What a few weeks it’s been! I have talked before about how I haven’t felt our baby girl and I chalked it up to being tall, carrying differently than others, etc. It didn’t really worry me, but I was a bit like, “Is there something wrong?” Well, she proved there wasn’t to us on Saturday evening, May 2nd.
We were laying in bed watching a show and I could just feel something faint going on in my stomach. Before I knew it, the kicks and punches were more rapid and you could even see the skin moving. I said to Andy, “Turn that down. I think I feel her kicking.” He placed his hand on my stomach and within seconds, she gave a “Hey, Dad” hard kick. We both cried and just stayed in a state of awe for a long time.
Wow, what a miracle that is! That’s no big bang that happened thousands of years ago. That took actual thinking through. Actual planning for how this was to come about. Actual work of the Lord! And what a blessing it was for us to get to experience all of this together.
And since then, she hasn’t stopped kicking, punching and doing somersaults. It’s like any time I’m still for a second, she’s making herself known. Morning. Noon. Night. Naptime. Whenever. Andy says she’s finally trying to repay me for all the jolting she’s endured up until this past week 😉, and he’s probably right!
I enjoy working out and running; my minimum is 3.5 miles. It just makes me feel better, I enjoy the journey of seeing progress in my route, and it’s my me time. Well, baby girl has been along for the ride – two to four times a week – since her embryo transfer, and Andy’s saying she’s getting back at me now – ha! Probably so. But mama’s finally slowing down, just at the time she picks up her pace.
If you read my Mother’s Day post on my personal IG and Facebook page, you probably saw that I was sort of surprised at the feeling I had leading up to that special day. It actually wasn’t like a finally feeling that resonated within me, but a few days before, I was looking at a blogger’s birth story and her photos had me sobbing. They were just beautiful! Of her. Of her baby boy. But what really struck me is the look on both her and her husband’s face when their son was brought into the world.
That. That look has been the one thing I longed so badly for. That instant connection with your spouse when you both realize, “Through God’s grace, we made this person. Together.” That is something I can’t wait to experience!
I think when you’re battling with infertility and have this deep longing to experience the things others are – big belly, pregnancy glow, feeling your child move inside – there may or may not be specifics that you just so long to experience, but I always wanted to know what it was like to be pregnant. Always thought I’d look a certain way with a round bump and longed to see if that was true. These other things are just big bonuses.
But, I will give a warning to all those hopeful mamas that think as soon as you’re pregnant, you’re going to be sporting this beautiful round bump that’s just IG worthy. And you’re going to be feeling the best you ever have. And you’re going to just be full of energy, etc. Well, hate to break it to you, but it’s not really pretty until you get to about six months when you’re actually really showing a true bump and your belly doesn’t look like a blob of fat that’s accompanied by large love handles you didn’t think you had – lol.
Well, at least that’s been my experience 😊. And my once-upon-a-time expectations have been thrown out the door till just about now. We’ve reached 24 weeks and I’ll be six months on June 4th and am just now feeling that all of those once longed-for feelings are coming to fruition. So don’t get discouraged. It’s worth the wait.
At this point in our fertility journey, we’ve tried everything over-the-counter that you can (shots and medicine) and now it’s time to give an IUI a shot.
So what is an IUI? It’s an Interauterine Insemination. And yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.
Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) is a fertility treatment that involves placing sperm inside a woman's uterus to facilitate fertilization. The goal of IUI is to increase the number of sperm that reach the fallopian tubes and subsequently increase the chance of fertilization.
You know those people that have said, “Well, I just used a turkey baster and here we are” with their hand outstretched to their child? Maybe not – maybe you’re not in those weird circles I sometimes find myself in - but each time we talked about it, my mom would say, “Isn’t that like that turkey baster thing?” (Insert palm to face emoji.)
“Yes, mother. Yes, it is.” But it’s a little more complicated than just that, and June of 2019 was going to be our first go at this type of treatment.
