Vitamin D and Infertility

So you know how I said in my last post that my gyno had me get some blood tests done?  Just about everything checked out normally.  

Geez, between this and the infertility testing, you'd think I'm the perfect female human specimen!  Sure, I had a deviated septum in my early twenties but that was easily fixed with a simple surgery at 23 & I've rarely had a sinus infection since.

Yeah, there was the back surgery for a herniated disk at 26 too, but that could really happen to anyone...

And of course there's always the pink elephant in the room, my weight.  The clinical charts say I'm obese, but the IVF specialist I saw down in IL said I wasn't so overweight that it should be effecting my infertility, and she warned me that a crash diet would be worse for my infertility than the amount of extra lbs I'm carrying.  Robbie said he's convinced I'm ovulating like clockwork like I say I am.  He does want me to work on losing weight though, just in case it might help.  A book I read said losing just 10% of your body weight can improve your fertility, sometimes for unknown reasons.  Sounds like the varicocele repair surgery improvement rate.  Anyway, maybe I'll talk to B about me getting a personal trainer again after we finishing paying off this trip to India (he's joining me TOMORROW for a week of vacation here!).  I had a personal trainer before our wedding and lost 20 lbs in 5-6 months.

Anyway, I digress.  My point was that my test results always come back perfectly healthy.  Which of course is a relief, but also sometimes frustrating and even maddening, since what I want most besides pregnancy and a baby is some answers as to why I'm not getting either of them.

Ok, so blood pressure, cholesterol  pre-diabetes screening, thyroid levels, etc all checked out great.  There was one huge red flag though this time.  Turns out I have a vitamin D deficiency!  I don't mean that explanation point to indicate I'm excited or anything, just surprised.

I guess a vitamin D level of 30-100 is normal, and 20-30 is considered insufficient   My level is 13.  That is considered a deficiency.  So I did some quick googling, and get this, overweight vegetarian women living in northern climates often have this problem... and frequently suffer from infertility as well!  There have been some studies of other infertility research done which correlates vitamin D supplements with increased fertility.  

I'll have to look into all this with better a more critical analysis of the research of course, but I called B right away and told him to bring me some vitamin D pills so I can start taking them right away when he joins me here in India!  

In the meantime I'm trying harder than usual to remember taking my pre-natal vitamins (I often feel defeated after so many years of taking them and not ever getting pregnant, which makes me ask, "what's the point?").  But they of course have some vitamin D in them and anything I can do to help at this point is worth trying!  

Also, when the smog clears in Delhi, I'll have to step out without sunscreen for 15 minutes or so.  Maybe we'll make an India baby when he gets here.  Or at least I'll get a tan.  Either way, it's a win-win I guess :)

Gyno Appointment

So get this, I'm in India.  Yep, I pretty much have the best job in the world.  In August they sent me to Finland for an international library conference, and now here we are, only in November, and they've sent me to India to recruit international students.  The pay isn't great, but the travel perks are AMAZING and my co-workers really make it a place I look forward to going every day.  I'm having the best time of life.  I'm creatively filled by my career, and they let me travel.  Life is good.

The morning before I flew out (late October), I voted.  Had to make sure I exercised my civil right/duty.  By the way, it worked.  My guy totally won :)

I did one other weird thing before flying out that morning.... I went to the gyno for my first annual exam & pap in two years.  After the pregnancy hopes two months ago, I realized I better get back in to see her for a regular check up.  I have had my vagina probed and blood drawn so many times in the last two years by my RE that I kind of forgot about my regular health maintenance.

It was kind of an interesting appointment actually.  I mean, don't get me wrong, it was all the usual stuff, the speculum, the breast exam, yadda yadda.  She decided to do some blood work on me since I don't have a general practitioner right now and had forgotten to get my "30-year" check up last year (like I said, I go to the clinic enough right now, I'm not looking for any extra trips to the doctor at the moment!).  She just wanted to check my cholesterol  thyroid, pre-diabetes screening, etc., since I'm in relatively good health otherwise, this was all she wanted to double-check on.

