First Came Love, Then Came Marriage...now where the hell is my baby carriage?!?

The Beginning: Our love story began over 12 years ago in my (Kristy's) home state of Michigan. After we started dating, it was a whirlwind romance and I knew immediately that this was the man I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.  The man I was going to fall in love with,  marry,  and have children with......well 2 out of 3 ain't so bad right?!?!

We were engaged after dating for only 5 months (Hey, when you know...you know!). We waited for another year and a half to get married (weddings take a lot of time to plan...especially big ones!) and then a year into our marriage Dave's Navy Reserve unit was activated for Iraq.  We decided together to start our journey into having a baby, and relocated to Virginia Beach. I went off "the pill" and thought it would happen immediately.  Well it didn't and we were OK with that.  Once he safely got back from Iraq we weren't actively trying to have a baby, but we also weren't avoiding it. Since I'm an elementary school teacher working with kids all day long I was alright with waiting a year. We'll have our baby once we start "trying" again....right?  

A year later we started trying again.  This was going to be easy right?!?!?  Wrong!  A year into it, we decided to start tracking, taking my temperature daily and charting EVERYTHING .  OK, now this would work...wrong again.  So maybe I don't know how to take my temperature, or maybe I should test (ovulation tests) more.  Who knows! So fast forward a couple more years, a few hundred thousand tears, and constant  monthly disappointment.  What was wrong with me?!

My next step, become numb to it.  Numb to it all.  I don't want kids anymore! It's too painful!  Its been 4 years, we've tried everything we could think of naturally. People would always ask us, "Don't you want kids?!?"  My response at this point, "No, we're good!  Why would I want kids when I have 30 of them all day long?!? HA!" This was purely a defense mechanism response. Because what I really wanted to tell people was, "DUH!  Of course I want kids!  Look at these hips!  I was made to be a mom!  I was made to give birth.  These are birth-bearing hips here! Now go to Hell and mind your own business!"  We heard it for years, "Oh you guys should have babies! You would make the cutest kids"  Yeah I know, thanks for rubbing it in. Now go to Hell!  In the back of my mind though I couldn't blame them, they didn't know. NO ONE knew what we were going through!  We told no one!  Not our friends, not our family, no one!  We were alone in all of this.  Our journey was just the two of us. My other favorite saying though from people was "Oh just relax!  Once you stop trying, then it will happen!" Fuck you!  That's what I wanted to say, but of course I would just smile, and giggle, and then cry alone at home. Once again...couldn't blame them.  I could only blame myself...not for the infertility, but for not being open about it. This went on for YEARS! Soon the crying stopped and the numbness just took over.

Our next step... get tested.  Something MUST be wrong.  But to be honest, I wasn't ready for this step.  I always thought, if God didn't want me to have kids, then maybe I shouldn't (even with these birth-bearing hips of mine!). If I was meant to be a mom, then it would have happened. Well, we decided after a while to go and get tested (and when I say after a while...what I really mean is years).  We have the results, we know our options and our next step, so let's get started....wrong!  Yes we had it all, and knew what to do next, but I put the breaks on moving on to the next step. I didn't want to be Octomom!  I always thought that if I messed with God's plan and messed with nature then it would come back to bite me in the ass twofold!  I had the type of luck if I did IVF and transferred two embryos, then both of the embryos would take and they would both divide into twins or triplets.... I had to do some soul searching. By this time we'd ONLY been trying to have a baby for 7 years...what's wrong with waiting a little bit longer?

Let's fast-forward again two more years.... A friend of mine talked openly about her infertility and even made a video about it hoping to win an IVF cycle. She was talking about it at work and said something about her RE ( Reproductive Endocrinologist....or fertility doctor.  And here I thought the military had a lot of acronyms!  Just take a look at all the infertility acronyms here! Wowzers!) and before I knew it, "He's my doctor too!" came out of my mouth. Before I could process what just happened and what I just said, I just stood there. No one blinked or batted an eye, but I was sweating uncontrollably and shaking in my heels! This was the first time I admitted this in public! We ended up talking behind closed doors for some time about infertility and I finally opened up to someone else besides my husband. Because of her, I was introduced to an amazing group of women going through the same thing! There was a support group for infertility in my area that I never knew about.  These women are amazing! There was hope again. I was finally able to open up to a few friends and immediate family.  I was finally in a place where I was willing to try something with our local fertility clinic.   Let's do this!  We are going to open ourselves up (in more ways than one!) again and really try something this time.

We made another appointment with our RE, and talked about our options.  We could do IUI (the "turkey baster method") or IVF (the petri dish method). The big difference...oh about $9500...without meds! This shit is expensive! We decided on the IUI method...the turkey baster.  Our first IUI was in July of 2013.  

Here's the low down of what goes into this. Once your period starts (Day 1) you call the fertility clinic and set up and appointment for an internal ultrasound...aka Mr. Ultrasound Wand...yeah fun! I start my medicine (2 pills a day) on day 5. On day 10, I went in for the fun (and oh so intimate) internal ultrasound to see how my follicles responded to the pills. They were great!  Our IUI was scheduled two days later.  The night before the IUI, Dave got to give me my trigger shot (which is a shot with a pretty big needle that goes right into my ovary...and he had way too much fun in doing this!). Now the 2WW (two week wait) begins.  No drinking, no heavy lifting...pretty much you go around for two weeks pretending you're pregnant. This was going to work!  I could feel it!  I'm pretending I'm pregnant, I finally opened up about this to family, and  I followed all the steps.  This was it!  This was my time...I mean our time! So, after my VERY long 2 weeks ended, I tested!  When I saw the BFN (Big Fat Negative...aka yet another negative pregnancy test) I lost it!  I didn't think it would affect me as much as it did, but it did and I was a blubbering mess in my kitchen. Dave had to hold me up. He just held me rubbing my back. Now c'mon after 9 years of negative test results, I thought I could handle it.  What's one more right?!?!  Lord have mercy! This one was harder than I thought it would be. I think because I truly thought in my heart of hearts that this would work. Enough of the pity party though! I picked myself up off the floor (literally!) and I treated myself to a glass (ok...a bottle) of wine!

 Went back in August, and I didn't respond to the medicine as well as they hoped so this month was a bust.  I cried in the parking garage in my car, but not as bad as the failed IUI.  September comes and goes and another disappointment.  Now it's October.  My RE was concerned that I didn't respond as well to the meds as the first IUI months ago, so on to more tests and an increase in the meds.  We followed along with the new protocol.  He brought me in several days early for my ultrasound (now by this point in time, I'm so used to this I forget that it's proper etiquette to change into a gown in the bathroom and not just drop trow in the middle of the room). Come to find out, this worked in my favor...coming in early, not dropping trow in the middle of the room. Our next IUI was scheduled a day later! This one was going to work...right?!?! Wrong...wrong again!  Now it's November.  Dave has to go to San Diego for the Navy, (so without his part in all of this)...this month would be a freebie/pass month.  So since we took a month off in November, we decided to take another month off in December and start fresh and new in the New Year.

So now here we are in the present!  It's the first day of a new year and the adventure continues. You now know our story and are invited to join us on this crazy ride (if you so choose to follow us!). We don't know where this journey will take us, but we're hoping it will lead us to a little bundle of joy filled with sleepless nights and dirty diapers!



Thanks for reading such a LONG post!  Writing about 9 1/2 years of infertility in one post really is exhausting!  I promise to keep it short and sweet from here on out...with a lot more sass (just like me...short, sweet and sassy!)