You know how some people want to grow up and be a CEO, some want to be a Dr and others want to be a Firefighter, right? Well, I grew up wanting to be a MOM. I am not sure why, honestly. Maybe it's the tiny toes and fingers, the chubby cheeks, the cute clothes, the smell of baby powder or the massive amount of drool pouring from a babies chin, but something about all of that makes me want to be a Mom. I want to wake up at all hours of the night to nurse, I want to change dirty diapers and get peed one (by my own child, not just my niece , although I love her dearly!) Maybe I even want to drive a mini van and be a "soccer mom". That's my dream in life. No matter what career I follow, I want to be the mother to a precious child. Ben and I have talked about it many times, and this is what we both want. A baby that combines a piece of the both of us, something we've created, something we can raise and enjoy every moment with.
So last January 2010, I went for my yearly Obgyn checkup only to find out I had PCOS. I had always had irregular cycles, but never thought anything of it other than my weight being a factor. I mean I LOVE food...what can I say?!? But once I found this out I was really disappointed because I knew it would be much harder to have a child. If you aren't sure what PCOS is, check out this Wiki page:
In September I decided enough was enough and wanted to lose weight to get healthy and make conceiving easier. 55 lbs down and 6 rounds of Clomid (a fertility drug) later, we still are not pregnant. We have been trying the past year. After an ultrasound with my Obgyn, things looked good on my end so we decided to have Ben do a semen analysis. We received not so good results and were referred to Nashville Fertility Clinic, where we had our first appointment today.
We see Dr Hill. He is an older Dr and seems very knowledgeable, although we didn't understand half of the words he used. Basically here is what we understood: Ben's semen analysis came back below normal. The average sperm count for a male is 15 million. Ben's was 300k. And as I understood it, the average motility is 32% and Ben's was at 4%. So this is a major concern. Dr Hill also did an ultrasound on me (this is only my 2nd and I keep praying the next that we will see a baby in there) only to find a few cysts on my left ovary and a thickened endometrium which he was concerned about. He also thinks I may have some polyps on my uterus.
We scheduled an appointment to get a Hysterosalpingogram once my cycle starts next week, which will run a dye through my fallopian tubes to see if I have any blockages. I also have another apt June 13th for an ultrasound to check on my cysts...He thinks they are most likely from the last round of Clomid we took and hopes they will dissolve. Ben also has to have another semen analysis to see if his first count was the norm for him. Then we will go from there. He is also going to run a bunch of tests on us, including hormome, genetic and more blood work. He seems to think that In Vetro Fertilization will be our best shot, but that is the last big surgery we want to try. We found out that normal couples TTC have a 20% chance of actually concieving every month they try. We currently have way less than that but if we do IVF, our chances could shoot up to 70% at most, but also result in multiples. He also mentioned finding a sperm donor and I looked at him like he was crazy. We won't even go there.
Now I'm not going to lie. Once we left the building and got into our vehicles (we drove separate because Ben had to return to work) I cried and cried and cried some more. Then when I was done, I cried a little more. The whole way home I just cried. If we feel so strongly about being parents, why is God putting this roadblock in the way? Well God knows just what we need and He has a plan. We just need to realize that and go with the flow.
But we are trying our best o wrap our heads around everything we found out today as well as save up for all of this. We knew having a child would be expensive, but we never planned on the medical costs of infertility. So this process may be a few years longer than we want, but as long as we can have a healthy baby, we are ok with that. This makes me think back to my favorite Bible verse, Psalms 37:4, "Delight yourselves in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart." So if we just pray to God for His will to be done, then everything will turn out. Until then, we have a wonderful and absolutely precious niece we will continue to spoil and love on. I think she was brought onto this Earth for this reason specifically.
To anyone reading this, if you have been through this, could you please let me know how you got your mind off of things? I mean, I know I will never stop thinking about it, but how do you cope? What things are you doing to increase your chances and such? We don't know much about all of this since this is our first try, so any information, tips, etc are appreciated!