Before she sent me to the lab for the blood draw, we talked about the infertility.  She thought it had only been a year and a half, and I reminded her that it had been two years since I'd seen her last & she'd recommended us to Dr. J, but before that we'd been trying for 6 months.  Also, Dr.s Strawn & Robb (let's call him Robbie, makes him seem more human and fallible to me), told me that since B & I haven't used contraceptives since Sept. 2008, they consider us to have suffered from infertility for over 4 years.  That really got my gyno thinking.

Two things she told me really stuck out in my mind.  She told me to make sure both B & I have someone to talk to outside of our relationship about all this, since it can be really hard on a couple and men & women process it differently, especially since I want kids badly & B could honestly take them or leave them.  Anyway, she said the divorce rate for couples suffering from infertility is 70%!  That's right, you didn't misread it, SEVENTY PERCENT!

What does that say about B & I?  I think it says that so far, we must have a pretty incredible relationship, considering we've come this far through all this, especially the last 2.5 years since we started "trying."  It also makes me feel better about the tension it's caused between us too.  Makes me feel more normal.  Makes me want to hold on tighter to him though.  Makes me want to be more reasonable and understanding about his perspective on things when we're in the midst of a disagreement about all this.

The last thing the gyno said to me before I left for the lab was this, "Since you're taking a break for a while, watch your mood.... and watch your marriage."  Then she gave me some information about  a local support group for couples going through all stages of infertility.

God, that really makes me stop in my tracks and think.  To have a gyno warning me to watch my marriage, it must be something not to take too lightly.  Makes me think I better take that divorce rate seriously and literally watch my marriage!  Yikes!  

That's what I'm determined to do though. He's the love of my life.  Babies get older and grow up, but your life partner is the one you want to wake up next to every morning.  That's the one you're CHOOSING to spend every day with.  That's the one you want to go to bed with every night.  That's the one you want to call when something bad, funny, good, interesting, fantastic, horrible, or inspirational happens to you.  That's the person who matters most, and if you have a good one, you better hold on tight and not let them go.

On a completely different note, I find it funny that my gyno took, "we're trying naturally since B had varicocele repair surgery 6 months ago, and if that doesn't pan out, we're saving up for IVF in early 2014" to mean that we are "taking a break for a while."  Actually, it's not funny, it just validates the way I feel most of the time.

On a final note, my gyno asked how I was liking working with Dr.'s Strawn, Robbie, and J.  I told her J was a genius, and I really appreciated Dr. Strawn... but that Robbie, who was my primary RE over there, well, I wasn't really "clicking" with.  She told me that most of her patients love everyone over there, but the few who have issues, always say the issues is with Robbie!  She told me I shouldn't feel weird about requesting to switch to Dr. Strawn if I felt more comfortable.  I really like this gyno.  She seems to get me.  That, and she has never failed to provide me with instant gratification for anything I've requested from her... you know, except the whole pregnancy/baby thing.  Oh well, I guess I shouldn't be so greedy.

Think I'll look into that support group when I get home.

Pregnancy Announcements

This post is dedicated to a list of everyone who has announced their pregnancy since we have have started TTC.  

I saw a similar post on another infertility blog and it made me feel like I wasn't so alone, so it inspired me to start writing again.  In case you couldn't tell, I've been in a funk the past 5 months and didn't have the will to blog.  I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things again because it really used to help me.

For reference, we have officially been trying since June 2010 (29 months total), though we haven't been preventing since September 2008 (a total of 50 months)... the date our Reproductive Endocrinologists care about.

These are in reverse-chronological order from the most recent pregnancy announcement to the first one after we began TTC.  I recommend starting at the bottom and reading back up to the top.

