Infertility Does Not Define Me - Go Find Someone Else

Hearing the doctors talk about you outside of the room when they think you can’t hear is the worst feeling you could ever possibly have. For me, this has been the 24th time. 24 times I have been told that there is nothing. I have seen three doctors in the last two years and nobody has come this far. Dr. Y (she shall not be directly named) has made a difference in my life. Infertility is not something that I will ever take lightly for the rest of my life.

Two years ago, my husband and I decided we wanted to start our family. We tried for one year, anything and everything with the help of one doctor. At first, I had a male doctor who didn’t seem concerned about my condition as I was. I was 22 years old married and had unprotected sex for over a year and still have not conceived a child. Dr. W gave me every test in the book, even tested my husband. Everything came back perfect. So why wasn’t I getting pregnant? Dr. W put me on some fertility medication called Letrozole, a generic brand of Femara. If Googled, you will find that Femara is a medication that breast cancer patients take to not relapse. For some odd reason a ton of women that had breast cancer and were taking this medication ended up pregnant. My doctor at the time prescribed this to me because he saw within my test that I had a high stress level. If he were to put me on Clomid I would probably need another medication to calm me down. I know this makes no sense, but I trusted his word, after all he is the professional here.

Seven months went by and still nothing. I decided to take matters into my own hands and find a different doctor for a second opinion. I found a doctor who gave me test after test after test and nothing. He didn’t understand why I wasn’t getting pregnant off the medication Dr. W. had me on. He dismissed my case and told me he couldn’t help me.

You could imagine how hard this was to hear. I couldn’t believe this. No doctor would take my case and no midwife or nurse understood what I was going through emotionally, physically, and mentally. Until I got a call from Dr. Y. She said she would take my case and see what she could do. My heart must have jumped out of my chest and onto the floor when I heard this.

I have been going through something that very little people understand. I’m perfectly healthy, besides being a little overweight but I’m working on that, and I had no understanding of what was happening to me. Here I am, I don’t smoke, drink, use drugs, nothing and I couldn’t have a baby. My husband and I have shed so many tears over that last two years because it is very difficult to see all these children and parents who just adore each other. We have cried every month, have lost hope, have lost our faith, and even have lost a few family members because they kept telling us to just give up it’s never going to happen. I will never give up something that I have wanted so bad in my entire life.

Two months ago, Dr. Y put me on the same medication as Dr. W had except she upped the dosage. I started to feel a slight difference, and what do you know it had. I went in to get my monthly intravaginal ultrasound to check on my ovaries and follicles. The follicles are the fat sacs that carry the egg into the uterus and from there its up to the sperm to find the egg. Usually women drop one mature egg a month, if it gets fertilized great your pregnant, if not aunt flow comes to visit. Simple enough for you right? Looking up at the screen I couldn’t tell what exactly we were looking for I’m not a doctor. When I had my follow up with Dr. Y she came in with a big smile on her face. She’s usually very friendly and smiley but this was a different kind of smile. She looked at me and said “we did it! We got two follicles!” She said I could get pregnant its just a matter of time. And she was concerned because I did have a polyp that appeared. A polyp is a growth that can attach itself to the inner wall of the uterus, which can lead to miscarriage if an egg decided to implant on it. Scary as it sounded I was not concerned, I was so happy to hear good news for once in a doctor’s office.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get pregnant, but did pass the polyp through my menstrual cycle thank goodness. It hurt like a kidney stone and put me out of commission for a few days. I did however go back to Dr. Y last week and found out that I had a lot of eggs in my basket, but probably none would get fertilized because they weren’t big enough. So, what I thought was good news turned out to no be that great after all.

I am on round two and only have one more shot at this before getting into the serious treatments. This is the scary part for us. We never thought that going through this would make us a stronger couple. But emotionally, physically, and mentally it's challenging. Not only for myself but for my marriage as well. We've blamed each other, held each other, complained, every emotion that you can think of we have been through. So my advice to those out there going through this, appreciate your spouse because you don't know what is going on in their head. Take time and love one another because this process is very stressful.

I’m sharing my story because not everyone goes through this and I want people to really step back and realize that not all women can do what we’re supposed to without a little help and that’s okay. Women who are struggling emotionally, physically, and mentally like I am I want your voices to be heard. Don’t bottle it up because there are more of you out there. I may have been waiting 26 months and maybe even longer, but I won’t give up something I want so bad: motherhood. We all want it and we all can have it. As women we need to support one another going through tough times such as these.

Do not let being infertile define who you are, you will be a mother one day and look back and say, “I’m glad I never gave up when I thought I hit rock bottom.” Don’t give up, your miracle is on they way. Good luck out there future mamas.