The beginning of the end?

Welcome to my new blog. Let me start by telling you my story. I'll keep it as brief as possible...

I met my husband on Inauguration Day 2005 at a bar in Washington, DC. We were introduced to each other by a mutual friend and hit it off. Fast forward to July that same year at that friend's wedding, where we were seated at the same table. That's when he finally asked me out. We moved in together exactly two years after we first met, and were married in November of 2008. He's my best friend and the love of my life. One year after we were married, a co-worker announced that she was pregnant and suddenly all I could hear was the tick, tick, tick of my biological clock, so we started trying to have a baby. A few months went by, two more co-workers announced they were pregnant too. Everyone kept telling me I was next. More months went by, my husband got a new job and we moved to Pittsburgh in May/June of last year, still trying. I was growing concerned.

That July, it finally happened. I peed on a stick for the umpteenth time and there was a second line! I was pregnant! I also started spotting that day. Everyone told me that was okay, as long as it was just spotting and wasn't too red. I called the doctor and made an appointment. They monitored my betas and they were a little slow, but doubling within the normal range, so it seemed things were okay. I got a Rhogam injection just in case. My gut was telling me things were not okay and I was Googling 'ectopic pregnancy'. On Friday the 13th of August, my gut scored major points. I started cramping and bleeding around lunch time. I called the doc's office around 3 and most of the office had left for the day already (seriously?!), so they told me to go to the ER. As we were getting ready to drive to the hospital, my right side started hurting. After several hours of waiting, telling the docs 'no, I've never had any abdominal surgeries or pelvic infections (the common causes for ectopics), a blood draw, a couple of pelvic exams and an ultrasound, I was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy (go gut!) and given two injections of methotrexate and sent home. My husband was right there by my side through the entire ordeal.

In September I had an HSG done to see if the ectopic had caused any damage. It had. As the dye went through my right fallopian tube showed up like a curly sausage on the monitor. The left looked like a lovely flowing ribbon, just as it should. The radiologist said something about a hydrosalpinx (more Googling). My doctor said 'things aren't pristine in there, but you've got a 50/50 chance so keep trying'. I never went back to see that doctor again. He was kind of an ass. We started trying again in October.

In December I went to another OB/GYN to get a 2nd opinion on the HSG results. My gut was telling me things weren't right. I've learned to trust my gut now. She told me I had an 85-90% chance of having a normal pregnancy, (10-15% chance of another ectopic) and ordered blood work and a semen analysis to check our basic fertility. My results were normal, the semen analysis was not. There was low motility and morphology. We were off to the urologist and an RE in February/March and buying our first house somewhere in between.

The urologist found nothing physically wrong, and both he and the RE told us we needed to get another analysis done at the RE's lab. We did. This time the count was only 9 million, but the motility and morphology were much better (turns out the morphology wasn't as bad as we though the first time either, the OB/GYN was using outdated info). The RE told us to try for a few more months and to get another analysis and come back and see him over the summer. We moved into the new house in mid-April and kept on trying, though it was getting harder and harder to do as I was losing hope hard and fast.

Two weeks ago we went back to the RE. The results from the third analysis didn't instill hope. The count was up to 33 million, but this time there were anti-sperm antibodies (ASA) and only 199,000 made it through the swim-up. The RE's recommendation was IVF with ICSI. He actually said 'we're running out of time.'

Right now our plan is to go ahead with it, we just have to work out all the details. We're lucky enough to live in a city that has more than one IVF clinic - both of them reputable, so we're going to the other clinic in a couple of weeks for a 2nd opinion (it seems like the right thing to do when you're looking at spending $10,000 to $20,000 - we're not lucky enough to have insurance that will pay for it). My husband is also going back to the urologist that same day to see if there's anything to be done for his guys. From what we've read (yes, more Googling) there's not much that can be done, and just like the ectopic pregnancy - it's a mystery why the ASA are there.

So, that's the story and why I'm doing this blog. I know I'm not the first person to go through this, and I won't be the last, but it's the only time I'll go through this, and I felt the need to document it for my present and future selves, and also for anyone else going through this who might need to know that they aren't alone. I know I feel like this is the beginning of the end - the final chapter in our quest to become parents. We're skipping all of the in-between and heading straight for the big guns. There's a good chance it will work, but no guarantee, so the end is still unwritten. You can't skip to the last page to see how it ends, and neither can I.