• Second Cousin- Found out on Facebook - in her defense, I don't think I've told her about our infertility struggle (added 10-28-12)
• College Roommate- It's sort of coming full circle right now as the first one on this list is also the last (see the last bullet point).
• Co-worker's wife- He (the co-worker), announced that he and his wife were expecting the same week that B & I thought we were finally pregnant.  Rather than feeling "stung" as I normally do when I hear such news, I was giddy & excited for him because I thought I'd be announcing the same news in a few months when we were out of the first trimester.  Again, I'll write a separate post about this later, as I mention below.  The whole thing makes things even harder to swallow than usual when he talks about he and his wife's pregnancy now.  This is #2 for them and they are due in April 2013.
• Relative- A close relative on my Dad's side sent me a private message on facebook to tell me she's expecting her fourth in February.  I was one of the first people she told, but she doesn't even know about my infertility.  It was nice to be one of the very first to know about her happy little secret, and because she didn't tell me in person I didn't feel obligated to tell her about what B & I are struggling with, I just got to absorb her news and for all she saw, I was just happy & ready to celebrate with her!
• Co-worker's daughter- "Grandma" is very proud and this high-risk pregnancy was all we heard about for months, though knowing my infertility struggles she was very thoughtful and did ask if her talking about her grandchildren made me uncomfortable.  I told her I was happy for her and wanted to celebrate with her... It gets a little tough sometimes but it IS nice to see things from another phase in the circle of life.
• Another co-worker- we held a joint baby shower for these two ladies.  Her daughter was born in April or May 2012... I get the two co-workers' birth dates mixed up.
• Co-worker- told me face-to-face she was expecting.  They hadn't been to an RE yet, but had been TTC for two years and were starting to wonder if maybe they were facing some infertility issues themselves, but thankfully finally got pregnant naturally on their own.  Her son was born in April or May 2012.
• Second Cousin- called to tell me she was pregnant right at about the time B & I had decided not to go through with the IVF.  I tried to show her that I was happy for her, but the timing couldn't have been worse so I fear I may have hurt her feelings because I wasn't very animated in my congratulations.  I tried to explain later (she didn't know about our infertility before this), and I hope she accepted my apology and understood that I truly am very happy for her.  Her daughter was born in July 2012.  Her brother & his wife also had a baby earlier this year.  A couple of our other second cousins had babies during the last two years as well.
• Another College Roommate- had read my blog and respecting my wishes, emailed me to tell me she was expecting.  I called her right away and told her (honestly) how happy I was for her.  I was touched that she had been reading this blog and was so sensitive to what I was going through.  Her precious daughter was born in July 2012.
• Wife of an Old Co-worker- He (my old co-worker) facebook messaged me to tell me they were expecting after years of miscarriages and infertility.  They were only 5 weeks along at the time.  Very sadly they lost the baby pretty far along into the pregnancy.
• Friend I Studied Abroad With- told me face-to-face that she was pregnant before she even heard the heartbeat.  I felt privileged to hear so early... and lucky, so I could absorb the news relatively discreetly before she told a larger group of people later that day.  Her son was born in April 2012.
• Friend from College- emailed me to let me know she was pregnant with twins after TTC for quite some time.  Her sons were born in October 2011.  Her little blessings give me hope.
• Another Friend from High School- I can't quite remember how she told me.  Might have been over the phone actually.  We are close enough that she knew about my infertility, but not so close anymore that I've even had a chance to meet her daughter yet.  Her DD was born in the September of 2011.
• Friend from High School- I found out on FB when everyone else did... with an ultrasound picture.  This was #2, her first was a son born a couple months after our wedding in 2009, and her daughter was born in August 2011.
• Another College Roommate- called me the day we found out we may have male factor infertility to tell me she was finally pregnant after about two years of TTC.  Her son was born in July 2011.
• Cousin-in-Law- After years of secondary infertility, my cousin & his wife welcomed their 2nd DD in July 2011.  I was elated with joy for them and found a great deal of inspiration from their strength, perseverance, and good fortune.
• BFF from High School- called to tell me she was pregnant six months after her wedding.  Her daughter was born November 2010.  Six months or so later she called me to tell me she was pregnant with again w/ #2!  Her second daughter was born in February 2012.
• Another College Roommate- called me to tell me she and her husband were expecting a few months before B & I started actively trying.  Her daughter was born in September 2010.  #2 was a son born almost a week and a half ago, October 2012.  He was born around the same time that our baby would have been due if we'd gone through with the IVF and it had been successful.
• College Roommate- This was the first of my college crew to have a baby.  I think she called me to tell me, though it could have been an email.... but I do think she called.  She announced her pregnancy before we officially started trying in June 2010, but half of her pregnancy spilled into those first few months we were TTC so she was high on my radar at that time.  Her daughter was born in August 2010.  She just emailed me a week or two ago that they are now due with #2 & due in late April 2013... shortly before we would have been due if we had been correct when we were convinced we were pregnant a couple months ago (I haven't been able to bring myself to blog about this devastating event yet, but think I will be ready very soon).

