Chris and I met in the fall of 2004. Contrary to what some people may think or assume, we were not high school sweet hearts. We were working together at Longs Drug Store (which is now non existent because CVS Pharmacy took over) while we were both in college. We made it official on December 26, 2004, and dated for almost 5 years before he popped the question. We both finished college, started our careers, bought a house and got married on September 4, 2010.
In January 2011, we decided to start trying for a baby. I thought it would take us 6 months at most to conceive. Little did I know 3 1/2 years later we'd be sitting in a fertility doctor's office discussing IVF! 6 months went by, close friends got pregnant, a year went by and babies were born. Each time I was devastated. I cried and sobbed and got angry. Not because I didn't want our friends to have babies, but because that wasn't us. Unless you've struggled to have a baby (over a year or more), you have no idea how much pain and heartache it causes to get a negative pregnancy test month after month after month and watch everyone else around you get pregnant with ease.
In 2012, after a year, I talked to my OB-GYN and had some testing done. Everything came back fine. My menstrual cycles were normal and I was ovulating. I was healthy and there was no definitive reason why I was not getting pregnant. My doctor suggested Chris have a semen analysis done to check his swimmers. The results were not the greatest, but also not the worst his Urologist had seen. Chris took an herbal supplement called ProXeed that was recommended for several months and had another semen analysis done. Those results weren't any better than the original. The Urologist reassured us that he has seen couples get pregnant with far worse results than Chris'.
I also had an HSG test done, where dye fills the uterus and flows through the fallopian tubes to see if there were any blockages. X-ray images were taken and my uterus looked great, my tubes were completely open, but the dye did not disperse after it came out the left tube. It kind of just chilled in the space between the tube and ovary. The doctor couldn't give any explanation for that. I should have still been able to get pregnant with at least one healthy fallopian tube and ovary.
In 2013, we decided to talk to a fertility doctor and see what our options were. He recommended we start with IUI, intrauterine insemination, and a fertility drug called Clomid. I didn't have any horrible side effects from Clomid other than random hot flashes. I thought the first IUI was going to work and we were going to be that lucky. Wrong! I was completely devastated when I took a pregnancy test the morning of the blood draw. We decided to do 2 more IUI's and those were both unsuccessful as well. At the time, I was not ready for IVF or to even talk about IVF. The experience was mentally and emotionally exhausting, so we decided to take a break from fertility treatments.
We put "trying" on the back burner for almost a year. Don't get me wrong, we didn't use any contraceptives to prevent pregnancy but we didn't time intercourse or track my ovulation. I needed that break to get to where I am today. I wish the "As soon as you quit trying, you'll get pregnant" case worked for us, but it didn't. A month or so ago, I brought up IVF to Chris and of course he was on board. We decided to look into a new doctor since we both didn't feel that great about our previous fertility doctor and found Dr. Norian with Huntington Reproductive Center in Rancho Cucamonga.
On June 13, 2014, we had our first IVF consultation done and both felt really comfortable with Dr. Norian and his staff. He believes we are excellent candidates for IVF and feels pretty confident that it'll work for us. We are both extremely excited and ready to start the process. We have to do some testing prior to the IVF, but should be able to have our first IVF done in July! I'll be documenting the whole process and posting pictures along the way!
Alissha
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