The Story of Us

Sweet Guy and I got married in 2006 and have been trying to conceive a child since 2006. I was 34 and Sweet Guy was 40. At first I thought the issue was with me since I have had a history of irregular cycles. I began charting my cycles and by 2007 I grew frustrated with having my cycles vary every month. I also used a dumb fertility monitor - uhm, only works if your cycles fit into a nice little box - literally. My cycles were sometimes too long and I think I would short-circuit the stupid device. Next....
I am a firm believer in acupuncture, so I found a fertility acupuncturist and went to her for about 4 months. At the time I didn't take any of the herbs, but I continued to watch what I ate and made sure to workout as often as I could. At the end of the summer 2007 I had just about lost my mind. So many of my friends were passing me by with their pregnancy and birth announcements. I could not figure out the heck I was doing wrong. My OB/Gyn said that I should just have sex, take folic acid and it will happen. Really? When?
Fall of 2007 Sweet Guy and I went to our first RE and she did all the prelim testing on both of us. I was convinced that she'd get a test back for me showing that I was an alien in a human body. It wasn't the case, all of my hormone levels were fantastic, in fact my ovary reserve was stellar! While I was smiling, Sweet Guys face dropped when he read his semen analysis report. Ah ha! Eureka! It wasn't me... it was him. Oh what a blow it was for him. He never even thought it was possible that our inability to conceive was because of him. Nor I, for that matter - no one ever said anything about men being a factor. (myth busters unite!!). Our dry-humored-truck-driver-mouthed RE said, "Go directly to IVF, do not pass "GO", make sure the you stop by the bank and don't let the door hit you on the way out." It took me a few months to digest all of this. We went out of town for the holidays and by the time we got back after hanging out with our friends that just had a baby, I was willing to do whatever it took to become a mom - even if I had to go kicking and screaming. I was 100% against IVF before I learned that that was the only door that my key would fit in.
We did our first IVF in February 2008, transferred 2 beautiful blasts and got our BFP on March 5. Wooo weee! Well that was easy! Aside from the hyper-stimulation, 32 follicles growing, 25 retrieved and 20 pounds of weight gain, I was elated. Until.... we learned that we were losing baby Sprout due to trisomy 21. On May 17th, somewhere between 12 weeks and hell on earth, we said goodbye to the most beautiful baby I have ever seen (in my womb). Summer of 2008 was a horrific blur and filled with more tears and depression than I care to admit. We were lucky enough to have 3 embryos frozen from the February cycle. When Sept/Oct rolled around, I had somehow convinced myself, my husband and my Drs that I was ready to try another cycle. Note to self - DO NOT MOVE ON UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO DO SO!!! Lesson learned. I was miserable the entire cycle and even though I wasn't on all of the horrible meds that one has to digest and ingest or stab themselves with, I didn't feel ready to face the "what ifs" that attacked my house of hope. We got another BFP (with 2 surviving thawed embryos), but it quickly turned into a BFN days later. I was defeated, down in the gutter and so angry with the universe. More friends announced their pregnancies and births... all natural, all without incident and my lifelong friendships began to fade away. Jealousy and rage were my friends now. Great, infertile and friendless... perfect combination!
For the next few months - well, until June of 2009, I saw 2 new Drs, began weekly acupuncture treatments WITH herbs and did 2 "natural" IUI... oh, side note - contrary to what idiot RE #1 told us, "No there is NOTHING you can do to increase your husband's sperm numbers," somehow by the grace of that which is unseen, his numbers had gone up - dramatically! So Dr. #3 said "heck ya, try a few IUIs.... those are some good numbers!" For the record, I hated doing IUIs - even though my Dr indulged me in my request to go un-medicated, they were a pain in the neck. I worried more during the 2ww and I felt that with IVF at least you were half-way to being pregnant - at least with IVF you go some fertilized eggs!.
We received the NY State Grant for another fresh cycle with Dr #2 (keeping up?) so we went with him and did another fresh cycle. It's very easy for me to summarize 2009... BIG BUST!!!!!!!!!! We did a fresh and a frozen and both were negative. Dr #2 was stumped. He lamented about me being an "open and shut case" he could usually tell who was going to get pregnant right away- really? Are you a freaky wizard that has a crystal ball? Can I borrow it? In total, we transferred 5 embryos last year and all I got was a lousy case of severe depression.
Our last cycle was in August and since then I have been feverishly researching implantation issues, immune issues, genetic issues or anything else that I can try to come up with to figure out wuz up?- since my Drs can't seem to find out what the heck is going awry with my cycles.
To all of those that are either beginning this journey or are in the middle of it - I have one piece of sound advice - BE YOUR OWN ADVOCATE!! It is very important that you do research and get second, sometimes even third opinions and don't settle for the grey area diagnosis - it's unacceptable and this is your lively-hood we are talking about - oh and your cash, emotions, sanity, marriage, etc.
I found a Dr (Dr#4) that was able to determine, through simple blood tests that we have a partial DQ-alpha match which can effect implantation and normal growth of a pregnancy. Now I am hesitant to say Eureka!, but it is nice to find something that may be the culprit in this battle. This is solvable, thank goodness, and we will do an intralipid infusion with prednasone for our next cycle. Also, I'd like to proudly announce that acupuncture and herbs have solved my irregular menstrual cycles - I have regular cycles now all on my own and it is an amazing feeling!!
For good measure we went to a 5th Dr to get his over-all view of our entire case. Ha, we have a case now... one RE once told me that if my file gets bigger it's a bad thing.. well, it's bigger, about 10 pounds worth of bigger. Another side-note - more friends continue to announce pregnancies and give birth, only now, most of them are on their second babies. *Sigh*
We transferred our 3 frozen embryos from our June 2009 transfer in August of 2010. That cycle ended in a BFN. We did 2 more IUI cycles, with clomid, November and again January of 2011 - again BFNs. We are now waiting, trying to find the time and money, to do our 6th and possibly final IVF cycle. This has been a long and intense journey. Along the way I have shed many tears, faced my fears of motherhood and have somehow held onto my sense of humor. I no longer consider myself infertile - I am fertile, experiencing a few bumps along the way.

Thanks for reading my blog~