Our Infertility Story - Part 1

As some of you may know {or may have caught from our IVF baby announcement} Mike and I have been wanting a baby for over 3 years now! We are beyond thrilled to be pregnant and are loving this time in our lives...but it hasn't always been this way. Its been quite the journey getting to this point. Lots of hard days, lots of negative pregnancy tests, lots of $, and lots of learning what the Lord's plan is for us. Infertility is the most difficult thing Mike and I have been through in our lives! We have learned so much from this trial and because of this feel that we want to share with others some of the ups and downs of our infertility experience. Infertility is such a taboo topic but so many people suffer from it.

In the 3 years we struggled to get pregnant I found that the most helpful coping method for me was to write out my feelings. Since starting my infertility journal in January 2013 I have over 30 pages of thoughts. As I read through these posts I want to share with others what we learned in hopes that it may help them through their trial, or that someone who never even thought about this topic will be more sensitive to it. We found that hearing we weren't the only ones going through infertility was helpful and we weren't alone in figuring out how to deal with it. If you know anyone who's going through this trial please feel free to share our blog with them. The next couple posts I will share our experiences with infertility diagnostic testing, IUI's, IVF and all the emotions {and funny photos} that come with each of these! Keep in mind...this IS my journal {with some editing out of the super personal stuff} and I'm putting a lot out there so I hope it all comes across as I mean for it to. Mike and I try to be positive people but I won't sugar coat this experience and say it hasn't been rough, these are my real feelings during this trial.

Enough said.

Starting from the beginning, here's my first journal post

January 22, 2013

For the last year or so I have wanted to write about Mike and I’s fertility experience. The good {to hopefully come…a baby}, the bad {to remember what I’m learning and be grateful for my experiences when I have those hard days with kids in the future}, and the experiences and things we are learning in this journey…because I feel I am growing and learning in so many ways because of it {in an annoying, frustrating kind of way}.

I HATE the “do you have any kids” question, or even worse “when are you going to have kids”… we get asked it ALL the time! I guess I get why people ask {even though its none of their business} we’ve been married almost 4 years, happily married couple, were Mormon, we’re done with school, and we aren’t getting any younger…but with the phase we are in right now its so annoying and id rather not be reminded yet again that we don’t have kids.

Maybe I sound bitter. Sometimes I think I am. But I’m really not…just sarcastic about it because it makes me feel better J.  I love MIKE PENROD!! We were married just over a year when we decided we were ready to have kids. Ready! Ready meaning…we both thought id get pregnant that next month. Ok, the next month for sure. Ok 3^rd month trying for sure, can you see a pattern?

Well, over 2 years later {Jan 2013} were still “TTC” {You learn acronyms like TTC (Trying To Conceive) when you have to look up fertility stuff and have to learn the lingo}. After the first few months of trying I was completely shocked each month when yet again, I wasn’t pregnant. Doing pregnancy tests got harder and harder, I just quit doing them after about 6 months. I’ve had people try to make me feel like they know how I must feel because the “didn’t get pregnant for x amount of months when they tried for their umpteenth child and it was so hard”. I want to tell them…that is normal…not infertility and that is nothing close to what I’m going through {Try going on 27 months…}!!!

I’ve never had anything change me personally like this has. It’s changed my personality. I freeze up. I get jittery. I avoid all talk of baby. {Because I’m afraid someone will bring up me having a baby and I’ll feel pressure to tell them more than I really want to, or worst of all, that I’ll just start crying as I have so many times} I’ve gotten good at lying, or changing the subject to get out of talking about things.

There have been multiple times that I felt I didn’t want to go somewhere or do something because I knew there would be babies or the talk would be all about one of their pregnancies. Yes, I avoid and make up excuses not to go to baby showers and sometimes other events. {That makes me sound like such a horrible person and why cant I just be happy for them}. Believe me, I have felt like a horrible person because I wasn’t happy for them. It’s a difficult thing to describe.

