Cori and I began our infertility journey (I don't think journey is the right word-it has been much more harrowing than that connotes, but I can't find the word that fits) nearly as soon as we got married. I began taking birth control pills right before we got married without much thought to it. I wasn't worried about the synthetic hormones I was ingesting and really didn't think about how it might affect my body, other than in the intended way! Now, of course, we would educate ourselves more thoroughly about our choices. If we could go back, we would just let nature take its course. We may have ended up in the same situation, but we'll never know (and I would be 60 pounds skinnier!) Within five months of getting married, I stopped taking the pills because they were wreaking havoc on my body and endocrine system. I had gained 60 pounds in four months and I knew that it was not because my diet had suddenly changed or I had stopped being active. To say these five months were a huge shock to my system would be a huge understatement and it was awful to feel so unable to control what was happening with my body. The first two doctors I saw told me that birth control doesn't cause the issues I was having and that I just needed to watch my diet, etc. My second doctor didn't even bother with a phone call to tell me results of testing, but sent me a letter saying that everything was fine and she would see me next year. Um, no. I never went back. And things weren't "fine." Even though birth control is fine for most people, there are small statistically insignificant numbers of people that birth control seriously affects. And when you are one of those insignificant people, it's not great. I finally found a doctor that really listened to me (call if you want her number! I love her!) Long story short, I was diagnosed with PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome, which is an endocrine disorder. Ironically, I don't have cysts but since it's a syndrome, I "qualified" by having other symptoms that qualified. However, my numbers were all borderline, and my doctor said that it was just as likely that a different doctor would not have diagnosed me with this disorder. That was good news, supposedly, but it just felt even more frustrating because we were hovering so close to the "unknown cause" category of infertility. After several years of testing, many thousands of dollars spent on testing and treatment, and no children to show for it, we were done. We needed to take a break and regroup. I would say that those years were some of the darkest we have seen in our marriage, not because Cori and I were struggling as a couple, but because things just felt so hopeless. It seemed like we had read everything there was to read and that we knew more than our doctor about alternative treatment, outcomes, etc. There were also some really funny situations. Let me just say, Cori was a little too eager to give me an injection, tapping the needle and all, very dramatically. I was so nervous I couldn't stop laughing. I still laugh when I think about it now. However, in some ways, we are still in this place with infertility. Yes, we have Little Man and Little Miss and we would never trade them, and yet we don't feel like our family is complete. But what do we do? That's the million dollar question. We don't know. We don't know if we will ever know. At this point the emotional cost of infertility treatment and possible (probable?) failure is much more costly to us than the financial cost, which in itself is beyond reason. So I guess our story continues. Luckily we have these two to give us some comic relief everyday!
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| This used to be how Little Miss took every picture-luckily we've moved on from that! |
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