Infertility. When people hear this word it a lot of times negates a negative connotation. Like you are saying a bad word or talking politics at work. It is often one of those subjects that can bring a lot of emotions from a group of people and it can often be looked at as a taboo subject. However, the reality is more and more women and men are suffering from infertility struggles than ever before. Whether this is because we are waiting too long in life to try and conceive or whether we eat too much Pappasitos, it is unknown. But the truth is you most likely know someone who has struggled with infertility or you are that someone.
For me I am that person. My journey starts way back to the age of 17. I was always an athlete growing up, competitively showing horses and running track. I just never thought twice about my cycle. It was always irregular, but I just attributed that to being athletic. Then my senior year came and I developed sharp pain in my abdomen, I was vomiting and just miserable. The school nurse assumed I had appendicitis, she called my mom who took me to the emergency room where they discovered I have cysts all in and around my ovaries that had ruptured. They doped me up on pain meds and drained some of the fluid. The next morning my mother took me to my very first OB/GYN appointment, I was still a little loopy from the pain meds, but after 3 OB/GYNS, 2 different ultrasound techniques and many exams and hours later, the doctor took my mom and I into her office. She explained that I had PCOS- polycystic ovarian syndrome, but that I was opposite of the majority of PCOS patients and the description they gave was “light PCOS”, meaning my symptoms were opposite of normal PCOS patients. I vaguely listened to everything she said, just took the pamphlets and learned I would need to go on the pill to regulate my hormones, shrink my cysts and enlarged ovaries. As she explained things to my mom, I just sat there browsing the pamphlet when I saw the words “may experience infertility” I stopped and said can you explain this. My mom started crying, you see all my life up until that moment the only dream I saw for my future was to get married and be a mom. I had no career ambition, no drive to further my education. So the idea that at 17 I may never get to fulfill the one dream I had broke me.
Two years later, I started dating my now husband Jameson. He helped me see that there was more to me than being a wife and a mother. He helped me find other things in life I could be passionate about. I ended up going to college and graduating with honors, finding a career path I loved and competing in pageants. All in all I felt successful and not broken, but there was always that piece that lingered in the back of my mind “will I ever be a mom”. To add fuel to the fire at 22 I was diagnosed with Lupus. The Lupus component wasn’t necessarily a factor when concerning conception but could cause difficulty during pregnancy for baby and mom (high chances of miscarriage, neonatal lupus, genetic issues etc…) Once again I found myself on my knees in tears, questioning what my future was. I got lucky with a great man, at times he was weary as to whether or not he could handle the possibility of never being able to have a biological child of his own. But to me I understood my journey, I understood that fertility treatments would be my only option if I ever wanted a biological child of my own, but through the years I had also come to love the idea of adoption and the importance of adoption. I knew in my heart one way or another I would in fact be a mommy, my path would just be different from the majority of my friends and family members.
Jameson and I married in May of 2011 and immediately met with many doctors about our fertility process. The first step was clear I needed to get my body into remission with my Lupus and get the clear go ahead from my Lupus doctors to proceed with fertility treatments. Once I hit remission, I had to give my body 90 days to get all the bad medication out of my system. The day those 90 days were up we were in the fertility specialists office. We started with tests to see how well everything worked. All came back with rather good results. The doctor explained to us that his goal with patients was to have them pregnant within 6 months. I thought to myself maybe it wouldn’t be so hard after all. Little did we know the journey that was ahead for us. We did 6 months of pills, followed each time by an IUI. We had no success. But we were still not deterred. We opted for more testing. At this point we did surgery, to find out if there were any further issues that we were unaware of as to why things weren’t working. We found out that on top of PCOS and Lupus I also had Endometriosis, the doctor cleaned it all out, and removed a polyp that had been blocking my fallopian tubes. He felt optimistic; we decided to move forward but this time instead of pills we went to level 2: shots. Each shot round led to an IUI, and after each cycle because of my PCOS I would be filled with cysts, so after each unsuccessful cycle I was left with a month of birth control pills to clear my cysts. At the end of our last unsuccessful shot round and 2 years and tens of thousands of dollars later, I found myself on my knees broken. I had so much hope and felt like each time would be successful. I watched patients come in and out of his office on the weekly and they would all end up pregnant and here I was still without child. I saw many friends and family members get pregnant and every time I was immensely happy for them, but always a pinch in my heart at how much I wanted the same and yet wondering where to go from here.
My husband and I opted to take 2 months off of fertility treatments, give my worn out body a break, we went on vacation, and prayed over where to go from here. Our next options were very expensive and hard on the body: mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. After lots of prayer, and guidance from others we knew who had gone down this path. We made our decision. We trusted God and decided to give IVF a try. I was very weary, I knew my body liked the medication way too much; and I knew the complications that could arise from this. Our first round of shots for IVF started and days into it I was over stimulating, I had 50 eggs and looked like I was 3 months pregnant. The doctors and nurses did everything they could to ease my pain and discomfort; and to get me to my egg retrieval was the goal. But ultimately I was unable to make it. There is a .5% chance of not making it to your egg retrieval and I had just spent more money than I could have imagined and instead found myself on bed rest vomiting and unable to move while I checked my weight and temperature every hour and reported back to the nurses to make sure we didn’t have to do surgery so I wouldn’t lose my ovaries. Once again I felt distraught and found myself back on the pill.
I had one more chance. This was it; if my body over stimulated the same way again I was done I wouldn’t be a good candidate for IVF. I prayed all day every day, on my knees begging God for this time to be different. Doctor adjusted my meds and I was monitored more frequently, I was starting to over stimulate but we kept pressing forward. Hallelujah! I made it to my egg retrieval. I couldn’t be happier. The doctor got a good amount of eggs and we were happy. They called later to tell us we had fertilized embryos, and at this point we felt a sense of relief. I was still being monitored as we were unsure if I would make it to the embryo transfer, it would depend on my ovaries and if my body would be in good condition to be able to handle the embryo transfer, or if it would need to be postponed another month to give us rest. And surprisingly I made it. I was so excited and nervous. They transferred one embryo, due to my size and medical issues multiples was not even an option for me.
Now we wait. The longest 10 days of my life. (Or 16 for husband- he thought we couldn’t find out till after the holidays). Did it take? Were we pregnant? December 19th came just 6 days before Christmas. I went in for blood work and waited 6 hours for results. We were indeed having a BABY!!! I fell on my knees crying joyful tears. I had to come back 2 days later to make sure my blood work was going up. Christmas morning I surprised my husband with the good news. He opened a box and inside was 3 little onesies that said, “I <3 my dad” “I <3 my mom” and “I <3 Texas”. He was ecstatic to say the least. 2 ½ years of fertility treatments paid off. Baby Appel is officially on her way. We are over half way there and due with a beautiful healthy baby GIRL in August of 2014!
In honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, it is our hope to raise awareness and educate our community about the varying types of infertility and the many options available. We hope that you our empowered by this series, because we really are in this journey of motherhood together. Please continue to support the real moms this week as they share their journeys. To read more, please click here.
