Blessed Assurance

I feel like I owe you guys an update. Well, maybe I just want to give you an update.

Mostly because after my last post, I was pretty overwhelmed by the number of folks who (a) seem to care and (b) have had a similar journey in their attempts at having children. Also, a lot of you have asked how it went, which is also pretty humbling.

Thanks for caring.

Thanks for reaching out, for your kind words, for the stories you shared. I know we all handle this struggle differently and it’s neat for me to be reminded that there are other people out there on a quest to have children and not just having it happen instantaneously. I also know that in the quest, there have been so many heartaches for so many of you. Losses, disappointments, despair. Lots of joy, after years of trying. I love what community can look like as we share our hearts and our stories with each other. I love how beautiful it can be, even if I don’t really know you and even if you don’t really know me. Because we’re all just trying to figure this life out and doing the best we can with the hand we get dealt.

You guys are neat and I’m so blessed by the many of you who gave to me.

So here’s where we’re at.
I went to a Family Medicine doctor last week. Nothing special in the way of infertility, but because of my referral, I was confident that I could get at least a few more answers.

I wasn’t sure if my nerves prior to the appointment were because of my fear of what the doctor might say or because of my heavy dislike of being poked and prodded, but I had that slightly queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach for a few hours leading up to the event.

It was fine.
Our options were laid out before us. After 2.5 years of trying with no pregnancies, we have a few decisons to make. It mostly just depends on how much time, money and effort we want to put into anything.

She told me that PCOS (poly-cystic ovary syndrome) is hard to diagnose, but it’s likely that I have it. It used to be required that cysts on the ovaries were necessary for the diagnosis, but more recently there are other symptoms that also give way to it, infertility being one of them.

So, here are our choices moving forward:

• Testing (me: pelvic ultrasound, husband: semen). She encouraged us to be tested to make sure we don’t have anything we are unaware of. 
• Medication. There are two known medications that can often help with PCOS: Clomid and Metformin. Both basically help regulate ovulation and help all the hormones do all the things they are supposed to do.  
• IUI. Intrauterine insemination. This involved placing the sperm inside of the woman’s uterus to hopefully facilitate fertilization. 
• IVF. In Vitro Fertilization. A medical procedure where an egg is fertilized by a sperm in a test tube and then transferred to the uterus. 
• Fertility clinic. She could refer us to the Fertility Clinic in Albuquerque and we do it all there, or we do a hodge podge of it in Santa Fe.