Some of these people have gone through a lot of loss and heartache on their journey to have a child and others' stories have not ended well.  Of course, I am happy for all of these people but it has really put into perspective how long we have been trying. The list could go on and on but these are the people who came to mind first. 

It's a strange feeling when you've heard so many annoucements after trying for over 2 years. You would think I'd be numb to it by now... but no, it's still a little slap in the face every single time.  A little sting of sadness.  Just another reminder of how long we've been at this.  I don't know if it will ever get easier.  Ten months ago, we were gearing up for our 1st IVF and were worried we would have too many implanted embryos...HA!  I hope one day we can be expecting our baby, but the more time that goes by, the less I believe that day will be anytime soon.

Egg Sharing Program - Would you do it?

Denise Everett-Keene is able to see exactly when the sperm connects with the eggs through this monitor in a lab at The Hugh Wynter Fertility Management Unit at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Mona, St Andrew.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/UHWI--baby-factory--gets--700-m-expansion_11455333#ixzz1vcQj7NPq

I read this article about a week ago which mentions a clinic in Jamaica that offers an "egg sharing program" that is in such high demand that they are expanding their clinic.  The egg sharing program "allows older couples who are having difficulty conceiving, to receive healthy eggs from younger couples who are in need of fertility procedures, in exchange for their footing the bill for the donor couple's treatments."


I instantly got excited and wished that B & I could do it.  Well, I suppose there is nothing stopping us from looking into it, but I instantly wondered if it was that safe to do this there rather than in the U.S.  I started wishing that I could find such a program in the U.S.  But then I suppose it would become political and people would get all up in arms about.  


I've read recently about Indian surrogacy and how many people think that Western couples are exploiting poor Indian women.  But there is another side to that argument.  Some say that these women are getting money they desperately need for the their families and helping to share the joy of parenthood with another couple who needs help.

Couldn't this egg sharing program be seen the exact same way (on both sides of the argument)?

Then I started wondering, would I want a child of mine being raised by someone else?  What if the other couple's procedure worked with my egg, but mine & B's did not.  Then they'd have my child and I wouldn't.  Could I live with that?

Then I came across an article about egg donation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/infertility-egg-freezing_n_1515792.html, and remembered that a lot of young women donate their eggs as a way to earn money in college.

I started thinking, what if I donated eggs a few times to earn enough money to do IVF in a few years?  Then I wouldn't have to worry about the risk of the other people getting pregnant with my eggs while I do not (like I might in a shared egg program).  And, I'd be helping another family struggling from the same hardships that B & I have been going through.

These programs prefer proven fertility, but it is not required.  And from what we can tell, our issues are probably male factor infertility (I have a clean bill of health on every infertility test I've ever had).  The programs do have an age limit though, so I'd have to hurry if I want to do it.  And I think they require a lower BMI, but I've kicked started a new effort to shed the extra lbs already. So maybe this could be an option for us in a year or so if we are not pregnant naturally (meaning B's surgery would have been successful!).

When I mentioned it to B, his first concern was that if I take all those hormones and give up all those eggs, it might jeopardize my fertility for us in the future.  Valid concern.  And since I'm 30 now, my eggs and time are both dwindling.

A shared program would probably combat that issue if could donate some of my eggs during the same cycle that we are using the rest to do IVF.  But do we have to go to Jamaica to do it then?  Maybe some more research in a year or two would be a good idea.  

