Our Fertility History

Cris: He is as perfect as he can be! :)

Me:

Doctors always suspected endometriosis due to severe abdominal pain since childhood. To deal with it, I was put on birth control pills since I was a teenager. I always asked my OBGYN if I would have issues getting pregnant after taking the pill for so long, and she assured me that the pill was perfectly safe and the best way to manage my pain.

In July 2011 a laparoscopy performed by my Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) confirmed that I had severe endometriosis. At this time a cyst was removed from my left ovary, which came back negative for cancer. Phew! The diagnostic conclusion of the surgery was Stage III Endometriosis. Chances of getting pregnant was 1% every month. Left untreated, I was given about a 12 month window of conceiving before the endometriosis would be back to its pre-surgery stage.

After the surgery, I went back on birth control pills to allow my abdominal cavity to heal.

In September 2011, I started taking Clomid 100mg to ensure that I ovulate. I did, which was good news, but no pregnancy.

In October we did Clomid again, but this time we also opted for an Intra Uterine Insemination, or IUI. Still nothing.

In November, we upped the ante further and went to the shots to increase our egg production. While Clomid for me caused a lot more moodiness, the shots were much harder on my body. We had about 8 eggs growing, and we did another IUI, but still no pregnancy. What I did get, however, is a case of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS). Not fun! This was my Christmas present from the fertility Gods.

After the shots, we had to reassess. We decided to do more tests to see if they would give us a clue. Everything was normal except I came out borderline anemic and had low Vitamin D levels. Neither causes infertility, but I was not going to leave these issues unresolved. I also started acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. We did this for 3 months while we were preparing for the next step, IVF.

At the end of March, 2012, we started the Long Lupron Protocol for IVF. This starts with birth control pills followed by Lupron shots to prevent ovulation and Menapur and Follistim shots to grow as many follicles as possible. The shots were not fun, but the physical pain caused by them was not nearly as bad as the mental anguish caused by the constant waiting. Our cycle went really well, we couldn’t have asked for better. We had 16 eggs retrieved on April 24th, more than we expected. My right side did quite a bit better than my left, because the cyst that was removed during the surgery in 2011 promptly returned within 3 months, and is now taking over valuable real estate on my left ovary. Of the 16 eggs, 12 were mature and 10 fertilized. On day 3, 8 of the little embryos still looked good, so our RE chose a day 5 transfer. On day 5, 6 of the embryos were still doing good, but slightly behind in development, so we were sent home and asked to return for a day 6 transfer. By the time the transfer came around, we only had 3 embryos that would qualify for cryopreservation. This made it hard for us, because we had to make a choice on transferring 2 or 3. Because we had no prior IVF experience, our RE recommended transferring only 2 embryos. We went with her recommendation and asked to freeze one additional embryo that would otherwise have not been frozen, so 2 embryos were frozen. Then we waited. And waited. On the 14th day after the egg retrieval we had an hcg hormone test to see if we were pregnant and it was 9. This is very low, but technically it is a positive for pregnancy. On day 16, our hcg was 18, on day 20 it was 62. We had so much hope in spite of the fact that such low hcg numbers meant less than 35% chance of a viable pregnancy. But on day 24 our hcg came back at 38, which meant we were nearing a miscarriage. In some ways, getting a heads up was a blessing, because by the time we miscarried on the 28th day after egg retrieval (6 weeks pregnant) we wanted the end to come, so it can also mean a new beginning to a new round of trying. However, our Baby Angels were very special to us and they will always be part of our history.

A few months after our failed IVF I was ready to look for the next thing that will give me hope. I did some research on surgeons who specialize in endometriosis and finally settled on Dr. Nezhat in California. He is not only a well respected surgeon, but also a very nice man. I felt at peace to have him as my doctor. I had my surgery on 11/14/12, and currently I am recovering.