My Journey Through Infertility
We were young and it was right around our one year anniversary of dating, and two weeks after moving in together, that we had the kids talk. I felt this primal desire to have a family. Two weeks later I stopped taking birth control.
Before birth control, my cycles were within normal range of 35 days. During my 1.5 years on the pill, I was talked into taking the HPV shots. The side effects from it were horrible, but it wasn’t until I stopped taking birth control that I learned how badly it damaged me.
A few months after our anniversary we got engaged to be married. Still no period. It was 7 months before I had my first bleed; a month before we got married. After that, and since then, they have always been super irregular.
Almost a full three years went by before we were able to seek outside help. I asked for referrals from my family doctor a couple of times.
Those three years were so hard on our marriage, on my mental health. I went through crazy lows, days where I didn’t feel like existing anymore. My husband didn’t know how to help. Sex was no longer fun for either of us, it was now a chore. None of my friends were at a point in their life of even considering babies (at least on purpose) and couldn’t sympathize with my pain. Everyone told me to relax and stop trying and it’ll just happen. I met some wonderful ladies on a fertility app who were all going through infertility struggles which really helped at certain points. I knew there was little chance of conception ‘just happening’ after three years of tracking my cycles and realizing I was rarely ovulating.
We were referred to an OBGYN who prescribed me Clomiphene, a drug to induce ovulation by suppressing estrogen. I ovulated the first cycle on it, but not the second and had to force a bleed with medication , synthetic progesterone, which also had bad side effects.
We were then referred to a fertility specialist who wanted us to try IUI (intra-uterine insemination). But it was too costly, so she tried us on a different medication. Letrozole, a breast cancer treatment drug, that has a nifty side effect of inducing ovulation, by reducing estrogen. I hated that it was the medical system who ruined my fertility, and I had to rely on the medical system to simulate it.
I hated the way the Letrozole made me feel. It made me anxious and gave me terrible night sweats. After two cycles I wanted to give up, but I had a prescription for one more and told myself if this one doesn’t work then I’m taking a good long break from meds or trying to have a baby. I was so done.
Third Letrozole cycle, 3.5 years of trying to conceive, it happened! I didn’t even believe it for the longest time. At 6.5 weeks along, my mom, and my husband’s mom went with me to the fertility clinic, and the doctor did a vaginal ultrasound and we saw a little flicker of a heartbeat. The doctor said she was ‘cautiously optimistic’.
Eight moons later, my little girl was born! (Via a traumatic ‘emergent’ cesarean) Her arrival marked the end of a long and challenging journey, one filled with pain, growth, and immense joy.
Did you have a painful journey into conception? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.
