So, the first fertility clinic we went to told us right away to pursue IVF. I balked at that for a lot of reasons(about $15,000 of them) but also because of a Ms. Magazine article published, I believe, in Oct of 2000 (I tried to research this to no avail. Ms. did publish an article on infertility then, but the one I remember may have been published earlier).
In this article, the authors went into great detail about how fertility treatment is an industry hungry for money and praying on the fears of professional women. That twenty years ago, no one was declared infertile until they had been trying to conceive for five+ years--but now the diagnosis of infertility comes after a year or even six months.
At the time of the article, we hadn't started trying yet, and I remember thinking I would never pursue fertility treatment because I didn't want to support such an obviously sexist and money-hungry industry.
What they didn't talk about in the article is that if I'd waited five years after we first starting trying to be diagnosed I would have been 39. I didn't have five years to wait and see if some divine intervention was going to get me pregnant. Most women who avail themselves of fertility treatment are in my age group, and THAT'S why the diagnosis is being made so much earlier.
The article also went into great detail about the variety of procedures utilized in fertility treatment and diagnosis, describing each one as an "invasion" and a "mini-rape." The examples they sited were the vaginal ultrasound, the ultrasonic guided needles used in egg retrieval, and the HSG test. Now, there's no doubt that these procedures are invasive--no one enjoys any of these tests. But mini-rape? Doesn't rape imply someone denying consent? Me, I'm quite willingly spreading my legs for each of these tests, so that kinda eliminates the rape factor.
So, anyway, a couple of years after reading that article I discover that we have some fertility issues. My resolve to not pursue treatment took a while to weaken, but several months of negative home pregnancy tests (with one false positive—the agony!) took the wind right out of my sails. After trying on our own for about six months following our male factor diagnosis, we knew it was time to consider trying IUI (intrauterine insemination). But I wasn't too excited to go back to the big hospital (it was so hard to park there, plus I didn't like our doctor).
So it was completely fortuitous for me to meet a lovely woman and her infant daughter at meeting one day. I'd shared about our struggles, and she approached me and introduced her miracle IVF baby. And she told me about this doctor that she just loved that ran a small private clinic. She said he's awesome, that she got pregnant on her very first IVF cycle, and most importantly, that all the other fertility doctors in the area hate him because he's not all that interested in making money.
I was sold! I made an appointment to see him the next day.
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Greeting us as we walked into the clinic on that first day was a huge brass statue of a hunter sporting a bow and arrow, complete with a lion skin loincloth with a paw hanging provocatively between his legs. My husband and I thought that it boded well for the whole male fertility issue.
The doctor, I kid you not, talked exactly like Jackie Mason. He handed us article after article that he’d published on our issues, and shuttled us away for more testing. He asked my husband for another sperm assessment, asking him if he was “in a sperm producing mood” and then wisecracking “You got quarters? Cause I own the franchise.” They took 86643276865 vials of blood from both of us, did a vaginal ultrasound, a pelvic exam, cultures, and more. We were there for three hours, and we left with the most precious commodity of all—hope.
They set up several appointments to monitor my cycle, and soon we had more bad news. Not only did we not have enough sperm, my eggs were releasing prematurely. When they told us this, I had visions of my poor little egg being a ten-year-old girl sent off to marry into the evil sultan’s harem. The poor little eggs! So young!
This fact surprised me, cause I don’t let go of anything without a struggle. So you’d think I’d hold on to my eggs for too long, not let them go too early. Oh—except I do hold on to them for too long as well—turns out I didn’t ovulate until three weeks into my cycle, right about the time that my darling husband and I were quite sick of sex (ok, maybe more me than him). So just when we’re taking a break, out comes my sad little premature egg.
The good news, I guess, was this could be corrected with Clomid. So as my next cycle came along, they put me on this drug for five days. Immediately, I became dizzy and nauseous, so of course I was convinced I was pregnant right away (but you haven’t ovulated yet! said my ever reasonable husband). Plus, I immediately gained about 30 pounds of water retention, allowing for really fun games of “Let’s put dents in my legs and see how long they stay and how deep they can be.” Then, after I did ovulate (and yes, a nice, mature egg, ready to become a slave in the harem), they put me on progesterone gel.
Now, I don’t know what evil human invented progesterone gel, but there’s nothing good about it. I’m guessing it can’t be exposed to the air, hence the atrocious package design. You have to snap a small part of it off, after shaking it down like a thermometer, and then push a little bulb at the end to inject this stuff into your vagina. It never fails—every single time I do it, I rip out at least one pubic hair and pinch my labial skin--and I have to do it twice a day. Maybe it’s cause of the way my body is shaped (round and fat), but my vagina happens to be very long, and I have to put the whole dispenser thingy up there to get it anywhere near my cervix--hence the pinching.
Secondly, we found out later from my cultures that I had a low-level yeast infection when I began using the progesterone. Now, I don’t know this at the time, but apparently, when you have a yeast infection and use progesterone gel, you have all the ingredients necessary to bake bread in your vagina! How convenient!
Progesterone gel always causes a disgusting discharge—more like cottage cheese than bread (I found out in later cycles) but combined with the yeast infection, it’s hell. I immediately went to the drug store and bought one of those giant blue douche bags so I could flush the stuff out. Later on, I learned the helpful hint of nightly “digging” out the discharge.
The other issue I had with the progesterone is that it made me very, very tired. At first, I'd notice at the gym that I couldn't possibly do level 6 on the elliptical. Level two was more like it. Then, by the end of the two weeks I used it, I was basically in a coma. I'd fall asleep during meetings, at work, while my husband was talking to me, just whenever.
As you can imagine, this wrecked havoc on my sex drive. Oddly, it had no apparent effect on my husbands. This is particularly remarkable since he began taking Clomid as well—to help raise up his overall count. He, of course, had no side effects.
After a few months of clomid/progesterone and no pregnancy, we decided to try IUI. After two failed IUI’s, we had a long talk with the andrologist. More bad news. Even though the count is up, we have both sperm antibody and penetration issues. IVF with ICSI is our only option. “The good news is” spouted the cheerful andrologist, “you’re excellent candidates for IVF! I’m sure you’ll get pregnant that way!”
So, we scheduled another consultation with Dr. Jackie Mason (this one was spent mostly talking about how he was going to trip over his phone cord. Reinforcements, in the form of his surly receptionist, had to be called in) to get our IVF protocol.
This brings us up to date. Now, we’re in limbo, awaiting my period, so we can begin the injections that start off the IVF protocol.
