Our Fertility Story

Many of you know this story already but I have friends and people who I have met who are currently going through a struggle Mike and I went through for nearly 8 years. I felt that it was important to share our story again with them.

Mike and I were married October 13, 2001. From the beginning we decided we were not going to "prevent" pregnancy. While not activly trying to conceive, we felt that we were not supposed to prevent it from happening. We are very glad we followed this feeling/prompting now as it helped us realize there was a problem much sooner.
About February, I was late! WOW! Already pregnant? I couldn't believe it. I took an hpt and it came out negative. I waited another week and took another. Still negative. I had just had a friend with a hormone condition that, for lack of really knowing a lot about it, made her get FALSE NEGATIVES. (Extremely RARE) So just in case, I went to the doctor to make sure I was not pregnant. I was a little tired and had put on 5 pounds and still no AF. (Aunt Flow). The doctor confirmed I was not pregnant and then said I was probably just stressed. I was a newly wed in a new job and Mike was working as a framer so had not worked much because of it being winter. So this all made sense. Well, that year, AF only came once! And, even though I worked out like crazy and ate healthier, I gained 80 pounds in a year! Something was very wrong with my body.
I went to another doctor and she said I possibly had PCOS. PCOS (Poly-cystic Ovarian Syndrome) in a nutshell is a hormone problem. Your hormones are out of whack. You may not ovulate like you are supposed to. Most women the first sign of PCOS is that you stop having periods. The other signs include hair growth, weight gain even with diet and exercise, fatigue, acne for some, and what look like mini "cysts" in your ovaries. Well, I had all these except acne. Also, women with PCOS usually have or develope insulin resistance. Many assume this is diabetes. It is not. (Although it can develope into it). IR is where your body doesn't react well to insulin, but rather then being diabetic where your blood sugar goes up, your body makes more and more insulin. At the time I was told I probably had PCOS they did not yet know the link to IR.
I was referred to my family doctor as the gyno I had seen believe my fam doctor could help with the PCOS and also maybe help me find a way to lose the weight. While PCOS causes weight gain, and makes it HARD to lose weight, one of the best combats for it is to LOSE the weight! (GO FIGURE!) Since PCOS was still really new back at the beginning of 2002 (especially in lil ole Idaho) my fam doctor didn't believe I had it because it had shown up so dramatically and so quickly. She did want me to diet and exercise.
A year later, after only a 2 pound weight loss while exercising close to 2 hours a day, I returned to my family doctor to talk about IR. My older sister had just found out she had IR and was put on Metformin to help it. My family doctor had learned a lot about PCOS and IR both during that year. She agreed I had PCOS and IR. She did prescribe metformin, which, while I did not lose weight STOPPED the weight gain. WOOHOO!
So for a year I focused on me. I lost 15 pounds. Even witht the metformin though there was still no improvement in ovulation. Even though, I was still heavy, I felt it was time for us to really think about starting a family. I started researching the effects of getting pregnant with PCOS while overweight. I looked at my family (who is mostly heavy) and what kind of pregnancies they had experienced.
(I want to take a moment to correct a myth. Being overweight, or Plus-size, DOES NOT mean you will not have a healthy pregnancy. You are at a SLIGHTLY higher risk for gestational diabetes or high blood pressure (only 1% higher then "fit" women), but that is basically it. If you take care of your self you will have a healthy pregnancy. ALSO- through my research I found that it is often better, if you are at least maintaining a steady weight, to get pregnant before losing weight. WHY? Because when you diet to lose weight you are limiting a lot of foods that you in take and working out pretty hard. Those foods you limit, usually are needed during pregnancy. So when you become pregnant, after losing 50 pounds, you now can not limit like that, must increase your calories, and your workouts must decrease often. You often GAIN more then you lost and ended up being heavier in the end. HOWEVER- if you are EXTREMELY OBESE, weight loss may benefit you before pregnancy. BASICALLY- do not feel that weight means a high risk pregnancy, but talk to your OB about your personal situation.)