Now remember, after I went insane in March and told my doctor that I wouldn’t be able to stay on that medicine or that dosage or my husband wouldn’t probably be my husband much longer, they put me on something else called Femara (Letrozole). This was supposed to be the sister drug to Clomid and my insurance actually paid for it because it’s a drug used to treat breast cancer and breast cancer survivors usually take it to balance out hormones. And along with that purpose, it’s been proven to be successful in helping women experiencing infertility release more than one egg in ovulation, upping their chances of getting pregnant.
Great! Let’s give this a try.
So April I take that medicine, my cycle is at the end of April, and the beginning of May, I go in for my first follicle ultrasound to see what’s happening in there.
Well….nothing.
The follicles weren’t showing anything that would ever produce anything useful. Before when I said they would vocalize numbers like 16, 19, 23, 26, well this time, they were saying, “Well, you have a 6 and an 8 on one side, and a 7 and a 9 on another side,” my heart sank. Neither side produced anything viable and they told me, “We’re sorry, Talia, but we can’t do anything else for you this month. Call us next month when you start and we’ll get you back on Clomid – think Andy can deal with it again? – and we’ll plan for an IUI in June.”
To say that I was a blubbering mess when I left that office appointment and finally got to the car would be an understatement. I remember calling Andy when he was on a big job, just sobbing. He could hardly hear me for all the equipment running in the background, but heard me enough when I said that there’s nothing they can do this month and said we should call Columbus now.
Surprisingly, when I called – fully expecting to have to wait a month, maybe more – they were able to get me in the next day on a cancellation, but we choose another appointment about a week after I made the initial call.
Shew! Maybe we’ll get some answers there? And we did, but chose to go ahead through with three IUIs before we started with our first round of IVF.
So June comes. We call my OB’s office. And they prescribe me Clomid again. I can’t remember if I was insane that month, but I can almost assure you that I wasn’t myself 😉.
We go in for our follicle ultrasound and everything looks good and my doctor says, “I need you to get that shot, bring it to the office tomorrow, we’ll give it to you, and you’ll come back two days later for the IUI.”
Hope. That’s the one word I kept thinking when we walked out of that appointment. We have hope.
Up to this point, you’re probably wondering, “What has Andy’s role been in this fertility journey?” Well, buster, get strapped in because this is his time to contribute – lol!
And while I’m on that, just let me clear one thing up. No, we did not have to do IVF because the issue was on his side. Yes, he’s a good bit older than I, but before we even started on the fertility meds, his sample was checked out and his sperm count was great. And in our IVF round, we harvested 14 eggs and 13 of those fertilized, so as you can see, the issue was not his 😊.
The day before we’re to have our first IUI done, we call the office and say, “Hey, we’re coming in for this. What do we need to do? When do we need to be there” and the information we were given was pretty vague. They said to come and get the cups, and then come back within one hour.
Okay……um, does this mean we just go somewhere, or what?
Needless to say, I was left in the waiting room alone and if you’re one of my close best friends, you’ve heard this story and laughed your head off, but this was our first trial run and it proved to be a great lesson learned.
We’ve talked about timing before and how everything has to be lined up right at the same time, and this is no different. Probably worse. You can’t just say “Oh, I think today will be good. How about we give them a sample in the afternoon?” No, you have to get the sample to them when they say, whether it’s a convenient time for you or not.
After the sample (sperm) is collected, you have to have it to the office within one hour or less so they can spin it down and “remove all of the protein.” Not sure what that means, but luckily our OB had done a fertility treatment rotation/fellowship/something and had the knowledge and the tools to be able to perform this procedure in his office.
So the sample is spun down and injected into this very long “turkey baster-like” tube, inserted, and the sample is injected into the uterus. (Visual can be found here on this website.) Essentially, it gets everything where it’s supposed to be, and in abundance, rather than just one or two sperm swimming up the canal. You then lay there with feet propped up in stirrups for about 20 minutes – yes, with the tube still inside, and that’s no fun – and then you’re sent home. Other than the cramps, the uncomfortable feeling of the procedure, and the waiting time, it’s pretty painless.
Oh, and these things aren’t cheap either. At a fertility clinic, you can spend $500 - $4,000 on an IUI depending on what you need. Luckily we were able to do it without having to go to Columbus and insurance was able to cover some of the follicle ultrasounds. Our cost was around $500-$600 each time and that included the in-office procedure, plus ovulation shots and fertility medicine.
