Victims of Infertility

This was my guest post on Poltzie's blog a few weeks ago. It was something I really wanted to write about and even though I posted it over there, I wanted to discuss it here with all of you. Forgive me if you already read it, but I do want to see your comments.

-- I start this story with the history of my IF and what I went through, culminating into the point of this post and a request for feedback. It's so long I wanted to explain it a bit first.

I was diagnosed with "unexplained infertility" when I was trying for my first baby. I had all the initial tests like blood work and the HSG, took OPKs every month, experienced my first lap surgery checking for endo which was diagnosed as mild, had 3 clomid cycles and my husband has a good semen analysis. Everything checked out. Our 18th cycle was supposed to be our first IUI, but I missed the timing to take the meds so it turned into a natural cycle. That natural cycle turned into a BFP cycle, conceiving my first daughter, Ella.

The second round of ttc was when I tried for my second daughter, Allison. At only 5 months postpartum, I already had my cycle back although exclusively breast feeding, and we decided it was time to ttc again. I allowed one more cycle to go through, checking if I was even ovulating by using an OPK, and when that showed positive, we said we'd start trying with the next cycle. We assumed it would take no less than a year, if lucky, so when our daughter was only 6 months old, we pulled the goalie. To our utter shock, which I'm still shocked over, we achieved another BFP. We considered ourselves the luckiest people on the earth. The birth of Allison was traumatic for my uterus, having to undergo some emergency surgery at 5 weeks postpartum for heavy bleeding. We found I had retained placenta and when it was removed during surgery, I lost a massive amount of blood due to a condition called placenta accreta - Allison's placenta grew into and through my uterus. I recovered and we continued life as the parents of two little girls, 16 months apart.

Raising two little girls so close was hard. Harder than we ever expected. So we waited a bit to ttc our last child. It was only a few cycles in when I found I was no longer ovulating, instead growing huge functional cyst. I was diagnosed with LUF syndrome, which is where your body grows follicles, creates the LH surge to signal ovulation but instead of releasing the egg, my body would hold onto it, growing cysts as large as 10cms. I would be sidelined from ttc for another cycle, having to take bcps to allow the cysts to be absorbed. My OB referred me directly to an RE to deal with this problem. To force my body to ovulate, my ovulation would be triggered with HCG and under ultrasound, we would verify ovulation.

I also had another HSG to ensure my tubes were open. This time, my tube was shown as blocked. The RE ordered another test, the HSS, which saline was pushed into my uterus to check for scar tissue. It was discovered my uterus was over 70% sealed shut with scar tissue. This prompted 3 consecutive uterine surgeries to clear it all out. It was a vicious circle because surgery tended to create more scar tissue, so my RE placed a balloon inside my uterus to hold it open during healing. It was not fun. After my 3rd surgery (4th total), I was given a clean bill of uterine health and we tried our 3rd IUI cycle, but it failed.

IVF was our next step. Our 18th cycle was the IVF cycle and we made 9 embryos. The transfer was cancelled due to poor lining response, which is a side effect from my uterine walls being scraped clean of scar tissue so much. During cycle 19, we tried to get my uterine lining to respond with estrogen, which didn't work and transfer was cancelled. Cycle 20 was our second attempt at FET and we went crazy with trying to get my lining to respond. We threw everything at my uterus - injectable estrogen, viagra (yes, viagra), estrogen suppositories, meds meds and more meds, yet my lining only got to a 7 (they want 9mm at minimum). My RE wanted to cancel me but I said no, telling him I had to finish a cycle for my own well being. If it didn't work, I would go through another IVF, but I just HAD to complete a cycle.

We thawed all of the 9 embryos, 7 survived and 4 were grade As and Bs. The last three were grades C and D and arrested before they grew anymore. We transferred the Fab Four embryos and I was given a 40% chance at pregnancy. Of that 40%, I was given an 85% chance for a singleton, 10% for twins, 4% for triplets and less than a 1% for quads. And remember, this was less than 1% ~of~ 40%, so not much chance there. At 10d3dt, I was testing BFNs and was getting myself mentally prepared for IVF#2. Except at 11dp3dt, I testing BFP with a beta of only 15. The nurses told me to prepare myself for my pregnancy to end. But my betas were doubling. At 15dp3dt, my beta was 213 and an ultrasound was given to look for an ectopic pregnancy. It was too early to see anything but my lining looked thicker in one spot, which could be good news. At 19dp3dt, my beta rose to 1,073 and my RE called me to immediately come in for an ultrasound. They were afraid of ectopic pregnancy and needed to take a look to see what was going on inside me. Except instead of something in my tube, we found a baby in my uterus. Karl was born on January 10th.

Which all brings me to my point, but I first wanted to show you what I went through to get my 3 children. All said and done, I went through 4 surgeries, 3 HSGs, 4 HSSs, 3 IUIs, 1 IVF, 1 FET, ~24 medicated cycles and 39 cycles total. Was I "infertile"? Was I "subfertile"? Based upon the definitions, I was. Do I consider myself blessed? Hell yes.

I've received countless numbers of comments from anonymous readers (like anyone would admit to these terrible comments) of my blog pretty much condemning me for calling myself infertile. Although I should simply ignore these comments, they hurt. They hurt because I went through a lot for my children and I don't think succeeding should erase the war I fought. It's not the pain olympics and I would never try to compare who has it worse, but I do know that to me, I paid my dues.

Consider this ... If a woman had breast cancer and beat it by having her breasts surgically removed, would she still be able to call herself a victim of cancer? Of course she would be. So why would it be any different for a woman who suffered and beat infertility? Just because you won doesn't mean you didn't fight the war.

Have you been a victim of hurtful comments about your infertility? Do you know anyone who has? Please share your experiences!