OK... I have been putting this off a little bit for a few days. Knowing it will take ages to explain everything and I didn't want to start talking about my day to day stuff without explaining all of what's happened so far. Afterall it's got us to where we are today...
DH and I had been talking about having kids for a long time. We always knew we wanted them but wanted to be in a good financial place first. So we did everything right and got the house and the new car and then decided that April would be when we start our adventure to becoming parents. April 24th to be exact, it was our 8 year anniversary of being together and we were going away for the weekend. How perfect...So all along, I'd said I wouldn't start researching or doing anything 'by the book' till we'd been trying for 6 months...well that was the plan. It's hard when I am sitting at the computer all day to just ignore all the information that's waiting to be looked at. So I started by looking at my Ovulation time and realising what a small window of opportunity we're given each month in which to get pregnant in. Depressing much?!
So over the next few months I was focusing on that and went through the whole frustrated/annoyed/anxious stage when we weren't doing it on the exact right days! Not fun feeling like that! I'm not one to make DH BD when he doesn't want to, or when I don't want to (much more often than when he didn't) so we never kept up the every second day thing. To me, if you're not enjoying it, then it's not a great environment to make a baby in anywa!!! I did an OPK one month, a digital one and got the desired smiley face so I figured at least I knew I was Ovulating. About September/October I started temping. The first month there was a very clear dip at O time and I was rapt. But still nothing was happening! The second month I temped it was allll over the place! I put this down the the fact that I was waking up at odd times and every day I had to use one of the temp. adjusting calculators to make it at the same time. Definitely no clear sign of O. I stopped after that. The main reason I started was to say that I'd done it in case we had to go to a FS.
So I decided to go to the GP, we are both young, healthy, don't smoke, don't drink blah blah blah. It definitely seemed weird that it hadn't happened yet but I'm a very realistic person and know that it can take at least 12 months even longer for 'normal healthy' people. BUT I had gone and had my bloods and all the pre TTC stuff done in September the year before so as far as the GP knew from her records we'd been trying 12 months...Anyway, so my GP told me I'd need to go away and temp...(cue massive sigh of relief for the fact I'd temped those couple of months) and after I said it looked like I was ovulating, she booked me in for an Ultrasound.
I rang that arvo and got an appointment on the 25th of January. About 6 weeks away. With the Christmas buzz and a Holiday in between I knew it'd go quickly so wasn't toooo concerned. This was around Ovulating time so was hoping for a miracle appointment where they say "oh wow, you've got so many eggs there waiting"... Nope didn't happen...
After the worst pain I've probably ever been in being poked and prodded while absolutely BUSTING for the toilet this is what the technician was saying...first words out of her mouth "well I'm definitely glad you came and saw me" then things like "hmmm well there's definitely something there I just don't know what they are", "lots of people have cysts but yours are different" "I would think they are from PCOS but you're cycles are regular" "they're on both sides" "there's some really big ones in there" and finally the real kick in the guts, "you reeeeally need to go and see your Doctor ASAP". So needless to say I left there in tears, absolutely devastated!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not only did I have something that was completely prohibiting us from getting pregnant but it may also be a million times worse...ovaries ridden with Cancer.
The worst part was that the next day was a Public holiday so I couldn't even get in to the Doctor to know what was going on!!!!! So after spending the night planning my final 6 months of life I tried to forget about it till I could get into see the GP.
