Bring on the drugs!

Let me start out by saying thank you to those who have read my first post and are reading this one as well. Just writing one post has been extremely cathartic for me and I can't wait to keep writing! Something that bothered me more than ever while going through my journey was that infertility is a silent disease. I always felt like I just couldn't talk about it, which made me feel so alone in the process! No one completely understands unless they're going through it themselves. They can try to understand and offer support, but they don't really get it. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't wish infertility on my worst enemy... but I always wished there was a way for people to really understand what I was going through. I really hope that by writing this blog, I can let people out there know who might be going through it that they're not alone! I also hope to make other people more aware of how many people struggle with this silent disease and how sad it really is. Infertility is so common and there's no reason to keep it in. People don't understand what they don't know, so it's my job is to educate!

Just a side note as a follow up on something I wrote about in the last post before I talk about my drugs, my vocal issues. I know I had said that they took a back seat, but I want to let you know that it did clear up in about 6 months with lots of medicine (nexium and singulair) and some vocal and speech therapy. It was a struggle but my voice did return full force and I was so relieved!

Now onto the start of what we never thought would be such a long road, fertility meds! What was so unique about our story was that we never even got to "try" naturally. We weren't even given that option because I had to take meds just to keep the headaches away and get my period. This was already upsetting enough for me because my body wasn't "working", but I was ready to take on whatever we needed to do to have our first baby! So here we are, July 2009, and our Dr. started us on the lowest dosage (25 mg) of clomid. She said she thought I'd be an "easy fix" and I sure hoped so! I knew a bunch of people that took clomid and got pregnant their first or second try and I thought for sure that would be me. I mean, how simple is that? You take some pills, ovulate, get busy, then get pregnant? Sounded too good to be true! Well it was...

Something I really wish the Dr. had explained to us before starting these meds was that once they put you on any type of fertility meds, they need to monitor you about every other day for close to 2 weeks. They need to see how your body is responding by doing an ultrasound (internal by the way- not fun!) and bloodwork to check the hormone levels. Well the first time I went in was about day 10 of my cycle, nothing was happening. The only thing I felt were the side effects from the meds, which were AWFUL!! If there's a side effect for something, it happens to me! I immediately started getting hot flashes, I was nauseous, I felt incredibly moody, and I was just miserable. I went back in on day 12, 14, 16, 18, 20... still nothing was happening. It was like a full time job, I was always at the Dr! My side effects were just getting worse, but my ovaries weren't responding one bit! The Dr. said she wasn't surprised since it was the lowest dosage and we would just try a higher dosage. We gave up on that cycle and I was given more meds to bring on my period.

Now for a slight tangent before I continue: One thing that Ari and I had decided before we began the fertility meds was that we were going to take a summer trip. We wanted to go on one more trip together just the two of us, at least we thought it would be our last trip, assuming we'd be getting pregnant within a year. We took a carnival cruise and made stops at:

Isla Roatan: Hanging with a cute monkey! 

Belize: Standing on top of the Mayan ruins

Cozumel: We took a Mexican cooking class!

Grand Cayman: Under water in the submarine ship!

One of the professional ones- My favorite of them all!

We had such a blast on this trip and waited until we got back to try another round of the clomid. We didn't want to worry about it while on vacation, we just wanted to have fun! So we got back and we went right back to the Dr. This time she tried 50 mg. of clomid and I was hopeful. After all, it was twice the dosage so it had to work.... right? Well, the same thing happened... I went into the office about 8 times and nothing was happening but the same horrible symptoms. At this point, she wanted to add another kind of medicine called metformin. This was supposed to balance out my blood sugar levels and apparently the mix of clomid and metformin was supposed to work wonders! For out next round, which brought us into September, I was now back at grad school and working as a part time music teacher. I was afraid I couldn't balance school, work, and the side effects of the drugs while going into the Dr. so often, and I was right. It was so difficult but I had to push forward because I had my eye on the prize. I was determined at this point just to find a medicine that would make me ovulate. I became so wrapped up in that part, I forgot that we were trying to get pregnant! I just wanted my body to work! The addition of the metformin still didn't work and only added more symptoms of horrible stomach aches, so as our Dr. said, it was time to pull out the big guns. She used an analogy saying that infertility was like Harry Potter trying to find the right broom. You had to just keep trying until you found the right one that worked.

Our next step would be injectable meds, something called follistim. This meant I would have to give myself a shot every night for about 2 weeks straight to see if I would ovulate, which brought me right back to my childhood. I didn't realize until later on that this whole process brought up a lot of unresolved issues from my childhood. When I was taking my growth hormones from the ages of 7-13, I always felt "different" because all of my friends grew naturally, and now it was happening again. I was going to have to take shots just to make my body do what it was supposed to do, but couldn't. It made me so sad, but again, I was ready to take on the challenge. Only thing was, these shots wouldn't be covered by our insurance and would run us $1000-$2000 per month without any guarantee of it working. I felt like we were so invested at this point that we had to push forward and try the shots. So we planned on starting them the next month, and we did! More to come...