Best to focus on the results of B's surgery for now and hope that we get pregnant naturally I suppose.  But I can't help but worry that time is running out for me if we need to consider other options.  I'm such a planner (and a worrier) and want to be prepared.  I don't want to look back and wish "if only we had...."

So now I'm wondering, how many others out there, who either are now or have in the past experienced infertility would consider something like this?  Either an egg sharing program or a few cycles of egg donation to earn money toward their own ART expenses?

Peeing on a stick at work again

I decided to be part of a study that tests the accuracy of home/portable body fat percentage testers, and in exchange I got a free scan with a DEXA machine which not only is the Gold Standard for measuring body fat percentage, but can also tell me things like my bone density and other important stuff... which I'll learn more about during my follow up appointment in a couple days.

What a DEXA machine looks like

I was mostly interested in joining this study to get this scan because last week I kick started a new weight loss initiative in effort to lower my BMI so that B & I will have the optimum set of circumstances for conception once we can start trying again in July... and also so that if we need IVF down the road, I'd qualify for some of the shared risk programs that are out there (more on those some other time).


Anyway, before I could get my scan on the DEXA done, I was required to take a pregnancy test due to the low amount of radiation I'd be exposed to during the scan.


Really?


REALLY?


I just can't escape being reminded of my infertility during any random, completely unrelated activity in my life, can I?


I still track my cycle every month and knew that I'm in the fertile period, so there's NO WAY a pregnancy test would have a positive result right now.  How humiliating and degrading to have to go into a public bathroom stall in a university building, and pee on a stick... again!  I used to do this a lot with OPK tests, but at least then I was hopeful and optimistic.  This was just awfully depressing.


Of course it didn't show a positive result - like I've never had that happen before [insert eye roll here].


Then we were able to move forward with the scan which was actually kind of neat.  I got to see my full body skeleton x-ray when it was over, and I learned there is a difference between BMI and body fat percentage.  It made me think of weight loss, obesity, and health in a whole new light, which I intend to blog about in my other blog (about healthy lifestyle and current topics of interest to me): queenofshibas.blogspot.com.


Like I said earlier, I go back later this week to learn about the results of my scan, and I'm thinking that what I learn can hep me to make the best health choices I can and hopefully not just lose weight (in effort to improve fertility) but also to improve my health overall... which has so many more benefits, especially if I ever do become a mom!  :)

I feel like I should explain something

We haven't announced anything officially yet (like on FB), but B and are in the process of buying our first house together.  Actually, it's this house, the one in the photo above!


We put in on offer at the end of March, and it was accepted the next day despite two other competing offers!  The night before B's surgery in early April we had our inspection, which went extremely well.  We did radon testing in the basement and the levels came back .1 higher than the safe level, so we spent a week or two negotiating back and forth and in the end, they agreed to split the cost of installing a certified mitigation system, which we will roll into our closing costs.


We meet with our mortgage lender later this week to finalize the paperwork and settle on a closing date, but we already put in notice with our landlord that we'd be starting to move out by July 1st at the latest.  We're keeping the apartment through July so we can take our time moving in, but for all intensive purposes, we hope/plan to be moving in to our new home around the end of June!


So...the reason why I feel like I have something to explain has to do with money.  I've spent four months blogging about the cost of infertility and talking about how hard it was to walk away from our planned IVF cycle because of the ballooning costs of it all... and here we are buying a house only a few months later... out of nowhere.


You see, B and I had planned to figure out the baby stuff first, then get safer cars, hopefully take another trip to Europe for his 40th birthday next year, and when all that was figured out, then start saving for a house - someday.  The house thing was on the ten year plan, not the two month plan.


So what happened?


The IVF saga happened.


If you'll remember, we pressured ourselves into trying to afford IVF before we had planned for it and way before we were financially ready.  Because of a misprint on a health insurance partner's website, they were willing to honor a severely discounted rate for me... but I only had a couple months to get it done.  Well, we hadn't thought we'd resort to IVF until we'd exhausted all other options, in two to three years maybe, but certainly not anytime soon.  