Procedure’s done. Great!
But then comes the waiting….
Fourteen days after your procedure, you’re able to test for pregnancy and I remember I would honestly dread that day. For me, and I don’t know why, but I didn’t think they were going to work. Almost every time when we finally got to the test day, I didn’t have my hopes up.
Yes, I’d obsess if my boobs got tender, or I started to feel sick in the morning, or if something else was off that wasn’t before. “Could it be? Could it have worked?” But, each time, my hopes were down and God and I had a ton of talks then….most of them being screams from me.
I remember driving to our second IUI with sample inside my shirt – because you know, we had gotten this down after the first fiasco and it has to stay at body temperature – bawling saying, “Why aren’t you listening? Why aren’t you working? Why us?” It wasn’t pretty and by the time I arrived at the office, my face was blotchy and it was evident the morning had been rough.
We would do this one more time in August, and when the test came back negative, we were scheduled for our first IVF consult at ORM, September 12th. My mom went with me because we were taking Andy to the airport to fly out to meet his dad in Colorado for a week of hunting, and at that point, she had been pretty much like the second husband in all of this and her presence in the appointment was very much needed since he’d be in the air somewhere.
After each IUI, test morning almost always landed on a Friday morning, which made weekends a bit harder than if they had landed on a busy work day.
Each time after I’d test, I’d bring the test out to the living room and we’d sit on the couch to wait for it to read “Pregnant” or “Not Pregnant.” Thankfully, I videotaped these encounters thinking….maybe….this one time….it will read “Pregnant” and I can get our reactions on film, but each time, it was a reaction of defeat. Sometimes there were tears. Sometimes there was just madness. But each time, we were at least together, and yes, I think I’ll be doing a video of our journey to be shared before our baby girl’s about to be here. It truly is easier to understand the struggles when you can see them written on someone’s face, rather than read them here in text.
And not only does the defeat resonate within the relationship between you and your spouse, but it’s carried onto whoever you’ve involved in your journey. My mom always knew when test day was and at the third one, I finally told her, “I won’t be telling you what it is until I can.” I remember I couldn’t keep it from her more than a day. We were out of town with some friends and chose to head in early for the evening, and from the hotel bed, I messaged her and told her it didn’t work. That I didn’t want a pity party, but that we were going to have to proceed with IVF and appreciated her prayers.
But then there were my best friends who were also wondering. And my work family who I involved by choice because we’re close and because I needed help with working in appointments around our court schedule. They all wondered and it was harder to tell all of them because it just seemed like the defeat was felt even greater each time you had to say, “No, it didn’t work.”
But the beauty from ashes in this whole thing is that all of these “tries” made my friends pull for us more. Made my coworkers want this for us even more than they had before. And every one of my family members realize how serious this heartache was and pray even harder than they were previously.
I’ve always said that God makes me go through things the hard way. It always seems my journey is to head down the longest, darkest route each time so I’ll really get it. I’ll really understand what it’s like to be in the “valley of the shadow of death,” and this was no different. But I finally got to the point where I was thankful we didn’t just get our wish weeks after saying “I do.” It’s shaped us in a way we never thought it could and made us stronger as a couple than we probably both ever dreamed.
And lastly, it could always be so much worse. I stumbled upon this forum page concerning people’s experiences at my fertility clinic, Ohio Reproductive Medicine, and the third one listed – 32, European – spoke of my doctor, Dr. Rossi. She, too, had the same sentiments about her as I do. Dr. Rossi is the bomb, but wow, her story….just read it. There’s a lot of abbreviation you wouldn’t know if you weren’t in this circle, but you can see how hard people try and how many avenues they have to go down to see if this will work better than that, etc.
Again, a lonely journey, but not as lonely when you have your friends, family, and the Lord! He’s the only one who can REALLY calm the internal storm and I’m so glad He was there just to listen so many times until our IVF cycle really started.
More about all of that next time when I start in my IVF Chronicles series. Stay tuned….we’re getting closer and closer to present day!