So....I take my Mum with me, completely freaking out...Dr. S tells me I look concerned, I blurted out "are they going to be cancer?" She pretty much scoffed and said no. That there is a teeeeeny chance they're Cancer but nothing I should be worried about. So after mentally kicking the U/S technicians ass all over the city I felt massive relief. The news still wasn't all good though. The GP told me they're called Dermoid Cysts. Basically they're a rarer form of cyst that are made up of tissue and can be TOTALLY gross!!! She Google imaged then and showed what some of them look like and more to the point, what they can grow. Made me want to be sick! Luckily mine weren't like that, they just looked like normal cysts...Aaanyway off track. So she said we'd have to go and see a Gynecologist and Mum dealt with one about 10 years ago or something (Dr. J) and loved him. He's still around so we 'chose' him. So I rang to make the Appointment and couldn't get in for over 2 weeks as being a specialist/OB/surgeon he's obviously very busy. Next morning at 9:01am I get a phone call from the receptionist telling me that Dr. J wants to see me straight away and could I come in at 12:00 that day!!!!! So of course I'm kind of freaking out again, he's obviously seen my U/S and thought it's serious enough to call me in straight away.
Soooo.....in I go, he's amazing, so calming and wonderul and caring and I'm rapt he'll be looking after me. So I need to have an Operation, to get all the Cysts out, he says there definitely seems to be a lot of them and one is 8cm!!!!!! So instead of waiting to get it done through the Public system we pay for it and get in with a couple of weeks. I feel disgusting with these things in me and want them out regardless of what it costs! He said there is no chance I could get pregnant with these Cysts and he doubts I would even have been Ovulating regularly (may explain the crazy temps in the second month) So I'm booked in for the Op. on the 16th Feb.
Everything goes well, he says "he definitely needed to do it and get them out of there" when I speak to him afterwards. He also did an Endo. Biopsy and tubal dye studies, all of which are fine. So recovery was ok from the op. Definitely sore and had horrible shoulder pains from the gas but I have the most amaaaazing husband who surprised me by having the rest of that week off work to look after me!
AF came back only a week after it was due which is good, and I was then straight back to regular cycles...he said it'd take a couple of months for my fertility to be up again so we didn't expect any miracles.
In the meantime my DH went and had a SA done. His GP said it was fine, and a bit below average but nothing to worry about. At about this time we'd decided to go and see a Naturopath. LUCKILY we got the results sent to her because they were in no way fine. Sperm count was 15 and the others I don't remember but I know they weren't good. Count and Morphology were the 2 main ones that were low. So she started us on a whole bunch of (very foul tasting) things and told us (well, strongly suggested) to stop trying for the 3 months it'll take for them to kick in and make the sperm healthy. We told her we would but there was noooo way after 12 months that we would stop for 3 months!
Anyway, because they never like to just go off one test, Chris was told to get another SA by Dr. J. so he did...didn't go well at all. After putting it off and off and off because of work he was finally able to go in. This was afer a week and a half of no BD'ing because we couldn't, thinking he was getting the test, and he had to drop it off at 7:30 when they don't open till 9am. So we had our appointment with Dr. J and he was not happy at all with the results! (FU*K!!!) In his words they were "dead in the water". He asked how long it took us to get the sample there and we said it was only 15 minutes but that it might have sat there for over an hour. The Pathology here isn't known for their thorough work. I've also since Googled and realised that although you should abstain for 3-5 days it's ideally no more than a week. He gave us a referral to get one done at Monash IVF. A much more respected and trusted place where you actually give the sample there and know they do the right thing with it. So a few tears were shed and my husband felt so horrible, like it's all his fault..Me reassuring him a million times that it's not, meanwhile my heart is breaking for him!!!
Oh and in that time I've had my CD3 and CD21 blood tests and all are fine.
So that was last Thursday and I just rang and the results are in. We now have to wait for Dr J. to ring us back...basically there's 2 ways it will go. First is that the results are fine, may not be amazing but at least normal. Then we keep trying naturally for as long as we want. Second is that they are still "dead in the water" and in that case we need to go in for an appointment because there's no other choice but IVF. He said that even if the results are fine he is happy to get us started on the IVF stuff now anyway, as in the police checks and counselling! So we're going to do that. We don't plan to wait much longer than October to start anyway....
So that's where we are at....WOW what a massive story!!!!
I haven't gone into any of my emotions or how I cope with all of this but I think that can wait till next time.
xxx
