“Plenty of Time”

As promised… this is the first in a series of posts about infertility.

One of the most common misconceptions of infertility right along with “just relax and you will get pregnant” is my personal favorite “but you are too young to be infertile.” If I had a dollar for every time someone told me “but you are so young” during this journey including doctors and nurses, I probably could have paid for my infertility treatments with the money. Believe me….I understand where this misconception comes from…I’m surrounded by women in their 20s getting pregnant on their very first cycle trying, when they were being “very careful” to not get pregnant or my favorite… their husband just looked at them (still trying to figure out how that happens). I previously thought that these women were the exception to the rule (you know the “fertile myrtles”) but now I understand that they are just plain normal…they are the 9 out of 10 couples in their 20s without infertility. But what about us? What about the 1 out of 10 couples in their 20s with infertility? 1 out of 10 is significant.

Shaun and I started dating when we were 15, married at 21, and stopped using birth control right around my 22nd birthday. Not the typical timetable for most couples! When we stopped using birth control, I just knew we were going to get pregnant within a few months. It took something like 60 days for me to get my first period after birth control (of course I just “knew” I was pregnant) and my cycles after that were forever long. I had irregular cycles in college, but we weren’t having sex so I wasn’t keeping up with the amount of days between cycles. Probably about six months into having sex without birth control and my crazy cycles, I started to realize that there was a problem and that it was most definitely with me. I felt so ridiculous to care so much about having a baby when it wasn’t even the right “time” for us. Looking back I now understand why I cried so hard at the negative pregnancy tests…I was slowly realizing that something wasn’t right, and it scared the crap out of me. Even though we were young and Shaun wasn’t ready to try for a baby (which in our world meant starting clomid) mainly for money reasons, I mentioned to my gyn about my concerns. Couple tests later including a semen analysis on Shaun and our suspicions were confirmed, I didn’t ovulate and Shaun was as fertile as a bull. 23 and infertile was a tough pill to swallow. Of course I didn’t realize the extent of our infertility until much later.

Around the time of our diagnosis is when the questions started, “oh when are y’all going to have a baby?” I can remember thinking that I wish I knew the answer to that and being a little disgusted at Shaun’s “when we get our finances in order” answer. Of course what was the poor guy going to say? “Well she doesn’t ovulate so we will just have to see.” No one would have ever guessed that we would have trouble and honestly I don’t blame them for it. This is when I started to feel really alone. I struggled daily with how often my thoughts would turn to thinking about having a baby or trying to conceive. This continued to get worse over the years. What is wrong with me?? I’m in my early 20s!! Why do I care right now? I really beat myself up over this as you can see from this post. Joining the infertility blogging community was seriously one of the most wonderful blessings to me in this journey because I started to see that I wasn’t crazy…there were other girls out there just like me! Around the same time I started this blog, I also was blessed to join a support group in town. I was terrified to go to the first meeting. I knew I needed support, but I was so scared that they were going to think I was crazy for calling myself infertile at my age. I probably said, “I know I’m young” like ten times during my first meeting. They were incredibly sweet to me, and I felt an instant bond with the women in the group. I started to realize that it wasn’t about my age. I was infertile…I knew about it…I desired a child…and I needed to be there. Several meetings later a young woman with severe endometriosis came to the group for the first time that was my same age. I watched her raw emotions after a failed IVF cycle, and all of a sudden my emotions felt validated. I held her hand so tight as we prayed for God to create life in us with tears running down our faces. It was real…real pain, deep desires…nothing young or innocent about it. Through these experiences, I slowly started to accept where I was in my life. This led to more openness with our church, work, family, friends and even some acquaintances and gave us the strength to make difficult decisions about treatments.

There is nothing easy about infertility at any age…nothing comforting about having “plenty of time” when all you want is to hold your baby now. Yes statistics show a more successful response to treatment with a younger age on average, but every couple’s situation is different. My FSH number was higher than a woman in her mid 30s and a woman reaching 40 in my support group. This is a pretty good indication that my clock is tick-tocking at a much faster rate than most women my age. The friend that I mentioned above has such severe endometriosis and pain associated with that disease that she is now considering a hysterectomy after two failed IVF attempts. We aren’t guaranteed “plenty of time,” and there isn’t a perfect age to start seeking treatment or for becoming more aggressive.

It's A....

We are so blessed! Baby is healthy and happy! Yesterday was one of the best days of our lives. It was amazing.

Tomorrow is a Big Day!

