The Build-Up Leads to Reality

This might be the hardest post for me to write...The real reason for this blog is to help me work through some feelings. This particular post is going to be one that will surprise people, but will hopefully give people a new perspective on their own lives.

We had the best wedding a girl could imagine. I had so much fun planning our wedding and the process was not stressful at all. I enjoyed every minute of it and on our actual wedding day, I was not nervous one bit. I loved my husband-to-be so much and I just knew this was the beginning of a great life together.

The first two years of our marriage were awesome. We spent time really getting to know ourselves as a married couple. We bought a house, added two beagles to our family, and both had great teaching jobs that we really enjoyed. We were loving married life, but knew that our marriage had another purpose...to create a family.

We tried on our own for almost a year to have a child. When that wasn't working, I asked my doctor about it. She suggested we try some drugs and so I started taking Clomid. Again, after a few months of no luck I asked my doctor what the next step was. She suggested we visit with the doctors at the U of I Reproductive Clinic. This was the first time I knew in my heart that something was wrong. I knew that they don't refer normal people on to that clinic, so I panicked. My husband thought it was no big deal. He thought they would do some testing and help us figure out what was going on.

We had a few different appointments at the clinic and a TON of testing was done to both of us. I can not tell you how many times I was poked, pricked, looked at, x-rayed, ultrasounded, etc. After weeks of different tests, they decided that we fell into the category of unexplained infertility. Apparently about 25% of couples experience some sort of infertility issue, with about 10% being in the unexplained category. The best way to explain what that means is that we are both completely healthy, there is nothing wrong with us medically, and we can very much have a biological child.

With that said, I was upset and very frustrated. All that testing and you can't explain to me what is going on? I actually wanted there to be something wrong with me so they could fix it! Of course it wouldn't be that easy.

The first thing they had us try was IUI. We did IUI a few times with no success. It was gut wrenching to wait every month to see if it had worked. Every month was a huge let down with me feeling like a failure, my husband having to console me, and us grasping for reasons as to why this was happening to us.

After the failed IUI's, we asked about other options. They began talking to us about IVF. This was an option that freaked me out completely! All I knew was that surgery and a lot of needles were involved. I also knew that it was really expensive. I didn't know if I was strong enough emotionally after all we had already been through to go through with it.

After much thought and research on our own, we decided to go for it. I spent a lot of time on the phone with our insurance company and found out they would cover a good portion of the procedure. We figured we might as well at least try it and what did we have to lose? We really had no idea what was in store for us by trying IVF. I think I better save that story for the next post!