I want to be happy for them, and I think I do, but I feel more sadness for me at the same time that takes away from any feeling of “being happy for them”. There are a few people I feel I have been sincerely happy for when they announced they were {are} expecting. Many of these people have gone through infertility in some way or another, I guess it’s easier to be happy for them because they’ve gone through a lot, and I know they really want it.

More months go by. We tell more of our families and more people start to find out. That is another awkward thing to figure out…to tell or not to tell, and who to tell. I think there are major benefits but major drawbacks to both. If you tell, you become more vulnerable, people ask questions or assume things, but at the same time the majority of people are very supportive {but some of them have an odd way of trying to support you that ends up making it worse and you wish they didn’t know}. It helps knowing you have a few people who are rooting for you, or to feel like I can talk to someone about it, but sometimes they ask about it, and sometimes your not in the mood to talk about it. But sometimes I am, and I talk about it, its awkward and I worry I said too much. On the other hand if I don’t tell anyone people are not sensitive to it, it’s a big burden to carry around on your own, and people assume we must just like “vacationing” or “ having such an easy life”.

If you do tell, you cant go back the other way and un-tell…but if you don’t tell…you can later tell someone.

Then we hit the YEAR mark! Doctors won’t talk with you, aren’t worried, and won’t help you unless you’ve been TTC for a year unsuccessfully. I had blood work, vaginal ultrasounds, and many frustrating conversations with doctors and nurses. I told Mike, It’s a good thing I don’t know what they are going to do to me sometimes when I show up, because if I knew that the ultimate awkward exams were going to happen every time, I would be dreading going and probably be sick about it. I had quite a few appointments and as far as the doc could tell everything was looking normal. A lot of these appointments were done without insurance because we were trying to not let them see “infertility” and put a red flag on us. I didn’t even show my insurance card, id just pay the uninsured price so that it never went to insurance. We looked into Fertility specialists and made an appointment to see one. The wait was 4 months to get in {Frustrated!} In the meantime we continued seeing the OBGYN who recommended Mike also get tested. In Utah we were able to just bring in the seamen sample. I’ll never forget walking into the hospital with a little specimen cup {with sperm} in my pocket. I kept it in my pocket because you have to keep it warm and get it there within about 30 minutes. Such a weird thing to do… Mike’s numbers came back on the low end of normal so we were asked to do it again. A month or so later I took in another sample. The next meeting with the doctor he went over Mike’s results and suggested that Mike see an Urologist to get his numbers a little higher. We made an appointment to see one. He recommended a varicocele surgery so we scheduled it. The hope was that it would improve his sperm count, motility, etc. The surgery was scheduled for February {2012} at the University of Utah Hospital.  Once again, we didn’t tell anyone besides our parents. Mike was out of school that day and I made up some excuse to get out of work without anyone asking.

February 2, 2013

Everything worked out ok that day with the surgery. The doctor said everything went well but that it would take up to 6 months {at which point we’d do another analysis} to really tell if it worked. Mike was down for the next couple days to recover. I took Mike home and just felt so much love for him that he would do something so painful, awkward, and embarrassing so that we could have a better chance of getting pregnant on our own. A frustrating part about this surgery was that the doctor told us that insurance would cover it because he wouldn't code it as "Fertility".  Well we took the doctors word for it. Look back, we wish we would have asked more questions about it, or got a second opinion from another doctor at least. Needless to say…we are still paying off the $6,000 bill. I’ve cried multiple times over this. We’ve both called the doctor’s office, hospital, and insurance so many times about this. It’s been a huge headache! We tried submitting an appeal, but no luck. I guess if it costs us $6,000 to have an even better chance of getting pregnant we’ll take it! Over $6,000 just to get pregnant!!!!! I never want to hear anyone complain how much it costs to actually have a baby {we’re in well over $6,000 already…and we’re not even pregnant}.