The Background Story

Chris and I waited about a year before we decided it would be ok to start expanding our family. I went off birth control and we just waited to see what happened. We did this for almost a year when we decided that maybe we should consult a doctor to make sure nothing was wrong. I had irregular cycles from the time I was 14 and knew that something wasn't right anyway.

I first went to a fertility specialist here in Houston. He did some bloodwork and said that from what I told him and the bloodwork that it looked as if I was only ovulating every six months or so. I had no idea that you could have a period and still not ovulate, but it made sense to me after looking into it. He put me on a fertility pill for a month. Nothing happened. We did another month of the fertility pills. This time on the ultrasound, we saw a big black spot. In case you didn't know, ultrasounds usually look gray. He looked around to find that this big black spot was my left fallopian tube. The tubes are usually about as big around as a pencil. From the looks of this mine was the size of a sausage. He told me that the black coloring usually means fluid and that there might be either an infection in the tube or a blocked tube. This would require him going in through laproscopic surgery and looking around. We did that surgery on Mother's Day weekend 2006. After the surgery, he concluded that the overstimulation from the fertility drugs had caused an infection in the tube and fluid had built up. It was no big deal and that we should do antibiotics and it would be fine. So we did.

We took some time off of the fertility train to just give our emotions and my body a chance to heal. When we started again, the doctor decided that maybe we should have Chris checked out too just in case. Chris went and did his business and the results were not good. The doctor told him that he had about a 5% chance of fathering a child naturally. He has a low sperm count and the ones that are there are not very mobile. This was very hard on both of us. I know it really bothered Chris, but he tried to hide it. I was so upset and disappointed but wanted to stay strong for Chris and not let him know how let down I was. I didn't want him to feel like it was his fault. We took some more time off to try to decide what step to go to next. We wanted to weigh out the options and completely think this through. We looked into adoption and actually contacted a couple agencies. Everytime I talked to an agency, I just got this feeling in my gut that said don't do it. I finally decided to go talk to the doctor about what other options we could do.

I went back and the doctor told me about IUI (inner utero insimenation). We would have to use a donor sperm because of the issues with Chris. We talked it over and Chris was ok with doing this. My doctor doesn't do these intense procedures so he referred me to Dr. Haddad at Houston Infertility Clinic. Chris and I met with Dr. Haddad and loved him right away. He was so detailed and took the time to really explain everything about the procedure to us. So we started down the road of IUI. We started with picking out a donor. I let Chris have the full power in this one. He looked through all the profiles until he found a guy that was the closest to him. We read the guys bio, looked at a survey he filled out (his handwriting is identical to Chris'), and read all the comments from the staff about him. He found the guy he wanted! I had to inject myself with a gonoal pen (small needle) in the stomach once a day. I had to go to the dr. office every other day or so to have them check my hormone levels through bloodwork and to do an ultrasound to see how my eggs looked. We did this for about 15 days. Then when my eggs were at the point they needed to be and my hormone levels were at the right level, Chris had to give me an HCG shot. This shot tells my body to release the eggs into the uterus. The next day we went in and did the insemination. The doctor did an ultrasound so that we could watch the insemination take place. He put a cathater into the uterus and then injected the donor sperm. I had to just lay there for 20 mins. Then we had to wait two weeks. The longest two weeks of my life. For the first week, I was sure it worked. I had all the pregnancy symptoms. I had sore boobs, tired all the time, morning sickness, etc. Then the Monday before Thanksgiving they were all just gone. I knew in my heart right then that it didn't work. I didn't give up all hope, but something just wasn't right. We went in for the blood test on the day before Thanksgiving. I remember getting the call when I was parking to go into the store. The nurse told me that I was not pregnant. I couldn't move. I just started crying. I already knew but to hear the words come out of her mouth made it real. I felt like a complete failure. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I felt that I had let Chris, my parents, my family, and friends all down. I was mad at myself and at God at that time. I just wanted to be alone. The hardest part was telling Chris and my parents.

What to do next? We went for another round of IUI. We started all the fertility treatments and about half way through we did an ultrasound and the nurse had a strange look on her face. When I asked her what it was, she said she would have to wait to talk to the doctor. This scared me immediately. As soon as Dr. Haddad started looking at it, he turned the monitor towards me and I knew what it was right away. That dang tube was swollen again. Dr. Haddad sat down with us in his office and discussed options with us. He could clamp off the tube and it would just be like that for the rest of my life. We could proceed with IUI next time and hope that the right tube was not blocked too. Other option was to completely remove the tube. Since I was having pain from this tube I chose to have it completely removed. He agreed and then we would start IVF. I was ok with doing IVF but the cost scared me. We had already spent over $8000 on rounds of IUI and everything else. Now we are looking at somewhere between $13,000 and $15,000 for IVF. WOW! Chris and I talked it over and decided that if we waited to do it over the summer, we would have time to save up the money and I would be less stressed from work. We opted to do that and to have my surgery to remove the left tube at the end of January. My body would need time to heal from that anyway before doing IVF.

Life was going normal when Christmas Eve, I started having pains in my side. I knew this tube was still there and swollen (also leaking toxic fluids back into my uterus) but didn't think this pain was from that. It was on my lower abdomen and kinda to the right. Christmas Day we went over to some families and it started again after dinner. This time I kinda blamed it on overeating and maybe some gas or something. The next day I felt fine. I fell asleep on the couch that evening like normal, but woke up screaming in pain a few hours later. I couldn't move. It was 2:30am and I was in more pain than I ever experienced in my life. I couldn't sit, lay, walk. Whatever I did, the pain was unbearable. My stomach had also swollen up and looked like I was pregnant. The pain was really bad in the lower right side and I had a high fever. Chris rushed me to the hospital (thank God we only live a couple mins away). I almost passed out when we walked in so they took me back immediately. My fever was over 100 and the pain was worse. I was crying histerically by this time. I didn't know what was happening and I was scared to death. They thought it was appendicitis and started me on some morphine. The guy who put my IV in was crazy. He had me bleeding all over the place. Blood was running down my arm and making a puddle in the floor. The whole time I am doing whatever I can to try to sit down without pain. They gave me the first round of morphine and it did nothing. He gave me another round. Came in later thinking I would be knocked out....no I was still in so much pain. It was like they were giving me baby tylenol or something. Nothing worked. He gave me a third dose of morphine and demoral. Finally some relief. The pain was still there but not near as bad as it was before. They did an MRI and came back telling me there was a foreign mass but they didn't know what it was. They were admitting me to the hospital and waiting for my doctor to get there. Of course immediately I think cancer. I was so scared. What was happening to me? During this time the doctor had ordered an ultrasound before he got there. That was HORRIBLE! The pain meds were wearing off and the ultrasound was pushing and digging on everything inside that was already hurting. The lady doing the ultrasound said that all my organs were so swollen that she couldn't even tell what they were. I spent three days in the hospital on lots of morphine and antibiotics. Finally all the swelling went down and I was released New Years Eve. Apparently the fluid from the swollen tube had leaked out into my body causing everything else to get infected. At the same time, some cysts on my right ovary were bursting and causing the extra pain. I had the surgery to remove the tube in January and have felt no pain since then. Now time to plan for IVF!