But when a chance in a lifetime like this comes around to get such a cheap rate on such an expensive procedure with such a better chance of helping us realize our dream of having a baby, well, we couldn't pass it up.  We had to try to take advantage of the situation.  So we spent the months of October, November, December and the beginning of January scrambling to beg, borrow, and steal the money we'd need to bring to the table for this discounted IVF procedure.


By January we had a weekend-long discussion about whether we could really do it.  No, actually it was whether we really wanted to.  We'd had to take out a persona loan of $7500 to cover the amount we'd be using from our FSA Health Spending Account because they only pay for medical procedures after the fact, not before.  We were planning to max out both of our credit cards to cover the cost of the medications we'd need.  We wiped out our savings on previous test & procedures and were living paycheck to paycheck.  It was a bad idea and it was all too much.  And none of it was a sure thing.  There was a very high chance that the meds would be even more expensive if my body didn't respond the way it should, or there could be other complications... and of course there was a 50/50 chance it wouldn't work anyway and then we'd have all that debt and nothing to show for it.


So we made the decision not to go through with it.  And then something kind of miraculous happened.  The Monday after we decided not to do the IVF, B's HR lady at work told him that the company hadn't processed the FSA Health Spending Account information yet for the year, and asked if he was sure he really wanted to have that much taken out of his paychecks...


He lowered it down to the cost of one IUI (about $1300) and had her cancel the rest.  Now we were really digging ourselves back out of the hole that the IVF drama had created!


We talked about paying off that personal loan of $7500 with itself too be rid that too.  Only we decided to wait and do our taxes first because last year we'd had to pay in $2000 and we might need it to pay our tax bill again this year (we'd pay off the rest with what was left and just pay off the remaining $2000 in about 4-6 months).


Turned out we owed money again.  $1300 this time.  Huh, just realized that's the cost of an IUI cycle.  Ironic.


Anyway, we were so mad at our lot in life.  We are two working individuals without a house or kids so of course our tax bill will be high.  Thing is, WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT LACK OF KIDS THING!  Ugh.


So the thought occurred to us, if we have no control right now over the kids thing... why not buy a house?  Thats something we can do to help lower our tax bill next year.  And it's still a buyer's market, with historically low interest rates.  Seemed like now was the perfect time to make this investment...


Plus, in the back of my mind, there were actually some fertility related issues to consider as well.  If we do have to do IVF down the road (if B's surgery wasn't enough for us...), at least the whole "saving up for a downpayment on a house" thing wouldn't be getting in the way of saving for IVF.  And if for ANY reason we wound up adopting, I'd think having a home for the child could only help us.  And finally, and this one is probably the least important but stuck with/stung me the most: a certain family member who shall remain nameless made the comment in a long list of reasons why should not do IVF (during that bitter weekend when we were ultimately deciding on our own not to go through with it anyway), that we should concentrate now on "creating a life for a child" and that the child would just come after we took care of that.  


Completely ignorant and insensitive.


This person wanted us to work on taking care of ourselves first, buy a newer & safer car for B, and buy a house. Then, and only then, think about a child.  This person didn't understand that time is ticking against us on that last milestone and that it won't magically (or through karma or whatever) happen just because we've got all our other ducks in a row.  But anyway, in the back of my mind I kept thinking throughout all this house-hunting stuff that at least this person can't make any more comments about "creating a life for a child" if we have to/choose to do IVF later.  And really, we probably won't be discussing our plans with this person anyway.


So, we chose to use that money from the personal loan to put down a downpayment on a FHA loan!  We'll be able to pay it off very quickly, and once that's gone our mortgage will be much less then our current rent, so we'll be saving money every month on top of the tax break we hope to get next year!  All money that can be saved up for other important things to consider in our future ;)


In the end, it really feels like everything happened the way it did because it was supposed too.  None of this house business would have ever been possible without all that IVF crap.  It's a very bright silver lining.  And now, not only has it all distracted me from my sadness and depression from our infertility, it is also lending me nothing but hope & opportunities to think about for a long time to come.  This kind of positivity is EXACTLY what I needed right now.  This all couldn't have happened at a better time.


