The Consultation

February 17th was the big day. This was the day I always Knew would come. The day we would find out what we were up against. B (husband) took a half day and we drove to the Fertility Clinic for our consultation. This is a big deal, extremely important to us. So we show up and sign in and wait. I never get white coat syndrome, aka nervous/anxiety at doctor’s offices, but I sure did today, I don’t know why. My heart was racing. My blood pressue was elevated when they checked it. And then we are finally called back to see the “miracle worker” the RE.  Now through co-workers experiences with infertility we picked this clinic and this doctor because we were told they are the best in the area and that they just had such a great experience.

So we sit down, he begins to flip through my chart and says tell me about your periods. As I am telling him he is continuing to flip through my chart and writing things down, writing everything but what I am telling him about my periods that HE asked me about. I finish, he says okay well we are going to do an ultrasound today to have a look, I think I know what is going on. WELLL what is going on ? does he tell me what he thinks is going on NO! So we go do the transvaginal ultrasound for 2.5 seconds, oh your uterus looks normal (well thats a positive) you see all these tiny things it looks like you have slight PCOS. So there it is, that is my diagnosis, I have “slight” PCOS. Now apparently there are two types of PCOS patients some are overweight, excessive hair growth, have insulin issues etc. but that is not the type I am. I guess im just a lucky person that happens to have PCOS.

We go back to his office, looks at the sperm analysis and says “oh this isn’t that bad its just a little off.”Okay well compared to what you do see here since you are a specialist im sure it is not bad. But it is still not good!  He then proceeds to hand me a piece of paper and says this is the protocol this is what we will do. 100mg clomid day 3-7 ultrasound day 10,11 or 12, and then IUI. Okay? sound good?      …Sure….sounds pretty straightforward.  I then asked about provera do I need a script to for that in case I don’t start.  “oh sure here you are”  well at what point do I need to start it? “oh whenever your tired of waiting” Seriously? I am paying you the big bucks for you to tell me what to do, not for me to just be tired of waiting and start popping pills.

And, that was it we were gone. We were there for 15 to 20 minutes. Treated as though I had a sore throat, here take these pills it will fix you right up, no problem at all.   Paid 300.00 for 15minutes to have a rushed conversation with very little to no explanation for things.

So maybe I built this day up to be something bigger than it was… But this was a huge step we were now officially entering into the ever so expensive and heart wrenching world of infertility.

Wonder Drug Clomid —sike

After stopping birth control I just have never been regular. It has been long cycle lengths that leave you hopeful for a positive test, to spotting every day for a long time to a period every 15 days to provera and clomid. After several visits to the OBGYN and labs and waiting and waiting and wating to see if I would regulate, I mean people always tell you”Oh, it just might take some time to regulate after stopping the pill” so continue waiting and then finally the OBGYN orders provera and 50mg clomid.

The hope once again returns, this will be it this will work I will ovulate and just maybe I’ll get pregnant. Day 21 comes to get a progesterone level drawn to see if I did ovulate. More waiting and calling basically having to beg to get lab results. I get the result. 0.52 Thats a big fat no you did not ovulate. Once again I was devastated, I took the news very hard, I was upset. I knew this meant there was a bigger issue. But I cried got it out and moved on to the next attempt. The next attempt ended the same, no ovulation, and with much frustration with the OBGYN office I finally threw in the towel and called the Fertility Clinic to schedule the dreaded and the inevitable, Consultation.

Deep Down I knew it

My life long dream to be married and be a mother of 2 to 3 kids. I am one of 2 siblings and I always thought it would be more fun if we had another sibling around. My life up until now has been nothing but perfect. I found my dream husband, he is perfect, I got my dream job that I wanted since being like 6years old, a NICU nurse. I had a great childhood, both my parents are alive, have had no tragedies to deal with. I have really only experienced one death close to me, my Granny. So because of this I just new that something had to swing the other way and that having kids would be my thing. It would be my issue, it would be my bump in the road. The thing I have wanted most may not be attainable.

When my husband and I were just dating, he told me about his surgery and that it was for a varicocele, he was young when he had the surgery didn’t know much about it just knew it had to be done so he did it. When I was told I thought oh great and just cataloged it in my brain and didn’t think much more of it. I mean come on, am I not gonna marry a guy because he had a varicocele and it potentially could cause issues? of course not!

He failed to tell me until we were married and deciding to stop birth control that suprise ” I still have it, it came back”. Not that, that would have changed one thing, but me being medically minded it is something I would have liked to know about. So I of course do the worst thing you can ever do and what we tell our patient’s parents never to do, google, I googled it. And of course read a plethora of research articles and wikipedia, medscape, TTC boards, any link I could find, the worst thing I could do, and slight panic began to set in. So we stopped birth control in May of 2013. My cycles never really were regular post birth control. Before starting birth control I had no isses was perfectly regular. Knowing we had a varicocele issue we got a sperm analysis (well two) in august.

My worst fears were confirmed. We did not have good sperm. We had plenty of them they were just mishapen, swam side ways or in circles, two heads, two tails, who knows that they really looked like, shoot they probably swam backwards. But basically we have 1-2% normal sperm. I knew deep down this was going to be the result but I still broke down crying, devastated. Delivered the news to my husband when he go home from work and just cried hard as he held me. Him not really grasping what it really meant for us and our future. (he is an engineer, but not medically minded one bit).