The Infertility Phenomenon

Alas! it is time for me to explain in one place what's going on with our baby situation. So buckle your seatbelts, and grab a cup of coffee or tea.

A dear, dear friend recently told me about how openness is a huge need in women. Vulnerability is hard, and even harder for some, but how will other people learn from out mistakes if we're not honest and open about our struggles, needs, and failures (past and present)? I consider myself a pretty open person. If you ask me a question, I'll answer it the best I know how, even down the the nitty gritty. But I'm also trying to move out of my comfort zone a little bit, and that means throwing a blog post out there about something that is very near and dear to my heart. Not only will this give me something to reference when another inquiry (when are you and Dan going to have a baby???) comes along, but also it will be a good place for me to come and practice being even more open and vulnerable than I have been.

Fertility is TMI for some people. I am doing my best to respect that (not plastering this all over facebook!) so as not to offend anyone, but at the same time I do feel this blog and my experiences can be of benefit to someone. In another way, I'm also doing this so that I can look back on it later and see how I've grown through this struggle. There's few things more uplifting than looking at old diaries, Facebook posts, or old edits of pictures to see how far you've come. So, with that in mind, let's start at the beginning, shall we?

I'll first say I'm not a huge fan of hormonal birth control. There are several reasons for this, but that's a completely different post (or hundreds of posts....). When I'm on birth control it wrecks havoc on my health (I was on bed-rest for a month once). Not only that, but I'm sure I go insane whenever I'm on it. Certifiably insane. Once, I was cleaning the bathroom. I dropped my toothbrush in the sink and the battery popped out of it. I broke DOWN.

Yes. Insane.

Because of my complete and utter disdain for birth control, I went with the natural family planning method. Charting, taking temperatures, using ovulation predictor kits (from here on referred to as OPK's), and all such things that come with it. Well, needless to say, it's overwhelming at first and you really have no idea what you're doing for the first couple months. There will likely be a post on this whole topic sometime in the near future, but for now, we'll focus on the story line.

I came off the birth control (BC) in May of last year and transitioned to natural family planning (NFP). As I said before, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing the first month. And we were newlyweds. By June, I was sitting in my bathroom staring at the + sign on the walmart pregnancy test wondering how Dan was going to react since I'd spent a fair amount of time convincing him this NFP stuff was pretty accurate. I didn't have to worry about that for very long, because the next morning the test was negative. I was upset, and so was Dan, but it all happened so fast it's like it was there and then it wasn't. The doctor called the next morning to confirm I'd had a chemical pregnancy.

After that I got serious. I set my alarm for 6:30 AM everyday, and took my temperature before I got out of bed. I did an OPK at the same time everyday. I charted everything I possibly could on fertilityfriend.com (trust me when I say, that's a lot). I looked up information on how to interpret charts and how the hormones worked. I think I might have missed my calling and should have become a reproductive endocrinologist. It comes super naturally to me and within a couple weeks I was pretty knowledgeable not only in the text book way things should work, but what happens to people in real life. I read forum after forum after forum and how to use NFP as birth control. NFP has been very effective for me, even in other ways than birth control.

In December I started noticing my cycles were going absolutely wacko. Previously, my cycles had be 30-31 days with ovulation on day 15-16 every month, whereas now, all my OPK's were coming back positive after day 12. I started to get concerned that I wasn't actually ovulating.

If there's one thing I've learned through this whole thing up till now it's that there's nothing more scarily accurate than a woman's gut feeling when it comes to her reproductive health. I knew something wasn't right, even when I got the positive pregnancy test. I miscarried. I knew something wasn't right in December, and I was right. Since we were going to start trying in January, I was about ready to have a fit, if I'm honest. But I made myself wait.

Well, three months went by with no ovulation. I decided it was time to take action. First, I went to a doctor on base. Dr Hoffman was extremely helpful! He ordered all sorts of hormone tests and gave my progesterone to take to 'reset' my system. He also ordered a pelvic ultrasound. All in all, for not having a period for 3 months, my hormone results were pretty normal. My ultrasound came back, and the only thing they found weird was that my uterus is super far forward. Basically, I get to look 3 months pregnant when I'm one month pregnant. They told me this shouldn't interfere with getting pregnant. Ok, great!

Well, here we are. Present time. The 'restart' didn't work. No ovulation for me! SO I call the base and make a request for a referral off-base, since there's no OB/GYN specialist on base. I go through the whole insurance rigamarol, and my appointment was yesterday. I wasn't impressed with the doctor, to be honest. Her bedside manner is about that of a snake, and she's stuck in her ways. Thankfully, her 'way' was exactly what I needed.

She decided they'd be putting me through the clomid challenge test. In layman's terms, they're going to make my brain think I'm not producing enough ovulation inducing hormone in my body, and trick it into producing more. There's a couple down-sides: The side effects. I've prepared my husband for the worst. I said I may be able to stop myself from throwing things at him. Also, we're moving this weekend. And painting a 2700 sq. ft. house.

We covet your prayers. :)

So, there is an update on our baby situation. For both of us, this is one of our biggest desires. We want to be in God's Will first, and we know that timing will be of God. One of the biggest challenges for me through these last few months has been knowing how far to go with the medications, the medical procedures, the doctors, etc. in order to try and get pregnant. Finally it hit me that there's no reason to try to make decisions about steps you don't know whether or not you'll have to take.

So with that, my friends, one step at a time. Operation Baby Dashlee is underway, and I'll keep you updated along the way. Thank you in advance for your support and your prayers. Both are much needed and even more appreciated :)

Now, off to pack dishes before we close on our house tomorrow :)

Love,

Ash