We've been working through a non-profit agency that does mortgage counseling which I receive free access to as a benefit through my work.  This company has been amazing and helped us to find special loan programs out there in our city, which we couldn't have found on our own.  They also helped us find our AMAZING realtor too.  The whole process could not have been more positive.


And so between the meetings with this non-profit, our realtor, house hunting, putting in offers and counter offers, dealing with inspectors and negotiations, we've had a very busy Spring this year!  Now we are just waiting for things to be finalized and can't wait to move in around the beginning of July... 


July.


That's when we find out if B's surgery improved things for us and we can start trying for a baby again.  I think between the busyness of planning the packing, the move, the cleaning & unpacking, the decorating, and the house-warming parties... we won't really have much time for dwelling on the TTC process again for a quite some time.  But we'll be able to enjoy our summer knowing that we have nothing to think about but hope and possibility for a while:)


July.


I can't wait for July!

Maybe things haven't changed so much afterall

OK, so back in March, I wrote a post claiming that a "change" had occurred.  You can read the original post here: http://inconceivablestory.blogspot.com/2012/03/change-has-taken-place.html, but the point of it was that I was trying to say that I wasn't so sad all the time about my & B's struggle with infertility anymore.  I was even trying to come up with justifications for the idea that it might be better to live "child-free."

So, the truth is, I don't think anything was changing inside of me, and I don't think I'm ready to accept the idea of a child-free future at all.  You see, five days after I wrote that post, one of my best friends emailed me to tell me that she is pregnant again - with her second child.  So she'll have two kids, ages two and under, before B and I are able to conceive our first.

I wept. 

I couldn't help it.  I wasn't upset with her of course, I was just sad for myself.  You see, when this friend announced she was pregnant with her first child, B and I had not been preventing pregnancy for a while, but we had not yet decided to "try" for a baby yet either.  

A couple months after she announced her first pregnancy, B's and my one-year wedding anniversary rolled around and I graduated from grad school with my second master's degree.  It was finally time for my life long dream to come true.  We started trying for a baby.

By the time my friend's first child was born that Fall, she asked if I had "the itch" yet.  I told her I've had the itch since I was about twelve, and that B and I had been trying and were just waiting for that special month to arrive when we'd have the good news we'd been waiting for!  

Of course, in the back of our minds, B and I were already wondering if something was not quite right.  We'd only been "trying" for three or four months at that point, but before that we'd not been preventing for a year, ever since the wedding.  And I'd been off of birth control for medical reasons for about eight months prior to that... with many months of not being careful.  So really, we wondered, why hadn't we gotten pregnant yet?  Just lucky we hoped...

For months after my friend's baby was born I'd spend several days a week visiting her and her baby.  It was great timing because I was finally done with grad school, in my first real job, and finally had free time like a normal person!  Plus, I was able to get the baby fix I needed on a regular basis.  Her child was the most beautiful being.  She was such a good baby, and to this day lights up my world every time I see her.  The best way to describe her is as a perfect little blessing.  And now, as she is getting older, it is such a delight to see her growing and learning.  

So anyway, I spent a great deal of time with this friend right before and ever since the birth of her first baby.  She was such a considerate and thoughtful friend and always asked me how things were going with our own baby making efforts every single month.  Somehow she'd always ironically call on the the day I'd gotten my period.  Oh well, I'd joke, another month of drinking and banking sick time at work for my eventual maternity leave!

By midwinter that year, B & I still were not pregnant and we really started to wonder if there was something bigger going on that we should know about.  For young healthy couples they usually say to wait for a year of unprotected sex before testing for infertility.  But since we'd already been having unprotected sex for over two years (though we'd only been actively trying to time things out for about 6 months), B started getting tested... just in case.

It's best to get the male tested first because it's much less invasive than the female infertility workup.  It's best to rule out male factor infertility first, before you begin poking and prodding the female partner.  In January of 2011, we got our first analysis results back showing that B could potentially have low counts.  But it was January, and we are in the upper-midwest, and he'd done it at home, taken it outside to drive to the clinic, and delivered it to them about half an hour later.  We decided that there were too many variables and we'd get a second opinion.

