Struggle with Infertility
This blog won't be full of pictures, but you probably don't want to see pictures of this journey. I'll have to go back a few years to the beginning. Before Andy and I got married, June 6th 2011, we decided that we didn't want a newlywed baby, so I went on birth control. About six months later, I was done with birth control, and we were ready to start trying to start a family or at least stop preventing the chance of getting pregnant (end of December). The next May, Andy graduated and we moved to Blanding. I didn't try to teach at a school because I was planning on getting pregnant soon. Instead I started a preschool. By January 2013, I was worried about the fact that I wasn't pregnant yet, so I set up an appointment for a women's annual exam in Blanding. We met and discussed some options. I got a prescription for Clomid and gave it a try. It had some side effects that I didn't like (crazy emotions and painful ovulation), so I only used it once. During the next few months, Andy and I both had some tests done. Andy had an infection called epididymitis, so he took some antibiotics to clear it up. The infection caused a borderline low sperm concentration, but after the antibiotics, everything looked fine. During this time I kept track of my menstrual cycle, and occasionally I would track my ovulation. We decided to try for awhile without any meds, and then we took a break from trying. It was getting too stressful and emotional, prescription sex is very hard on a relationship.
I went back to my provider in January of 2014 to see what else we could try. She decided to send me to an OBGYN, who dealt with infertility patients, in American Fork. I met with him on February 7th. A couple months later I tried another drug, Femara, that didn't have any major side effects, but nothing came of it after a few months. We then decided to try the less invasive procedure, IUI (Intrauterine Insemination). We were told to try it 3-7 times before trying In vitro fertilization. I was fine with that. In vitro scared me and cost a lot. I was not ready for that yet. We did the first IUI on June 22nd, 2014, which was the weekend, so the on call doctor did the procedure. It was quick (about 5 minutes) and easy, but it didn't work. So we went back on July 17th for the 2nd try. My doctor did this procedure, and it was pure torture. This part may be a little graphic. He couldn't get the tube through my cervix, and it hurt so bad that I was crying. After trying for a while, he decided to move me to a procedure room where he could use an ultrasound to help him guide the tube. He also decided to try and numb me, so he put a large needle in and gave me many little shots. Andy said that during this time they had like 5 instruments in me. The shots didn't hurt as bad as the rest of it, but I was still in so much pain. Let's just say, I'm glad that I didn't break Andy's hand while I was squeezing it. This procedure took an hour and didn't work, so there was no way I was doing it again after that experience. I had to take another break from trying after this. It left me in physical pain for at least 2 weeks and emotional pain for quite a while. I also decided that it was too hard for me to be a stay at home wife with no children, so I got a job at the middle school teaching 6th grade math. It helped to keep my mind busy on other things.
In February of 2015, I tried Clomid again. It wasn't as bad this time, or at least I dealt with it better. I tried it for a couple of months and then stopped. I started thinking that I might have endometriosis, so I set up an appointment with a doctor at the same office in American Fork. We met with him 2 days after our most recent Europe trip (June 8th). He told me that the procedure to test for endometriosis wouldn't change anything. He said that it would be a waste of money and time because the best treatment for endometriosis was to be on birth control or to get pregnant. He recommended trying another IUI, but I couldn't do that again. I left feeling very discouraged and frustrated. Later that week, after I had been praying for a while, I called my sister, Trisha, because I was having a real hard time with it. She also struggled with infertility, so I knew she would understand. After talking for a little while, she told me that I should just jump all the way in and do in vitro fertilization (IVF). After talking to her and praying some more, I finally felt like I was ready for this step. I talked to Andy about it and we agreed that it was our next step. We got a referral for Dr. Conway at Utah Fertility Center. I called and set up an appointment for mid-July. I really wanted to be able to do IVF during the summer, so it wouldn't mess with my work schedule. I wanted to get in earlier since they said it could take 6 weeks to do all the steps that lead to the procedure, so they put me on their cancelation list. Within a week I got a call that someone had canceled their appointment the next week, so we met with Dr. Conway on June 22nd. We started to schedule the rest of my appointments for the next 6 weeks, and had it planned to do IVF the end of July/ beginning of August depending on how my body reacted to all the drugs.
