It’s been one year since we were told the “reason” we have not been able to conceive yet. As we drove to our doctor’s appointment we were anxious to hear the answer but also ready to finally know how to move forward. But before we get there, let me start with how we got to that appointment.
After being married for a year we officially started trying to have a baby. Month after month we saw negative pregnancy tests even though we were doing everything “right”. After about 6 months of trying we started adding in ovulation testing (more peeing on sticks), measuring my basal body temperature as soon as I woke up every morning, tracking my cycles, sticking my legs up in the air after we did the deed (sorry mom and dad) and whatever else Google/Pinterest/friends said to do. During this time it seemed as though everyone around us were getting pregnant. In her book “Becoming” Michelle Obama truly said it best: “It turns out that even two committed go-getters with a deep love and a robust work ethic can’t will themselves into being pregnant.” No matter how ready we were for a child, how big our house was to be filled with future children, and both of us having good secure jobs, we were finding ourselves in a battle to conceive.
We felt so many things. Defeated. Confused. Angry. Nervous. Scared. What if we couldn’t have children? What if there was something “wrong” with one of us and we didn’t even know? What if we had “wasted” a year of trying and it was all for nothing? Everyone around us was getting pregnant so easily (and sometimes on accident) and here we were, literally spending every minute of our lives trying to figure out how we can have our baby. It’s hard not to spiral down with all of these emotions circling you. I don’t know how many nights I would cry myself to sleep or wake up sobbing.
If you want to get a good understanding of what it is like to go through the trying-to-conceive journey, check out American Greetings - Not Alone video. It beautifully shows the roller coaster of emotions for someone struggling to have a baby.
So at the one year mark, we reached out to our OB/GYN for help. They ordered a fertility check up for both of us which included:
- Semen analysis for J
- Blood work on multiple days of my cycle to look at things like:
- CBC (complete blood count)
- Thyroid
- FSH (follicle stimulating hormone - this is the hormone that controls ovulation)
- Testosterone
- Estrogen
- Progesterone
- AMH (the level of AMH indicates an estimate of the number of follicles in the ovaries -
a.k.a the woman's egg count)
- Vaginal ultrasound
- Ultrasound
- Hysterosalpingogram (a HSG uses an X-ray to look at your Fallopian tubes and uterus. This was a very painful test and I am hoping to never do it again!)
As you can imagine, we were incredibly nervous during these tests and they were very emotional for us. The worse test (even worse than the pain of the HSG) was my first ultrasound. I had always dreamed of seeing our baby on the ultrasound screen. But my first time....there it was....an empty uterus. It was an empty dark hole, which was appropriate for how I was starting to feel. We weren’t given results of the tests until we met with our doctor. I finally got fed up with the waiting and emailed my doctor asking how the tests looked (this was 2 weeks before our appointment with the doctor to review the results and discuss next steps). His nurse responded to me saying that my ovaries appear polycystic and we would discuss in a couple weeks.
What?! You can’t just tell me my ovaries appear polycystic and then tell me to wait 2 weeks! Our life got flipped upside down with that one email. We started researching what that could mean (yes I know that was probably the worst rabbit hole we could have gone down), but we spent the next 2 weeks looking into PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) and how our lives were going to change because of it. The weird thing was, I had ZERO of the symptoms that PCOS warriors have to deal with. So you can imagine our surprise when our doctors appointment finally arrived and he said every test came back normal and everything looked as it should. Ummmm…..what?! I asked about the polycystic ovaries that his nurse had mentioned and he said they weren’t (and even did an ultrasound during the appointment on my request to confirm). So after all of that...our diagnosis was presented to us. Ready for this?
Unexplained Infertility
How can this even be a thing?! Our answer as to why we weren’t getting pregnant was no answer at all. 1 in 8 couples struggle getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy, and out of that statistic, 1 in 4 are diagnosed with unexplained infertility. It wasn’t until we had our first appointment with the fertility doctor (a Reproductive Endocrinologist) that we were explained it’s not that nothing is wrong, it’s just that modern medicine still has limitations on what we can test. So yes, all the tests we did came back normal but there are still possibilities something is “wrong” and that is the cause of our unexplained infertility.
It’s frustrating, not having an answer. We want something to grasp onto because then we would know the path to go down to overcome that specific obstacle. But we are now in a constant guessing game. So as we began with different fertility treatments, we went into them with a lot of unanswered questions but hope that getting medical assistance would be the key to bringing our child into this world.
**This is not meant to be medical advice. Be sure to consult your doctor with any medical concerns. This is the account of my personal journey through infertility**
**Disclaimer: This post may mention or refer to family members/friends. If you are of them and reading this, please believe me when I say that I do not resent you in any way. I am going to talk about my feelings (without holding back) in relation to your pregnancy, interactions with you during my fertility journey, etc. Please know this is how I feel about my situation and how those interactions made me feel. This is not to take away from my support of you and your pregnancy**
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