Tomorrow morning is our big ultrasound, and Shaun and I just can't wait to find out if our sweet baby is a boy or a girl! Pretty much everyone including me, strangers, coworkers, friends, and some family (my entire family thinks girl-but that is just because I'm the only girl in my fam with 3 older brothers) feels strongly that our baby is a boy! I have felt for sure since pretty much the beginning of this pregnancy that our baby is a boy so I'm going to be very shocked if it is a girl. Shaun has gone back and forth, but right now he is placing his guess that our baby is a boy since everyone keeps telling him that is what we are having based on my symptoms! And since he is an engineer, he is using his logic to make a guess since "statistically we have a higher chance of conceiving a boy with an IUI timed right at ovulation." I think this goes without saying if you are a reader of my blog, but I do want to emphasize in all of this guessing fun that we just want a healthy baby. We realize how blessed we are to have our sweet little one! I did put up a poll at the top of the blog so you have 24 hours to enter your guess!! Leave me a comment and let me know what you guessed! Below is the most recent belly shot at 17 weeks (I'm 18 now).

Good News for our Georgia Peaches

According to the AP and several other sources, the Georgia bill that would severely limit IVF in Georgia is most likely dead as it was sent to a Senate sub-committee yesterday for further research. I hope that we have all learned from this the importance of staying together as a community to fight for each other.

Wow! Everyone seemed to have a good time debating in my comments section yesterday. There were some very hurtful and honestly ridiculous comments left, but I have decided to leave them so that it is clear who is truly behind this bill. I will admit that they did get to me yesterday, but I'm over it this morning. God was with us every step of our infertility. He led us to the right doctor. He gave us peace about the right treatment option for us. He brought me to other Christian women going through the same journey who held my hand and prayed me through. He was there the days of our IUIs in our dr.'s office when we were left alone for ten minutes, and Shaun held my hand and prayed for a miracle. He provided comfort and hope when all we saw were negative tests. And He was there the day that we saw our miracle from Him with the most beautiful heartbeat. God creates life. God sustains life. But God works through medicine and doctors and procedures everyday in all areas of medicine.

I also had a lengthy email conversation with the Legislative Director of the organization that was behind this bill. He claims that all IVF language was removed from the bill. This must be a recent development because I read the bill in full on the Georgia's State Legislature website Wednesday afternoon, and it was all still there. Of course, this would be a major step in the right direction, but I will reserve my judgement of the bill until I read the actual new or revised bill in full.

Yesterday's debate was informative, but any hurtful comments left today will be removed. This is a place where women and men who are suffering through infertility can encourage and uplift eachother so unless you find that your comment fits into that category...I suggest you find another venue to express your extreme views. I also encourage commenters to leave positive comments on how you have seen God work through your infertility treatments.

Georgia Bill Seeks to End IVF

It came to my attention yesterday (thanks to LFCA) that Georgia has proposed legislation (SB 169) that would virtually shut down IVF in Georgia. The bill calls for many regulations, but the following I find most troubling.
-Couples under 40 could only attempt to fertilize 2 eggs through in-vitro, a max of two embryos would be potentially fertilized and transferred. No freezing allowed.
-Couples over 40 could attempt to fertilize and transfer up to 3 embryos with again no freezing allowed.
The authors of this bill obviously timed out the proposal of this bill correctly with the Octo-Mom controversy. They are trying to say that this bill would protect women and children from multiple births. But let's talk about what will actually happen if this bill is passed:
-No more in-vitro in Georgia. I would have a hard time believing that any patient, let alone any RE would use IVF as treatment under these conditions.
-Freezing would not be an option- Sometimes a patient hyperstimulates from the drugs, and it is not safe to complete the transfer. In this scenario, the doctor and patient would have no other choice (since freezing isn't an option) to risk the patient's health by continuing with the transfer.
-Patients that have little time left and/or egg supply would not be able to have embryos for future use.
-More high order multiple births in Georgia. One of the purposes of IVF is to try to prevent high order multiples. If this bill was passed, couples in Georgia would have no other option but to opt for using injectable cycles to try to conceive. Everyone agrees that this treatment option has a much higher rate of high order multiples.

As the infertility community, we have to speak up on this issue. There are already headlines out there that read, "Bill would prohibit octuplet mother scenario in Georgia." This is not accurate. The headlines should read "Bill would end IVF in Georgia." Speak out through a link provided on the RESOLVE website or comment on these articles with the right information. A simple search of "Georgia bill" in Google News will make your stomach turn. There is so much misinformation out there about this bill. Don't let them fool you and your neighbors, this bill was created as an attempt to use the Octo-Mom controversy to end infertility treatments in Georgia.