The next month was interesting. After a trip to Washington for July 4th, my crazy schedule began. We had an appointment July 10th to check my ovaries. They did an ultrasound and said that my ovaries looked good, but I had some polyps on uterine wall. I was told that I would have to have a hysteroscopy. I had to start Lupron shots every morning. Andy did the first one and the next day he helped me do one. We had gone home for that weekend, and Andy was asked to be the 2nd counselor in the bishopric. It was definitely interesting timing. I drove back up to Lindon a couple of days later. I was to spend the next few weeks in Lindon, with his parents, since I had appointments every 2 to 3 days to check my blood. My mother-in-law, Lindsey, took me to my hysteroscopy appointment on the 15th since they had to knock me out. Basically, the doctor went into my uterus and scraped out all of the polyps on the uterine wall. She said that this would help to make a clean spot for an embryo to implant. All went well, and I only had mild discomfort. My in-laws spoiled me a lot and wouldn't let me help out around the house. That weekend we, Andy's parents and myself, went back to Blanding to see Andy get set apart in the bishopric. President Michael W. Redd gave him a blessing. At the end of it, he paused for almost a minute and started to cry. This made me start to cry. Andy was told that his family would be blessed as he accepted this calling. I had to leave Andy that evening and go back to Lindon.
The next week, I had to start 2 more shots each morning. It wasn't lovely and I wasn't great at it, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. However, I didn't have to do the big shots in the rear (progesterone) because I used vaginal suppositories instead. My shots were just in abdomen. One did sting a little, and occasionally I would get a bruise. I also had to be careful to hold the needle in for 5-10 seconds, so the medicine wouldn't come back out. After a few days, my abdomen looked like it had been a pin cushion. I had several pills every day, too. I also continued to go in every other day for blood work. At least I did get to hang out with my sister-in-law and nieces and nephew during this time. I also met up with a few teacher friends. On the 28th, 29th and 30th, I had to go to the clinic for ovarian ultrasounds. They were keeping an eye on all of the eggs that were growing. On the 30th, I had to do a trigger shot (hCG to accelerate egg maturation) exactly 36 hours before the eggs were retrieved. Andy had come up and happened to be presenting at the Governor's Native American Summit for work. Our friends, Revina and Fred Talker, were also at the summit. That night we all went out to dinner at Red Lobster with Andy's parents. I had to sneak out at the end of dinner to go do the trigger shot in the car. This was a little tricky, and it hurt like crazy. I had a little reaction to the drug, very common. My stomach had a huge, hard welt on it. It hurt to wear jeans. My eggs were retrieved on August 1st, so I got to be knocked out once again. They used a huge needle to go through my vaginal wall and into my ovaries, where they then took out my eggs. I was a bit sore when I woke up, and had pain in my ovaries for a couple of weeks. Sneezing was definitely not pleasant. My eggs were left to mature for a day, and then they inserted Andy's sperm into my eggs to fertilize them (ICSI- Intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection). I had 10 eggs that matured. Only 7 of them fertilized by the next day. By August 6th, there were 4 healthy embryos. When we got to the fertility clinic that day, a different doctor (Dr. Conway was out sick) asked how many embryos we wanted to put in, 1 or 2 were the options. I wanted to put 2 in to give us more of a chance of getting pregnant. I asked them what the chance of twins was if we put 2 in. The doctor told us that if they were going to implant, then it was a 50% chance of getting twins. Right then I had an amazing feeling wash over me, and I knew we were supposed to put 2 embryos in. It was a great feeling, but it also scared me quite a bit. Was I actually going to get pregnant with twins? We got to watch the embryo transfer on the ultrasound. It went smoothly. I would find out in 10 days if it worked. For the next 2 days, I had princess days, meaning I wasn't allowed to do anything that would change my body temperature. I took it easy and finally got to go back home. We froze the other two embryos for safe keeping.
On Sunday, August 16th, it had been 10 days since the embryo transfer. Andy was at church for some meetings, so I went to the hospital on my own to get my blood test. I didn't do any home tests yet because I didn't want any confounding results. The lab tech couldn't tell me my results, but he could give me the blood work results. It had a hCG level of 300 IU/L on it. I didn't know what that meant until I got home and realized that there was a scale at the bottom of the page. Andy and I got home at the same time. If I was pregnant, my hCG level would be at least 100. Andy immediately went to research the numbers. He thought I was pregnant with triplets according to several articles that he read! The awesome thing is that we were pretty positive that I was pregnant, but Andy was starting to freak out about multiples. The next day I talked to my doctor's assistant Amberlie, who said that I was definitely pregnant (but not necessarily multiples). I was to retake the test in a week. My levels were supposed to double every other day if everything progressed normally. When I had my blood work done the next week, my HCG levels were at 15,000. It should have been ~5,000 for a single child. We knew something was up, Andy even called his friend in the lab and made him rerun the test. We would have to wait a few weeks for the ultrasound to confirm our suspicions/anxieties.
