Kathryn_G: My story (m and l, current preg ment)I was diagnosed with endo when I was 16 and had my first lap at 17. Second lap was at 20. My mom went to the same OB/GYN who did her hysterectomy right after my second lap. Something went terribly wrong during her surgery, leaving her with severed nerves to her right leg -- forever disabled. Needless to say, I found a new doc. Third lap indicated inoperable endo (stage iv) and I had my first treatment of depot Lupron. Then, I met my wonderful RE. With her, I found ways to live with the pain, and had three more treatments of lupron (over the course of seven yrs). Then I met Andy. We got married on Nov 7, 1998. He was indifferent to the idea of having kids, which was fine with me since I thought the possibility of having them at all was low. But, soon I wanted to try. He didn't. He liked our life and didn't want to change it by having children. Ultimately we saw a counselor who helped us to decide to "give it a try". Because of my history, we started pretty intense efforts right away -- no temping or checking cm for us --we started with constant u/s and lots of tests. During my post-coital, they found no sperm -- and immediately ordered a sa for dh. Imagine our horror when we discovered that he had male factor on top of my endo! After a visit to the urologist, we decided to move right to IVF. First IVF cancelled due to cyst from stims. Second IVF (13 follicles, 6 eggs, 2 embryos transfered) failed. Third IVF was cancelled the night before retrieval due to low e2 -- indicating only one egg in my 11 follicles. We did a "hail mary" iui, but were given a 1% success rate. I made an appt with Sher to talk about one more cycle. At the appt, my prelim blood tests indicated that I was preg!!!!!! After a relatively normal preg, my water broke on January 7th -- four weeks early. I worked a full day, left work at 6:30pm, water broke at 7pm and Julia Carroll was born by c-section at 11:54pm. Since she was breech and my water was broken, c-section was our only option. She was a preemie -- and low birth weight. We struggled to get her over 5lbs, and she is still a little peanut at 14lbs on her 7 month birthday. She has been the joy of my life. So, imagine my surprise 14 weeks after she was born when my dh told me I was "acting pregnant". I took a test and it was neg. He was so sure that he made me go buy another test. Sure enough, I am expecting another baby -- edd is Julia's first b-day. Since she was a preemie, they are expecting a Dec b-day -- two babies in 2002! I feel like the luckiest woman on earth -- and I wouldn't have made it here without all of you. Thank you. :) Kath |