As you all know I am busy getting ready for my 4 day trip to Chicago (which includes leaving London for 4 days...sigh). So Lindsay from over at A New Breed of Mom was kind enough to do a guest blog for me today.

 ENJOY!!

My Story: Struggling with Secondary Infertility

By: Lindsay Williams at A New Breed Of Mom

My Story: Struggling with Secondary Infertility

First I’d like to thank Aly for asking me to guest post. Aly and I have become good friends as we are both trying to conceive. I’ve found her blog and I truly enjoy reading it and feeling part of a community of woman TTC. Infertility sucks! We need to support each other, stay positive, and share our stories. Here is mine.

When my husband and I married in August of 2009, infertility was not something on our radar. We both entered the marriage with a child from a previous relationship and we were excited to have a child together. Both of us have always planned to have more children and when we got engaged in 2008 children was something we discussed in length.

John wanted a whole litter of children. I wanted two more, which would still give us a combine total of seven children. Phew! After a great debate we agreed to have two children together, after we got married, and would negotiate a 3^rd child together. In all of these conversations, we never once discussed the possibility that we’d have to face infertility. Since we’ve both have had children before that thought didn’t even cross our minds.

After the honeymoon was over, I was all about the next task on the agenda – getting pregnant. When a month passed and I didn’t fall pregnant, I began to chart my cycle and read up on everything there is to know about getting pregnant. You might say I was obsessed. Just a little. I have a tendency to do that.

One of the first things I noticed charting my cycles was that I was averaging a 40 day cycle. That is not normal. Three 40 day cycles and four months later, I made an appoint with my gynecologist with the suspicion that I had thyroid problems or maybe this thing called PCOS that I had read so much about.

My doctor asked me if I was having a period to which I replied, “Yes, but it is only about 3-4 days long and is very light.” She told me that as long as I was having a menstrual cycle that meant I was ovulating and, although, my cycles were a little long that I needed to give it a full year before I sought fertility treatment. A blood test showed that my thyroid levels were normal so I had nothing to worry about.

I went home and waited for my period to start. 

It never did.

I can’t tell you how much money I spent on pregnancy tests that first five months.

And how much time I obsessed about every. little. possible. symptom.

Not knowing what else to do, I called back my gynecologist and made another appointment. She sent me for another blood test to see what my androgen levels were. She used that test to help diagnose me with PCOS. The first course of action was Clomid. For the next two months she prescribed progesterone to help jump-start my period and then Clomid to help induce ovulation.

The Clomid didn’t work.

Except for making me terribly moody and emotionally.

Finally, my doctor sent me to a Reproductive Endocrinologist RE just as she started me on my 3^rd round of Clomid – the highest allowable dosage. My RE cut right to the chase. He said since I already started with the Clomid he’s let me finish it out and then do an ultrasound on my ovaries to see if the Clomid even worked to stimulate my ovaries.

The Clomid didn’t work.

It was on to shots.

My RE started me on Follistim. And then if the Follistim works to help my follicles grow, we would “trigger” ovulation with a HCG shot. After a long wait and several weeks of struggling with the insurance company to gain pre-authorization for my medications, we started our Follistim adventure.

For about 10 days I gave myself a shot in the belly every night. I hate shots. John had to give me the first one because I was too scared to do it. I underwent a gamut of tests to make sure my fallopian tubes were open (which they were), my follicles were growing (which they did), that my hormone levels were ok (they were ok), that my husband’s sperm count was good (it’s good), and that I don’t have “hostile cervical mucus” (I don’t). Finally it was time for the “trigger shot”.

Now, a year after John and I said “I do” we are waiting. We are waiting to find out if all of our efforts over the last year will finally pay off. Will this month be THE month? It’s hard to tell. The nurse at the RE office said to wait until this Saturday, September 5^th to test. If we test before that the HCG from the trigger shot may give us a false result.

In the mean time I am getting my hopes up, despite trying not to get my hopes up.

And I am symptom watching.

Please cross your fingers for me and baby dust to you and yours! -Lindsay