I met my husband in the fall of 2004. He was in the Navy at the time and I was in a rolling stone relationship, trying to find myself state of mind. As cheesy as it sounds, I knew I was going to marry this kid. It wasn't until a year later on the 4th of July in 2005 that we started dating. I was living in Virginia Beach at the time after living one hot mess of a 20 something year old life. The week that he called me I was moving back home to Pennsylvania because I was leaving the abusive relationship I had been in for a year. If my father taught me one thing, its that a man never lays his hands on a woman. I like to think of myself as a forgiver. Someone that gives second chances. I guess that's why I stuck around for a year. But my father also. (insert Mr. T's voice)"didn't raise no fool." I was done.
The week that I was leaving I got a phone call from my now husband, David. We went out on a date, but not just as friends this time. When he picked me up, he opened the car door for me. As crazy as it sounds that is all it took. I have never had anyone do that for me in all my relationships. I was hooked. Fast forward three years to May of 2008. David had been gone for months at boot camp because he decided to re-enlist into the Marine Corps. And with the Marine Corps it is the only branch that you have to go back through their boot camp again even if you have already went through the Navy, AirForce, and Army's. You know "The Few The Proud". Those guys. I don't know how he did it without losing his sanity. Here he is a 25 year old man that has already been in the Navy since he was 19 and now he is getting yelled at by 21 year old kids. Not to mention he lost all of his rank. Thankfully he got to keep his "time in service." It takes a special person to do what he has done. I love him for that even more. But enough about him, I'm sure your gagging.
So there we were, married and living at our first USMC duty station in Jacksonville, NC. Life was going great for us. We were experiencing new things and building lasting relationships with other military couples. But there was something missing. I always assumed I would be the 22 year old girl with 3 kids and one on the way. Life just wasn't panning out the way I had envisioned it to. Up until this point I didn't think about infertility. I occupied my needs for a baby by spending all my spare time with nieces, nephews and cousins. But the needs started to sink in more and more with every passing month of not being pregnant.
I went off BC months before we got married around November of 2007. David was away for months anyways with boot camp and then his training courses for his MOS(basically his job) in the Marine Corps. I will try to make this easy to understand for most of you that have no idea what its like to live the military life. In the time since being off BC starting in 2008 my husband has been deployed three times currently on his fourth. That is 26 months of him being in Afghanistan and about 32 months of him being in the United States. That is not to include any weeks that he is in the field training or weeks away doing special courses that we are so graciously blessed with during those months at "home." He was home for 6 months before he deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 right after we got married. At this time and for the next year following we were DTD(doing the dead) with no prevention around the time I was "suppose to ovulate." I would take test after test with always the same result. I stopped taking tests for awhile. I needed a break. I needed to spend my quality time with my husband while he was home and not go insane trying to add to our two person family.
It had been more than a year of trying around the time I went to my first doctor appointment about my issues in December of 2010. It was right before we learned David would be leaving again. This time it was for 13 months. Even though I was getting my period, my cycles were long. Averaging around 36 days. Prior to TTC I would go sometimes months without a period but I was young and dumb and just thought it was "normal." They seemed to become "normal" once I started with vitamins and eating a low carb, sugar free diet. I am no doctor by any means and this is just what happened for me. So my OBGYN at the time threw me some BC pills and said that's what I needed to get back on track. I was dumbfounded. Was this the solution to have a baby? I didn't know what to say honestly. He said that nothing was wrong with me and I just needed to get my cycles consistent. Little did I know at the time how much of an idiot he was. Your suppose to trust in your Dr. right?
Everything I knew about TTC and infertility would be discovered by doing research on my own. I chucked the BC pills in the trash and started digging in online. I think I read every medical website known to man on how to conceive a child. I started seeing words like middleschmertz, annovulation, PCOS, male factor, endometrosis, IUI and IVF. Up until this point here I was a clueless 28 year old when it came to having a baby. No one ever told me growing up that this was a possibility. That I should make sure my cycles are normal and that the extreme cramping in my ovaries was not normal. With my new found online self-education and BFF Mr. Google, we spent the last two months of him being home timing everything perfectly. Still no luck. I knew something was wrong with me. My private parts were broken. And so was my heart.
After a year of David being gone I started seeing a specialist in February of 2012 when he came home. This was my referral that Tricare(military insurance) gave me after my request for someone who deals with infertility. Sadly this was another fail. The first month he sent me home and told me just to do timed intercourse. After I had explained that we have been trying to do that for four years now. The only thing he determined was that I was not ovulating on my own. Fast forward seven months, six rounds of Clomid, lots of tears and a softball sized cyst later. I walked out of his office after hearing the last rude and sarcastic comment I could take. I didn't look back. I immediately called and I put in a third referral to Tricare to my current and amazing RE who has stopped at nothing to help us have a child.
Third times a charm! It took a few months to actually get into his office, but on day one he did everything that he could test wise to find out what was wrong with my lady parts. Unfortunately this is where he discovered the huge cyst caused by the un-monitoring, overdosing, uncaring OB I was seeing before him. I was floored. I don't know how many times I looked directly at my prior DRs face and asked if I had PCOS or any cysts. I explained the pain and the cramping and the long cycles. But nothing. He told me I had no cysts to worry about and everything was normal with that high dose of Clomid(150mg). I was outraged after hearing about my cyst. So I left the RE's office bawling my eyes out. I'm sure my husband was feeling really bad that he couldn't do anything for me. He has always been my rock. My RE told me to wait a few months and let this cyst go away on its own. No fertility drugs with the option of BC to help it shrink. Needless to say I didn't take the BC. I felt like I was going backwards.
In January of this year we finally caught a break. My cyst had completely dissolved on its own! I know God was working on that one. I definitely needed it. So here we are four months later. Might I mention my husband was leaving in March again for 7 months. Back to Afghanistan. His home away from home. We received good results with the Femera at 5mg each month. My blood work came back great and showed that I ovulated. But we were still not pregnant. And we still do not know why.
My husbands SA(semen analysis) came back great(above average is what he wants me to say). They were able to freeze 8 vials of sperm to use while he is deployed. So this is where I am at. In about 10-14 days I will be undergoing an IUI(in-uterine insemination) with my husbands above average(lol) frozen sperm. I have also been tripled on my dosage of femera up to 7.5mg this cycle. I will blog more about the procedure in another post. In the meantime one quick google image search will quickly show you what an IUI looks like.
Sorry for the book. My other posts will not be this long. Or maybe they will?? I just wanted to share my story and how we got to where we are. I have alot to talk about and instead of keeping my journal to myself I have been inspired by others to share. Thanks for following along. And prayers are always appreciated!
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