On Friday, September 8th, we drove up to Pleasant Grove for an ultrasound. The ultrasound tech was able spot out our two embryos right away. I wasn't in shock because I was warned by the spirit the day of the ultrasound. I was glad that there wasn't any more than 2. Andy may have been in shock. He was scared to become a parent, but now we were going to get 2 at once!
I went back to my provider in January of 2014 to see what else we could try. She decided to send me to an OBGYN, who dealt with infertility patients, in American Fork. I met with him on February 7th. A couple months later I tried another drug, Femara, that didn't have any major side effects, but nothing came of it after a few months. We then decided to try the less invasive procedure, IUI (Intrauterine Insemination). We were told to try it 3-7 times before trying In vitro fertilization. I was fine with that. In vitro scared me and cost a lot. I was not ready for that yet. We did the first IUI on June 22nd, 2014, which was the weekend, so the on call doctor did the procedure. It was quick (about 5 minutes) and easy, but it didn't work. So we went back on July 17th for the 2nd try. My doctor did this procedure, and it was pure torture. This part may be a little graphic. He couldn't get the tube through my cervix, and it hurt so bad that I was crying. After trying for a while, he decided to move me to a procedure room where he could use an ultrasound to help him guide the tube. He also decided to try and numb me, so he put a large needle in and gave me many little shots. Andy said that during this time they had like 5 instruments in me. The shots didn't hurt as bad as the rest of it, but I was still in so much pain. Let's just say, I'm glad that I didn't break Andy's hand while I was squeezing it. This procedure took an hour and didn't work, so there was no way I was doing it again after that experience. I had to take another break from trying after this. It left me in physical pain for at least 2 weeks and emotional pain for quite a while. I also decided that it was too hard for me to be a stay at home wife with no children, so I got a job at the middle school teaching 6th grade math. It helped to keep my mind busy on other things.
In February of 2015, I tried Clomid again. It wasn't as bad this time, or at least I dealt with it better. I tried it for a couple of months and then stopped. I started thinking that I might have endometriosis, so I set up an appointment with a doctor at the same office in American Fork. We met with him 2 days after our most recent Europe trip (June 8th). He told me that the procedure to test for endometriosis wouldn't change anything. He said that it would be a waste of money and time because the best treatment for endometriosis was to be on birth control or to get pregnant. He recommended trying another IUI, but I couldn't do that again. I left feeling very discouraged and frustrated. Later that week, after I had been praying for a while, I called my sister, Trisha, because I was having a real hard time with it. She also struggled with infertility, so I knew she would understand. After talking for a little while, she told me that I should just jump all the way in and do in vitro fertilization (IVF). After talking to her and praying some more, I finally felt like I was ready for this step. I talked to Andy about it and we agreed that it was our next step. We got a referral for Dr. Conway at Utah Fertility Center. I called and set up an appointment for mid-July. I really wanted to be able to do IVF during the summer, so it wouldn't mess with my work schedule. I wanted to get in earlier since they said it could take 6 weeks to do all the steps that lead to the procedure, so they put me on their cancelation list. Within a week I got a call that someone had canceled their appointment the next week, so we met with Dr. Conway on June 22nd. We started to schedule the rest of my appointments for the next 6 weeks, and had it planned to do IVF the end of July/ beginning of August depending on how my body reacted to all the drugs.
The next month was interesting. After a trip to Washington for July 4th, my crazy schedule began. We had an appointment July 10th to check my ovaries. They did an ultrasound and said that my ovaries looked good, but I had some polyps on uterine wall. I was told that I would have to have a hysteroscopy. I had to start Lupron shots every morning. Andy did the first one and the next day he helped me do one. We had gone home for that weekend, and Andy was asked to be the 2nd counselor in the bishopric. It was definitely interesting timing. I drove back up to Lindon a couple of days later. I was to spend the next few weeks in Lindon, with his parents, since I had appointments every 2 to 3 days to check my blood. My mother-in-law, Lindsey, took me to my hysteroscopy appointment on the 15th since they had to knock me out. Basically, the doctor went into my uterus and scraped out all of the polyps on the uterine wall. She said that this would help to make a clean spot for an embryo to implant. All went well, and I only had mild discomfort. My in-laws spoiled me a lot and wouldn't let me help out around the house. That weekend we, Andy's parents and myself, went back to Blanding to see Andy get set apart in the bishopric. President Michael W. Redd gave him a blessing. At the end of it, he paused for almost a minute and started to cry. This made me start to cry. Andy was told that his family would be blessed as he accepted this calling. I had to leave Andy that evening and go back to Lindon.
