Thanks for joining me!
Growing up I always thought I’d be married by 21, have two kids, two dogs, and life would be complete. I am now 31, got married at 26 to my funny, handsome, sometimes stubborn husband (Danny), have two dogs (Toby and Scooby), and 1 pretty special daughter (Sara Grace). Life has a funny way of taking us where we never thought we’d be, and more often than not it’s really not that funny, but thank God for moments along the way that are.
God…. Where do I begin? I have friends that are believers and friends that are non believers, and I love them all the same. My road to God wasn’t too tumultuous but it definitely wasn’t a smooth ride either. I’ve always believed in God, and believed in Jesus and that He was my savior but never really had the relationship that characterizes a true relationship with Him. That changed October 7, 2012! Presently I still fail daily in seeking Him but I thank Him for His grace and mercy that He is always there even when I am not. I’ll talk more about my relationship with God later, but right now I just want to share with you that I do consider myself a Christian and this does play a huge part in why I want to start this blog and share about our trying to conceive journey.
Trying to conceive, or in the world of obsessive googling and trying to shorten your search phrases, TTC (which I will use most of the time). All your life as an adolescent (or for me and most of my peers anyways) you’re warned about the dangers of sex; STDs, infections, broken hearts, and GASP…BABIES!!! It seemed so easy; Boy+Girl+Bed=baby if you’re not careful. Turns out having a baby isn’t that easy for some folks.
I had always suspected I might have difficulty getting pregnant (I’ll leave out most of the details). After 3 years of being married and not really preventing this from happening and not being pregnant, I decided maybe I should ask my Dr. about it. Turns out I wasn’t ovulating which is a key component of one of the steps in making a baby. He also wanted to have a sperm analysis done on my husband. When we got the results back we were in for a surprise. Counts were great…through the roof actually. Motility….fine. Mophology….99% abnormal! What is morphology anyways? Well, it’s basically the shape and size of sperm and some experts say it has a lot to do with the genetic makeup and maturity of sperm which can play a role in its ability to penetrate an egg. So 99% abnormal seemed really bad! My Dr. told me we had basically a 0% chance of ever getting pregnant naturally (boy+girl+bed). But, GOD! At this point I had already been on clomid for two months to help induce ovulation, but I wasn’t responding to it as well as the Dr. would have liked. The 2nd month my dose was upped, and the third month we also added an ovidrel (human growth hormone) injection to facilitate with producing a stronger ovulation. The day my Dr. told me we had a 0% chance I was absolutely devastated. I cried for probably a week and it was an emotionally charged state constantly in our home. I researched every possible thing I could trying to find treatments for low sperm morphology issues. I came across a lot of good info backing up the use of Pycnogenol, so I started my husband on a pretty structured regiment of pycnogenol, vitamin c, multi vitamin, l-arginine, co-q10, fish oil and I’m sure there were more. We saw a urologist who didn’t see anything wrong anatomically and he told us that in his experiences he didn’t really find low morphology to be a major issue, especially because his counts were so good.
So, back to this third month. To our surprise we did finally get pregnant naturally and to my OB’s surprise. There was constant fear in those first few months. Any sign of spotting or decreasing symptoms had me in a panic. God sustained the pregnancy though and our precious Sara Grace was born on a cold February day after 32 hours of unmedicated labor and finally a C-Section. There is nothing in the world that compares to the moment of hearing your child’s first cries in the world and having that skin to skin contact. We were in love!
She is now 19 months old and has been one of the most easy going kiddos you could ask for. She is so silly, loves to share, loves her dogs, very affectionate, and did I mention beautiful?!
We decided to start TTC again about 10 months ago. I breastfed till she was 18 months old but my cycles had returned awhile ago. I thought, “We got pregnant with SG pretty soon after the clomid, now that my cycles are back this should be easy peasy.” Then, LIFE. My cycles were all over the place lasting 40-50 days and not sure if I was ovulating. I kept thinking well maybe I’m not getting pregnant because of the hormones from breastfeeding so I decided it was time to start weaning. It was an emotional decision to make but I knew deep down I was ready so very slowly over 3-4 months we cut back. My OB said we could start clomid again because the breastfeeding could be preventing it and that is typically the route moms who are breastfeeding and ready to become pregnant again go. I am again on my third round of clomid and this last cycle’s blood work showed I unfortunately did not ovulate so we are back in that boat of trying to figure out dosing. Just for peace of mind and because of our last abnormal analysis my OB did decided to do another sperm analysis on my husband. More bad news….this time he had oligoasthenoteratozoospermia (siri has a real hard time with that one). Basically low count, low motility, and low morphology. The triple whammy of the male infertility world. We really do have an almost 0% chance with current numbers.
I cried a lot more this time around with this bad news. Why us God? We have Sara Grace but my heart aches so much for more children. Our magic number was always 2, but after having Sara Grace I easily knew I could want 5! Marriage is a compromise so we decided 3 would be our limit, but we know God is in control and will have His way ultimately.
When Danny and I first got married we talked about the potential for IVF and both said it was not something we’d consider for out personal beliefs ethically and biblically. But, when you’re faced with that potentially being your only option your brain starts going lots of other places. I researched like a crazy woman. Call me Dr. Google. I talked with numerous friends and ladies who have travelled this road already and have come to the conclusion that there may be a way to still follow our ethical beliefs and do IVF if that’s what it comes to. Having someone to talk to who has gone through it really does help. Don’t let whatever you’re going through stay silent. God gives us community for a reason. If i hadn’t had so many discussions with other women I wouldn’t have even considered all the options. If you are one of those ladies who has shared your IVF/infertility journey with me…I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Back to the oligoasthenoteratozoospermia. I immediately scheduled with a different urologist who specializes in fertility, and I also scheduled with a reproductive endocrinologist locally (we only have one). We had our appointment with the urologist last week and thankfully again did not find anything anatomically concerning. Like the last urologist he also wasn’t concerned about the low morphology but the count and motility were of concern. He ran labs and has done a follow up analysis but we won’t reconvene with him for another couple weeks. Our reproductive endocrinologist has quite the wait list (because there’s only one local) and we aren’t scheduled with him till December but we are on the call list for a sooner appointment if one becomes available. Right now we are in limbo which can sometimes be the hardest place. But, God is in the details and I know He will continue to be.
I did a lot of background work trying to see what kind of benefits we have and so far it seems that we have 90% coverage for IVF or IUI with either a male or female infertility diagnosis! I have never heard of that happening before. I’ve called our insurance company probably 4 times already making sure that’s true. But, there are still hidden costs and other scenarios where we may have some extra expenses and one of our biggest prayers is that we would not add to our debt in this journey.
If you made it through to the end of this I thank you for taking the time to read it. I ask for your prayers as we embark on this journey. My purpose in starting it is to get my thoughts/feelings down more concretely, share my faith in God along the way, and offer hope and encouragement for anyone else traveling down this path. I’ll try my best to keep things update along the way.
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton
Making a Myers 