It has come up quite a few times throughout our journey the assumption that I (the more visually feminine one in our relationship) am the only one who has been actively trying to conceive… I’d felt prior to our new found openness that it wasn’t my place to discuss my wife struggles with infertility… I’d just say “Well, we both plan to carry” and leave it at that… And even still when starting this blog and our donation site wasn’t sure if my wife was comfortable having the FULL story… She is a very private person and I respect that… She recently gave me the go ahead since we are being as open as we are being and we both think it’s time to put it all out there on the table…
So from the top, here goes……
When my wife and I met she was 18 and I was 21.. We both knew we’d wanted to have kids, but it was definitely only a pleading thought back then.. About 1year into our relationship my then 19year old wife decided she had baby fever.. I didn’t think we were ready.. I thought then that it took tons of money to raise a child and that I wanted to be further along in my career.. It truly was I just wasn’t ready for so much responsibility.. I was happy in our little 1bdrm apartment close to all the clubs.. Yeah, I cared about that sort of thing back then..
The years passed and my wife would often mention her urge to start to expand our family.. By this time the wife was about 22, it came up that my wife has quite a few issues with her inner workings.. She’d always had problems as long as she could remember having her period.. But it finally came to a head when she went to go see her Dr for her yearly, and the Dr was concerned by how much discomfort my wife was experiencing during the exam.. She was then referred to an OB for more in depth testing and they discovered a cluster of cysts on her ovary.. The 1st OB she’d seen injected my wife with a Deprovera sort of shot to prevent her from having her period for a while, so no more cysts would form.. My wife wasn’t fully aware of the full side effects of the shot and allowed the 1st of the shots to be administered.. This same OB then mentioned that maybe she should look into getting a hysterectomy in the sort of near future because the cysts were so severe.. We both were like WHOA, WAIT, WHAT.. That was her 1st and last appointment with that OB.. Even with just the 1st shot she ended up not getting a period for a good 3-4months, thank goodness she didn’t go back for the other one.. This whole experience opened my eyes that it was about time that we started having serious discussions about our future family plans.. It immediately put me mentally where she’d been for 3+years..
We then started working towards our goals, saving money, taking trips, just doing all the things that you supposedly are no longer able to do once kids are in the picture.. We’d during our preparation/party time discussed our expectations.. That we wanted to use a sperm bank and would prefer to do at home inseminations.. We both wanted to carry and didn’t care if we carried at the same time.. We wanted to move out of our condo and into a house.. Then BAM, the wife’s severely painful cycles returned..
We thought this would halt all of our plans, but instead it made us even more focused on the health of us both.. I’d started tracking both of our cycles at this point and learning about TTC, inseminations, etc.. This time she went to see a new OB, who was really cool.. She did an ultrasound and found that my wife not only had more cysts then previously (the others resolved themselves since she spent so many months not ovulating), but she appeared to have some other shadowing in there.. This could be polyps, endometriosis, or who knows.. She then set up the wife for immediate exploratory surgery, or a laparoscopy.. Within a week of her 1st appointment with her new OB, she was being wheeled into a hospital room and put under..
The surgery went well, though they did confirm that she has PCOS as well as a severe case of endometriosis.. During the surgery she removed a few cysts from her left ovary and was able to also scrape her uterus to remove some of the endo. scarring.. As we were leaving the hospital we got to talk to the OB again, she confirmed that it is known that pregnancy can actually help endometriosis.. If you are able to achieve pregnancy, that is.. Recovery was quick compared to other surgeries she’d had (my wife is like a Operation Game life size, forreal).. We knew then it was time to stop thinking about it and start trying.. Within a few weeks we found a house we loved AND finally picked a donor..
Since we’d already been tracking our cycles we knew what had to happen when.. We decided since swimmers are so expensive to try one at a time.. I’ve already written an entry about the horribleness that was our 1st cycles trying, so no need to get into all of that again.. After I miscarried I was a little bitter and broken and looked to my wife and decided it was her turn..
The 1st cycle she tried to our surprise she got a BFP.. We didn’t think it was possible considering all of the issues she had, but there it was.. Soon after however, she started cramping.. Those severe cramps that she knew where her period.. And sure enough, she miscarried.. Once both of our cycles returned to normal we continued to try with us both inseming, in hopes that one of us would be able to have a baby bean stick.. But no such luck, even still…
I said before that we both felt it was time for us to put the FULL story out there.. Us putting our journey out there for everyone to see isn’t us asking for “ideas”.. We know we’ve done everything possible outside of IVF in order to conceive.. We’ve exhausted all efforts financially, emotionally, and mentally.. At this point we just need your love and support..
