The end of the beginning

I did this once before and felt too naive and inexperienced to even begin to fathom the heartaches of infertility. Things have changed.

In March after a 5 month visit for the first time in a year with my Aunt Flo I finally went to the doctor. Of course I wasn't as concerned about the anemia and my tendency to fall out in the floor surrounded by three year olds as I was about "Why can't I get pregnant?" My doc was new to the town and at the time he was commuting some three hours one way once a week to see patients until he could establish his office. He was wonderful though! So positive and easy going. He threw around some fancy words like Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome and Insulin Resistance. Oh yeah don't forget free testosterone, LH/FSH ratio, and of course the ever so wonderful annovulatory! Yup this was me.

To back track a bit my husband and I had been married for four years. We had been actively trying for as many years only we had both been terrified to involve the medical community in our personal and intimate "bits." I knew if we went to the doctors they would all say "You're broken and we're gonna slice, dice, poke, and prod till we get the answers." So we timed things and took an hpt every month (just in case!) and we cried and tried. Now finally this doctor gave me hope. He gave my problem a name and made it seem so easy to fix. Stir in some Provera to get things boiling, add a dash of Metformin, set the timer to baste regularly, and by Christmas we would be passing out the "Guess what" speeches. Hmph!

Provera worked like a champ. It was a horrid, painful, gruesome little goblin of a champ but it worked. The metformin.... well that's a whole other can of poo. It took a couple of weeks to get things figured out with the metformin. I had debilitating fatigue and at the time worked with 20 three year olds each day. Finally summer break came and the fatigue gradually wore off as I tweaked - no sliced, slashed, and dismembered my diet. I cut out all sugars minus a couple of fruits on the low scale of the glycemic index. I wiped out all of my white flours and hacked off my corn and most legumes. Then I tackled the potato monster to the ground and sucker punched him into oblivion. Finally I could breathe without needing a nap! My GI issues subsided and life resumed with a new hopefulness. We were gonna have a baby!

We tried the metformin with wonderful success for a few months (5) and I managed to drop 30 pounds and kick all artificial sweetners during that time. That in turn juiced up my water intake to almost 96 ounces a day!!! ( I spent a large portion of my summer peeing!). During all of this we had moved into a new apartment. I found a job closer to home so that in the event of a pregnancy I wouldn't be commuting and I wouldn't have nearly as stressful a job as I had before. I had the same benefits but we had to wait a couple of months for them to roll over.

Fast forward past three months of horrible waiting, pacing, and peeing. Four or five calls to the doctor to ask "what if" questions and rearrange appointments to coincide with that ever so wonderful 14 dpo. We had a few monumental "I never want to drop my knickers for you or breathe in your general direction again" arguments and then a few nights of "Can't we squeeze 25 hours of snuggling in before we start tomorrow?"

Today I went to my doc and he gave me the end of the beginning.
I was supposed to go in for a simple, "Wow! 30 pounds! Wow! Look at those temps and that cycle! Here, let's have a party complete with rubber glove balloons and a round of p4 tests on the house! Oh and happy day! Here's a script for clomid! See ya in three months just like we discussed!

Wrong!

As I said my doc is new in town (not new as in young and handsome just new as in he moved here to be closer to his aging parents. A very noble thing in and of itself.) and he has a new fangle-dangled computer thingy that he wanted to input my info in. So here we go, thyroid disease, hypertension, cancer, diabetes, paternal, maternal, blah blah... Ah yes.... What surgeries did you say you had again? Adhesions... Hmmm stop right there....

I had a surgery as a young child that resulted in adhesions (scar tissue) forming around my appendix. Four years later I had to have my appendix removed after it was blocked up and tried to explode. The 20 minute surgery turned into an hour and a half and my one inch scar stretched to a massive nine inches! Then at sixteen I was told by a gyn that reproductive issues weren't a concern at my age and that an internal surgeon could help alleviate my pain by removing some scar tissue for me.

This led my new and wonderful, head cheerleader worthy doctor to prescribe an hsg and an S.A. for hubby and I. These tests mark a crossroad for us. Behind door number one... we get a 3 month go with clomid and a little boost of progesterone. Behind door number two... dh has a bad report and we walk down the hall to IUIs of course not covered by insurance. Door number three... now there's the kicker! Behind door number three is the reality that I have a blockage compounded by my body's inability to heal without massive scaring and we are carted off to the wonderful world of IVF. This ladies and gentlemen is the end of the beginning....