1 in 8 couples have an issue getting, or staying, pregnant. And we’re one of them.
We’re not starting this blog to to gross anyone out. It’s not for sympathy, either. There are so many people going through this, and not nearly as many talking about it. I get it. It’s a private matter. Talking about getting pregnant usually mentions (gasp) sex. But infertility is anything but romantic.
I’m going to be frank here. This shit sucks. It just does. And I’m still not entirely sure there’s a light at the end of this tunnel. But I know that hearing personal experience helps me more in this process than any medical website or doctor. So if I can help one friend who’s silently going through this, that’s what I’m going to do.
I’ll get to the brass tacks here. We have female factor infertility. I’ve had 5 surgeries, of which started when I was 16. I’m like a medical text book. Ovarian cysts? Two different varieties. Endometriosis? Yep. Crazy adhesions (scar tissue) that tie your inner organs together? It’s about as awesome as it sounds. Fibroids? Let’s throw those in too. Now, we’re heading into the grand finale where scar tissue has screwed things up so royally that I have to have my fallopian tubes removed. Surgery number six will be happening soon.
We’ve been attempting conception for over a year and a half now, and with IVF being our only option in conceiving, it’s now science to us (I’ll touch on adoption in an other post). Of course the love exists, but where there were once thoughts of romantic weekends and Pinterest-esq announcements, there are now schedules, injections, blood draws, and strangers in scrubs.
Emotionally, I think we’ve experienced it all. Excitement, disappointment, guilt, love, anger – the list goes on. Funny enough, the diagnosis of absolute infertility made things exponentially easier. There’s nothing worse than a year and a half of the unknown. So when we told the fertility specialist “we’ve been trying for a year and half”, to which she responded with a head shake and a succinct “no you haven’t”, things were finally clear. There’s no doubt that having to do IVF brings on a whole different kind of stress, but it was finally a problem with a solution.
So what now? Well, surgery comes first, and then we schedule the IVF cycle, which goes for about 8 weeks. We’ll be chronicling this process along the way because it has to be talked about. For the record, we’re not offended if this is more than you want to know and prefer not to read it. We get it. But for those also going through this, just know you’re not alone on this (extremely confusing, emotion invoking, yet awesomely scientific) ride.