So, after doing my research, I knew through some strong promptings that we were going to need more than an ob who knew a little about PCOS and would just prescribe us Clomid. We went to ICRM- Idaho Center for Reproductive Medicine. These doctors and nurses are WONDERFUL! After some testing, we were told Mike did have a few problems but nothing big or major. Of course we knew about my PCOS. We also learned of other issues I had but they are too hard to explain, and really, they were more a problem of which drugs I could use to correct my PCOS, and wouldn't have effected me if I ovulated normally on my own.
We did around 3-4 cycles of Clomid and trying at home. I was monitored to see when I was ready to ovulate. Even when my body grew eggs, I did not ovulate on my own so I would have to take an injection of hcg to ovulate. None of these cycles were succesful. Partially because I could not use clomid.
We then went to FSH injections. This helped my eggs grow as well but did a better job. It also helped my lining thicken properly which was a problem I had with Clomid. I still would take the hcg injection to ovulate. A few cycles like this and still nothing.
By this time we needed a break, both emotionally, financially, and my body did physically. So we took a few months off. We started praying about adoption at this point. We knew either road would be long, hard, and expensive, but we were guided to continue trying.
We came back from our break and began another cycle. We still used FSH injections and a trigger shot but now we did IUI. IUI is where the sperm is "washed" (meaning, all the lazy ones and ones that wouldn't make babies taken out) and then they use a catheter to put the sperm directly in the uterus. Getting it closer means a better chance of it doing its job.
We ended up doing too many cycles of IUI for me to count. Every 5 or 6 months we would take a month or so off. Rethink the situation, pray, etc. As far as praying, the answer was always the same when we would visit adoption. NOT AT THIS TIME. KEEP GOING.
After about 4 years of going to ICRM we prayed and realized we had to take another step. It was a hard decision. The money we would pay for this step was almost enough for 1/3 of an adoption. We prayed long and hard about this decision. The one thing I tell everyone who is going through this is to always pray, read your scriptures, speak to your Bishop and follow whatever answer you receive. Our answer was to do IVF. IVF is in vitro fertilization. This is the "big one" where they take the eggs out of you after growing TONS, mix it with the sperm, grow embryos and put embryos back in you. Most people hear this and think Octo-mom. But that is very rare, and her doctor put a lot of embryos in her. We did the process, had 2 embryos placed, and the others were frozen for future tries. (This would save us TONS of money if we had to try again). We were able to conceive in May of 2008. However, we found out the beginning of June that we were miscarrying. It was really hard for us to go through as this was right when we were preparing to be Sealed in the Temple for time and eternity, but I was able to be comforted.
We did FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer) with the embryos we froze that were able to survive the thaw but got a negative on the test. This was in October 2008.
Mike and I again, took a long time off. In June 2009 we revisited the issue. We were ready. It was time, we knew it. We prayed again about adoption. By now, others were pressuring us to adopt and to start the process as it can take a while. However, the answer was still the same, that adoption was not right for us. I finally prayed that I could not take this trial anymore, but that I would try one more time if that is what He wanted me to do. In August, 2009, we went for what was to be our last shot. We were only going to do IUI (the simpler one) and we would use left over FSH shots from the IVF cycle. I was not hopefuly about this cycle. I figured it wouldn't work, and that we would either be adopting or trying to receive the IVF Grant that is awarded to 3 couples a year in the US.
This cycle was hard for me. I was taking TONS of shots and my eggs were not growing. It was Day 14 of my cycle and they were still not near big enough. Usually day 14 is where you would want to be ready. I started looking at cancelling the cycle. I went in on Day 15 to find overnight many of my eggs had grown and I had 4 nearly ready, and 8 that were bigger, but probably wouldn't be ready. The RE and I decided I would return the next day to double check them. (The RN had wanted to wait 2 days). When I went in the next day I had 7 eggs READY and 10-14 that were close enough they could go. Rather than cancel the cycle, my RE made me trigger IMMEDIATELY (usually you time it to exactly 36 hrs prior to the IUI) and then they would fit me in 24 hours later for the IUI.
I went in for the IUI and for the first time in over 5 years, was asked to sign saying I understood I was at HIGH RISK for HIGH ORDER MULTIPLES (triplets or more). At this point, while I was a little more hopefuly for the cycle, I was sure at most we would get twins. I signed, we did the IUI and now I had to wait 2 weeks for the test.
I was not feeling pregnant. I cramped a lot. I felt like I did before AF or how I felt when I had miscarried. I also suffered from Over Stimulated Ovaries. Although, not bad enough to put me in the hospital, I had a day or 2 that I could not move from the couch/bed from the pain.
I was not hopeful. So, I in order to see if the HCG shot was out of my system, and hopefully still see a + result, took an hpt (my RE does blood tests so this was not needed) 5 days before I would have my blood test. It was negative. Since this was an early detection test, I lost all hope.
However, I still had a test the day before my blood test. It haunted me from under the sink. I gave in and took it. POSITIVE. I still didn't get my hopes up knowing that the hcg shot could still be in my system, and also knowing that these tests are very sensitive and I may have low levels and end up miscarrying if I was pregnant.
The next day I took a blood test and was told the great news. I was pregnant and my levels were GREAT!
I still had a lot of cramping and was worried about miscarriage so we did not share the news until after we had seen the baby a few times.
Since this has been such a long post, let me just say that we felt so blessed. We have always been very open about our fertility issues. It has helped me make TONS of friends. While we would never wish this on anyone, we would never ask for our journey to be changed.
For those who are going through this, please read the story in Alma 26. Specifically Alma 26:27. One night while my cheeks were covered in tears as I prayed to Heavenly Father, I was guided to read a scripture I had just read a few nights ago. It was the answer I needed at that time.
I am always here for those who have questions or need support. As is Mike.