Steve and I were married over 8 years ago and when we got married we decided that we were okay with having a baby. We weren't exactly trying, but we weren't trying to prevent pregnancy either. Needless to say, it didn't happen. After about a year we started paying attention to my cycles - this included taking my temperature every morning and trying to determine when I was ovulating. After about a year of this we figured out that I did not have a regular cycle. We waited almost two full years before going to the doctor because we wanted to be taken seriously, that and we didn't have health insurance.
The first doctor we saw gave us a prescription for Clomid and instructions on which days to try on. He didn't do any type of testing and just told us that sometimes it takes a little bit of time. We tried this for a few months and when we didn't have any success, we stopped trying for awhile. The next year we saw a different doctor - ahh the beauty of having decent health insurance. She finally did some testing and diagnosed me with having Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (also known as PCOS). She said that the problem we seemed to be having was that I was not ovulating on my own. She also put us on Clomid and we tried again for another 6 months. After the six months we again took a break from trying and finally decided that after 4 years of trying, we probably needed to see a specialist.
I was nervous, but I actually had a little bit of knowledge about fertility treatments and what the process would most likely be. In my high school you are required to take a semester long research class. During the class you have to write two research papers. The year I wrote my research papers, the McCaughey Septuplets had been born and I was majorly intrigued. It amazed me how a woman could become pregnant with so many babies (even then I must have been baby crazy ... lol). During the course of my research I learned about Assisted Reproductive Technology and how doctors could help women like me have babies. So I felt a little bit more prepared when I realized that we were going to have to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist (a doctor who specializes in infertility).
Four years ago our infertility journey started at Magee Women's Hospital in Pittsburgh at the Center for Infertility and Reproductive Endocrinology. I was initially seen by Dr. Erb who confirmed my diagnosis of PCOS and prescribed Metformin. But I still needed to undergo an entire battery of tests to determine the full extent of my infertility issues. She also decided that it was time for Steve to have some testing. So over the course of a few months I had Hysterosalpingogram (HSG) done to determine if my fallopian tubes were clear (this is done by having dye pushed through the uterus and out the fallopian tubes while under a form of xray monitoring). I also had a Sonohysterogram conducted where the doctor puts saline in the uterus and using ultrasound, determines if there are any fibroids or other issues inside the uterus. All of my testing came back normal, other than not having natural ovulation. Steve's test came back as less than stellar. He had great counts, but motility and morphology were lower.
We officially had an infertility diagnosis of PCOS and Male Factor. Now we had a starting point and could create a plan of action to overcome our problems. Our testing took several months, but by October of that year we were ready to start our first set of fertility treatments. Because I had taken Clomid several times in the past, our doctors felt that it would be beneficial to start immediately with injectible medications. The plan was I would start with injections of follistim (a follicle stimulating hormone) and be monitored by bloodwork and ultrasound every other day. Once it was verified that I had follicles that were mature, I would take a trigger shot and 48 hours later, we would do an IUI (intrauterine insemination). Now, when I say that I had to take follistim and a trigger shot, that means I gave myself an injection, daily, just below my belly button. I never thought that was something I would be able to do, but it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Over the course of six months, we did three IUI's all of which were unsuccessful. We were told that in-vitro fertilization (IVF) was going to be our best option for achieving a pregnancy.
Unfortunately, IVF costs a lot of money. And while the IUI's we had done were covered by my insurance, the medication was not. The follistim I took cost almost $2000 a cycle. In addition, neither my insurance nor Steve's covered any portion of IVF. So for us, at that point in time - two and a half years ago, we didn't have the money or the means to move forward with IVF and decided that we didn't want to spend the money on medications to continue doing the IUI's. Unfortunately, it appeared that our infertility journey had just come to an end. But in reality, it was only postponed for a few years ...
(to be continued)
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