The next week, I had to start 2 more shots each morning. It wasn't lovely and I wasn't great at it, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. However, I didn't have to do the big shots in the rear (progesterone) because I used vaginal suppositories instead. My shots were just in abdomen. One did sting a little, and occasionally I would get a bruise. I also had to be careful to hold the needle in for 5-10 seconds, so the medicine wouldn't come back out. After a few days, my abdomen looked like it had been a pin cushion. I had several pills every day, too. I also continued to go in every other day for blood work. At least I did get to hang out with my sister-in-law and nieces and nephew during this time. I also met up with a few teacher friends. On the 28th, 29th and 30th, I had to go to the clinic for ovarian ultrasounds. They were keeping an eye on all of the eggs that were growing. On the 30th, I had to do a trigger shot (hCG to accelerate egg maturation) exactly 36 hours before the eggs were retrieved. Andy had come up and happened to be presenting at the Governor's Native American Summit for work. Our friends, Revina and Fred Talker, were also at the summit. That night we all went out to dinner at Red Lobster with Andy's parents. I had to sneak out at the end of dinner to go do the trigger shot in the car. This was a little tricky, and it hurt like crazy. I had a little reaction to the drug, very common. My stomach had a huge, hard welt on it. It hurt to wear jeans. My eggs were retrieved on August 1st, so I got to be knocked out once again. They used a huge needle to go through my vaginal wall and into my ovaries, where they then took out my eggs. I was a bit sore when I woke up, and had pain in my ovaries for a couple of weeks. Sneezing was definitely not pleasant. My eggs were left to mature for a day, and then they inserted Andy's sperm into my eggs to fertilize them (ICSI- Intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection). I had 10 eggs that matured. Only 7 of them fertilized by the next day. By August 6th, there were 4 healthy embryos. When we got to the fertility clinic that day, a different doctor (Dr. Conway was out sick) asked how many embryos we wanted to put in, 1 or 2 were the options. I wanted to put 2 in to give us more of a chance of getting pregnant. I asked them what the chance of twins was if we put 2 in. The doctor told us that if they were going to implant, then it was a 50% chance of getting twins. Right then I had an amazing feeling wash over me, and I knew we were supposed to put 2 embryos in. It was a great feeling, but it also scared me quite a bit. Was I actually going to get pregnant with twins? We got to watch the embryo transfer on the ultrasound. It went smoothly. I would find out in 10 days if it worked. For the next 2 days, I had princess days, meaning I wasn't allowed to do anything that would change my body temperature. I took it easy and finally got to go back home. We froze the other two embryos for safe keeping.
On Sunday, August 16th, it had been 10 days since the embryo transfer. Andy was at church for some meetings, so I went to the hospital on my own to get my blood test. I didn't do any home tests yet because I didn't want any confounding results. The lab tech couldn't tell me my results, but he could give me the blood work results. It had a hCG level of 300 IU/L on it. I didn't know what that meant until I got home and realized that there was a scale at the bottom of the page. Andy and I got home at the same time. If I was pregnant, my hCG level would be at least 100. Andy immediately went to research the numbers. He thought I was pregnant with triplets according to several articles that he read! The awesome thing is that we were pretty positive that I was pregnant, but Andy was starting to freak out about multiples. The next day I talked to my doctor's assistant Amberlie, who said that I was definitely pregnant (but not necessarily multiples). I was to retake the test in a week. My levels were supposed to double every other day if everything progressed normally. When I had my blood work done the next week, my HCG levels were at 15,000. It should have been ~5,000 for a single child. We knew something was up, Andy even called his friend in the lab and made him rerun the test. We would have to wait a few weeks for the ultrasound to confirm our suspicions/anxieties.
On Friday, September 8th, we drove up to Pleasant Grove for an ultrasound. The ultrasound tech was able spot out our two embryos right away. I wasn't in shock because I was warned by the spirit the day of the ultrasound. I was glad that there wasn't any more than 2. Andy may have been in shock. He was scared to become a parent, but now we were going to get 2 at once!
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| We had another ultrasound a few weeks later, September 25th, just to make sure they were doing well. It was our last appointment at Utah Fertility Center. From then on we started to see our doctors in Blanding. |
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| Dr. Conway, Melissa (10ish weeks), Andy and Amberlie @ Utah Fertility Center. |
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| Our babies! |
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