In April that year we went to the only urologist in the area that specializes in male factor infertility - Dr. J.  B's sample came back slightly better this time, but still just on the cusp of the border between the range of what's "normal" and what's a problem.  We had another sample sent away to a lab out west somewhere... the only one in the country that tests for DNA fragmentation to see if that was our problem.  Again, he was right on the border between normal and the problem zone.

All this meant that B's swimmers could be the reason we hadn't conceived yet, but the evidence wasn't conclusive.  Dr. J did notice that B had varicoceles which could be causing his lower counts, but even that wasn't conclusive as many men get them who don't suffer from infertility.  He suggested we keep trying for 4-6 months and if we had no luck, try an IUI, which should give this counts the little extra boost they needed.  So we started up all the female infertility tests on me in the meantime (just to be sure there wasn't anything additional on my end to worry about while we were trying naturally), which continued throughout the summer.

We were still hopeful that there was nothing wrong, but as each month went by with one negative pregnancy test result after another, eventually my friend stopped asking if this was finally the month.  Instead she started asking how the testing was going and if we knew anything new that could help us.

That summer we did learn that I had a blocked fallopian tube, which sent me into a panic at first, until my OBGYN reminded me that I should still have a 50% chance of getting pregnant because most women ovulate from each side every other month.  Anyway, they were able to go back in and open it up and it's been open now for 10 months and guess what? Still no pregnancies.

Anyway, I've blogged before about all the testing and IUI's and it all ended with B having varicocele repair surgery last month.  Since it takes a man 90 days to produce new sperm, we are now in a waiting period.  We can't test to find out if the surgery improved B's counts until July, so no thoughts of trying for a baby until then.

Apparently, a good percentage of men who undergo this surgery see improvement after those 3 months!  Of those that don't, many of them will see improvement within about 6 months.  Of those that are left, some will have improvement within a year, and a few within two years after the surgery.  

So, we're hopeful about July, but shouldn't get our hopes up too high.  Or, maybe a better way to think about it is that we shouldn't lose all hope if the counts don't improve because there may still be a chance for things to get better down the road with a little more time.

So that's where we are at with the whole TTC thing, and that's the update (for now) on what we know about how B's surgery went.

But what does any of this have to do with my friend telling me she's pregnant and/or me saying things haven't changed so much after all?

Well, my point is that this friend telling me she was pregnant again kind of burst my bubble.  It brought back all the happy hopeful memories of when B and I first started out on our journey toward parenthood.  It reminded me of times when friends having babies was just exciting, not bittersweet.  But it also reminded me how long we've been TTC.  It reminded me of where we started out and all that has happened along the way to bring us to where we are today.

It made me think about the fact that she'll be done having kids before I even start.  Any of our hopes to be pregnant together were thrown out the window.  It made me wonder what it will be like to be going through the baby phase once all my friends are done with it and reclaiming their bodies, sleep, and free-time.  It made me think that once again I was behind all my peers in "life" (committing to a serious boyfriend, getting engaged, finishing school, buying a house), but this time not by my own choosing, and it made me feel sorry for myself.

I know I had written that wonderfully optimistic post about how something had "changed" inside of me and that somehow now other people's pregnancies weren't bothering me as much.  I do think that is still true, but not because something inside me changed.  And to be honest, my friend's being pregnant didn't "bother" me.  The reason it made me cry is not because she is pregnant again (because of course I'm very happy for her, and told her that immediately...and honestly truly meant it), but because it triggered emotions about myself that I hadn't been feeling for a couple months.  But again, not because anything had profoundly changed inside me to make me feel differently.  Rather, I think I was just distracted.

Distracted by B's impending surgery.  Distracted by work.  Distracted by the warmer weather and exercising the dogs.  Distracted by the biggest financial decision that B and I have ever made together....

Distracted by the process of buying our first house!

Stay tuned for more to come on that soon :)