnancy from me because she didn’t want me to feel bad and also felt awkward about telling me. I know she was trying to be sensitive to my situation but it hurt so much to find out through the grapevine that she was pregnant. I felt like I was being left behind and that I was not being allowed into that exclusive club called motherhood. Just as we were about to start treatment again, we found out about another RE who had excellent success rates and came highly recommended by the one and only couple we knew who were also battling IF. We consulted with him and then decided to try three more iui’s with just clomid, using a different timing protocol than used by our first RE. We were once again hopeful. Three cycles later and still no success and we were back to the question “what’s next?” We decided to be aggressive and chose to do an IVF cycle. After so many disappointing cycles, both natural and medicated, we were ready to reach the end of IF treatment and were prepared to move on to adoption. DH is adopted so we always felt that adoption was a good and viable option for us to build our family. On May 8th I took my first bcp and then on May 14th my first lupron injection. On May 22nd I began the pergonal and follistim injections. DH got very good at giving the injections; all in all, he gave me a total of 40 (which included the lupron, stims, and hcg)! I triggered on June 2nd, and the transfer took place on June 4th. It went very well; there were 12 eggs retrieved, 10 fertilized and two days later on June 6th two perfect little four cell grade A embies were put back in! This was the closest I’d ever been to being pregnant!! The next two weeks were the longest two weeks of my life. I obsessed over every little twinge and symptom and even lack of symptoms. My beta was scheduled for June 20th. I went and had my blood drawn for that first beta in the morning. DH and I went out for lunch and then went home to make the call. With our clinic, our beta results were left on our own privately recorded voicemail message. I’ll never forget hearing those words “ I am so happy to tell you that your beta is positive!” At 14dp2dt my beta was a strong 245! I was pregnant!!!!!!!!!! My pregnancy was very uneventful and happy! I must say that I truly loved every minute of it. Maisy Kate was born right on her due date, February 25, 2002, after a long day of labor. I was awakened at 1:30 in the morning when my water broke. About an hour later the contractions started. We checked into the hospital at 3:30 am and by 9:00 am the epidural was in place and I was feeling no pain! I pushed for 2.5 hours and at 5:42pm Maisy made her grand entrance into the world weighing in at 7 lbs. 3 oz and measuring 18.5 inches long and I was immediately and totally in love! She is six months old today and is the love of our lives. She has big blue eyes and beautiful blonde peach fuzz hair on the top of her head. She has fun sitting up playing with her toys and can roll all over the room. She loves, loves, loves to take baths! Her favorite books are called Baby’s Friends and Baby Faces. She just squeals with delight every time I read them to her. Sometimes I am just overwhelmed with the feelings I have for this little person. The pain and frustration and hopelessness I felt while going through IF will always be with me but it is fading away to some extent. We are so thankful for our sweet darling daughter. With Maisy, our family is truly complete! |