Dental Floss Pt 1: Infertility

Infertility

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This is part 1 of my blog series on the road to having our child
The introduction post that came first can be found: Right Here
Part 1:*YOU ARE HERE*
Part 2 can be found: Right Here
Part 3 can be found: Right Here
Part 4 can be found: Right Here
Part 5 can be found: Right Here
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    What a scary word.  What an unexpected turn of events for anyone to encounter.  The last thing you consider when deciding to have a child.  The process of creating a mini-you is always painted as so simple, and for many lucky people it can be.  However, for a much larger number of people than you'd expect *insert some made up surprising statistic here* it is a very difficult task.

    Back up a second.  I should forewarn, of all the posts in this series this one may be the most "scatter brained" of them all as this stage of our journey included so many emotional attacks from so many directions it's going to be hard to stay organized, but hang in there, together we'll get through!  It will most likely be split into two for your reading convenience.

    In the back of my wife's head she was worried about having issues getting pregnant.  It was something that ran in her family but since she was here to have these thoughts, clearly it was overcome.  When I think back to that Oct-Nov time when we decided to give this thing a go I can't help but find it a handful of humorous with a pinch of sad not knowing what was ahead for us.  None the less I trust you all took high school health class and understand what I mean when I say, we began the ole fashioned way.  After a few months nothing was happening so we started progressing through the various stages of "things to try" from the doctor before getting any sort of drugs involved in the process.  More months go by and still no luck.  So far stress is relatively low, like I said Margaret was sort of anticipating this.  So we shrug and move on to the next step, we get a drug involved called Clomid to try and assist in the process.  Both her sister and mother had used Clomid to get pregnant so this was once again, in line with what we expected.  A few more months go by and stress starts to rise and still no desired result is in sight.

    So, what the heck?  We are doing everything that it seems we should and nothing is happening.  The exact sequence of events that happens next I am not 100% clear on and for more of the medical procedural side of things feel free to ask my wife, she's a medical nerd.  She has a good blog post summarizing the events you can read it here.

HURDLE #1

    So things aren't working and we've been trying for awhile now.  Time to root cause this issue a little bit more.  Margaret goes in to have a sonogram done of her uterus to check things out and see if it can give the doctor some clues as to what's going on.  During said sonogram the nurse tech has some issues finding the left half of Margarets uterus but she's just using sonogram technology which only gives a 2-D top down view of things so she thinks perhaps it's just twisted or arranged in a weird way that the sonogram can't pick it up.  So she orders a doo-hickey procedure (I told you, I am very committed to the technical language for this part of the story) where they shoot her up with some gel stuff to coat the uterus and take a picture revealing more of a full picture of things.  Here it is.  The first blow to our plans.
    Margaret has what is called a Unicornuate Uterus.  In laymen's terms she has half of a uterus.  She has two ovaries as she should, but her left ovary is not connected properly so an egg released on that side kind of just wanders around wondering where the party's at.  There's a CHANCE it could make it's way around to the proper Fallopian tube and proceed through it's egg-life normally from there but we're talking one and a million at that point.  Part of the issue is that the female body doesn't work like a clock, meaning, eggs are not perfectly released left side-right side- left side-right side- etc.  The cadence is random but in the end it averages out.  So only when she ovulates from the right side is it of any "use".  

    *Skipping some of those medical details that are on her blog* the fertility doctor does have a way to monitor which side Margaret is going to ovulate from and when it's the right side we go through the IUI (artificial insemination) process to increase our chances of pregnancy.  This process involved on the eve of the IUI Margaret sticking herself with a needle and inject hormones to encourage the ovary to release the egg within the next 24 hours, then we would get the IUI done the next day.  Furthermore, over the course of doing this for roughly a year and a half to two years (because a number of months we did nothing since she ovulated from the left side) we also discovered that she has PCOS  and Endometriosis.  Procedures were undergone to curb those conditions as much as possible.  It is at this point it becomes abundantly clear that this will not be a normal process for us by any stretch of the imagination.  Furthermore, it is at this point that "shit gets real".

Processing

    There are very few words I can use to describe what happens next when seemingly your dreams of parenthood (the way you envisioned it) come crashing down.  You basically have two options.  You can push forward, accept your circumstance together or you can get extremely and permanently angry at life harboring damaging feelings that will rot you away inside until you are but a shell of who you once were.  To anyone facing any level of infertility whether it be like ours or something different I cannot stress the following point any clearer or with any deeper sense of urgency: No matter who the infertility is because of this is very much your circumstance to face together as a united front.  No one plans to be infertile as some devious way of getting a good laugh so how could you possibly blame someone for something so far beyond their control?  How you react in the first few months of learning of your infertility will shape not just the rest of your road to parenthood but it will put you on a fast path to a dissolution of your marriage OR bring you closer, stronger, and more resilient to face a challenge together.  Additionally, your reaction will also very much affect whether or not you are able to maintain the integrity of your personality or if you will let your circumstances change you as a person, forever.  You are never expected to not cry, you are never expected to not be sad, you are never expected to not be angry, you are never expected to look at the situation and only see the bright spots.  All that is crucially important is that you commit yourself to supporting your wife as you would in any other situation and commit to focusing your energy on realizing you can't be broken this easily.  You can stumble and fall but you must get back up.  Do what you can to keep the kid situation moving forward but focus on all those other areas of life that make you happy.  Whether it's family, friends, a hobby, whatever.  When you dwell, you open the door and all the windows of the house to nothing but bad things.

    So, in front of the mirror, as part of my bedtime routine I wound another length of dental floss around my fingers as I committed my choices to supporting my wife at all costs and getting us through this while at the same time wondering how long I could stretch out this roll of dental floss.

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This is Part 1 of my blog series on the road to having our child
The introduction post that came first can be found: Right Here
Part 1: *YOU ARE HERE*
Part 2 - Right Here
Part 3 can be found: Right Here
Part 4 can be found: Right Here
Part 5 can be found: Right Here
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