Surgery and More

So, after 2 failed IUI's Dr. D suggested that I have an laparoscopy to determine if there were any other undetected problems which could be preventing pregnancy. He did not expect to find anything. On October 7th, 2009, I had my lap. I had never had surgery other than the removal of an ingrown toenail, which in no way could be compared to this. I was most nervous about the anesthesia and how I would react to it. After the surgery, I had to be kept in recovery for an extra 2 hours because I could not stop vomiting. When I was finally aware enough to have an idea of what was going on around me, I was informed that they found stage 2-3 Endometriosis on the uterus, both ovaries, and the cervical wall. The good news was, they were able to remove it all and only need to make 2 small incisions; one in the navel and one about 6 inches below. We were once again hopeful. This was the reason why it hadn't happened yet, right?

After recovering from the surgery, we tried another IUI. Another failure. We decided to try for the 4th and final time. I had developed an ovarian cyst, a common side-effect of ovarian stimulation drugs, so we sat that cycle out. The following month we tried our last IUI. I thought for sure this was it...as you can guess...another flop.

We knew the next step would be Invitro-Fertilization (IVF.) We had, and still have, so many questions and concerns about IVF. Can we afford it? How many eggs will we get? How many will we choose to fertilize? How many will be transferred back? What happens to the unfertilized eggs? What happens to the un-transferred embryos? It's all so exhausting!

We decided to have our IVF consult with Dr. D. He calmed a lot of our fears. Our biggest concern was what would be done with resulting embryos that are not transferred back. To our relief, the law in our state mandates that any embryos resulting from IVF must be frozen and cannot be discarded. We felt comfortable with this as discarding already formed embryos is completely against our Christian beliefs.

So, the current plan is this; my husband, J, is in Graduate School and will be taking his very stressful comprehensive exams next month, in April. In May, when that is over, we plan to move forward with IVF, if we are not pregnant before then. That gives us 2 months to try naturally and boy, are we praying for a miracle!

It is very expensive and we're still not yet sure how we are going to manage it, but we are going to try. I tell all my family and friends that we are accepting donations. Of course, I'm not serious...that is unless someone actually wants to donate! :)