I've been asked by a few people exactly what our infertility woes were as they are going through some as well. It's complicated, as most are, but I thought I'd do an overview in hopes that it might help someone out.
But first a BIG disclaimer here - I'm in no way a medical doctor or infertility expert. This is just my experience and things I learned along the way.
So here it is...
We started trying back in December of 2009 and I just knew we'd get pregnant on the first try. So much so that I didn't want to start trying until we were 100% ready. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Most OBs and all that you read on the internet tell you it could take up to a year, so be patient and don't worry until you reach the one year mark.
We reached the one year mark and I put off going in for the big fertility talk. I don't know why, it was something I/we wanted so badly, but at the same time just wanted it to happen and didn't want to learn I or the hubby were 'broken'.
My husband was also not on board with going too far down the fertility road, no IV or IVF. So I'm sure some of it had to do with not wanting to be told that was our only option.
A few months later, I had a horribly painful cycle and it was a little off schedule. I was during the 'two week wait' time where you may have conceived, but too soon for it to register on a home pregnancy test.
I have a co-worker who has experienced a miscarriage and suggested it might be that. It freaked me out, I called the OB and they saw me immediately. They just did a pregnancy test and it came back negative so they said it wasn't that, but no explanation of why I was having the pain and started early. And they made feel a little dumb for thinking it could possibly be a miscarriage. I felt stupid and just broke down and cried in the doctors office. Emotional? Yes. The one good thing that came of it is that they had me schedule a follow-up to come back and do some testing.
And so the testing begain...
I came back in for a full workup. The regular yearly exam along with blood work to check my hormone levels. My day-21 blood draw showed my progesterone levels were low. Levels were high enough to indicate that ovulation did occur, but too low to sustain a pregnancy.
Basically the elevated levels of progesterone help keep the uterus lining around for baby to implant and stay in the uterus after conception. It takes a few days for the fertilized egg to travel down so normally your progesterone should spike to keep you from starting your period and maintain a healthy home for baby to attach to. This also explained why I was spotting days before my cycle started, hello red flag! I had mentioned it to doctor's in the past, but no one was every too worried about it.
First drug of choice to help with low progesterone is Clomid, not a progesterone supplement like one logical person would think. And they were never concerned with why my levels were low, just wanted to give me drugs to get them higher. Clomid is an inexpensive fertility drug that is step one in the fight for most doctors. It is cheap and easy and works pretty well. However, the longer you stay on it, the more challenging it can also make it to get pregnant.
Around the 3rd month mark on clomid I still wasn't pregnant so they suggested I do a procedure to make sure my tubes weren't blocked.
I had an appointment at the local hospital in radiology and die was inserted into my tubes while xrays were taken. Everything was clear and good, and this procedure was sold with the bonus of an increased chance of becoming pregnant after it. It seems to kind of clean everything out and straighten the tubes.
I was happy that nothing was blocked and very hopeful this was going to be THE month. No such luck. Another "not pregnant" on the good old digital pregnancy test.
Around this time hubby also got sent off for testing. He was not thrilled about it, but finally agreed and he came back with normal counts and all was good there.
On month 5 of clomid I got shuffled from the OB I had been seeing to the "infertility specialist" in the office. Nice, and why the heck did I not see him to start out with? Your guess is as good as mine. So he goes over my info, we chat and thinks I could have endometriosis. But there is no way to know without going in for surgery. Yippie.
He decided to not continue me on the clomid and seemed a little surprised I had been on it for 5 months already. He said 5 months is a bit long to stay on it, generally if it is going to work, it will during the first 3 months, but then said each doctor has their own opinion. Oh this made me M-A-D.
Among many side effects, and there are lots, clomid can actually thin the lining of your uterus, making it near impossible to conceive if it gets too thin. He did do an ultrasound to take a look at things at this 5 month mark before scheduling me for surgery. Luckily it wasn't too bad yet, but had defiantly decreased in thickness.
AND to top it off, my day 21 blood draws never really showed an improvement in my progesterone levels the entire time I was on the stupid drug. Another red flag waving vigorously around.
Around this same time I decided to book an appointment with an acupuncturist. I was loosing all faith in the medical profession and needed to find another avenue. I had a few friends who had had some luck with acupuncture and figured what the heck, might as well give it a try.
I had my first appointment with the acupuncturist right before I went in for surgery. She recommended moving forward with the surgery because that obviously needed to get fixed if I did in fact have endometriosis.
But let me tell you, that fist visit with her was the first time I finally felt like someone cared about what was going on with me and wanted to fix the problem, not just treat the symptoms with drugs. She was very certain she could help and knew why I was having some of the issues I was.
So surgery took place and after a lot of pain and money I found out I did NOT have endometriosis, everything actually looked great and I got slapped with the diagnosis of "unexplained infertility" - the worst news I think I could have been given at that point in time. The doctor recommended we move on to IVF and that was "for sure to work."
I was crushed. I knew that wasn't an option for us. The husband wasn't on board for IVF nor were were financially able to pay almost $20,000 for the procedure.
I ended my doctors visits and kept on with the acupuncturist. She recommend I go every week, but after all I'd been doing and paying for, cash flow was a little tight so I just went every other week.
I noticed physical changes in my body. Thing that you wouldn't even think were related to reproduction, but apparently are tied into the same system. And my system was blocked. For example, I've always had very tight hamstrings. I couldn't touch my toes without bending my knees if my life depended on it. Well, guess who could touch her toes after a few visits.
With all the charting and talking with the acupuncturist, the biggest hurddle I had to overcome was ovulating too late in my cycle, called luteal phase defect and the low levels of progesterone. Between the acupuncture and chinese herbs, we worked on the progesterone levels and for the late ovulation I did a lot of research via google and decided to take vitamine B6. Several woman had success in moving back their ovulation with this simple over the counter remedy. It's cheap and I really think it worked for me.
The general rule of thumb is that it takes 3 monthly cycles to get hormones and systems balanced out with acupuncture for infertility. That is just about what it took for me. I started go mid-cycle, so technically 2.5. I found out I was pregnant during my 3rd month of treatment and almost exactly 2 years from when we fist started trying. I remember being so excited to tell my acupuncturist, kind of like a big hooray, we won!
I continued going to her throughout my pregnancy. With the progesterone issue, I ran a higher chance of miscarrying and the OB wouldn't test my levels until my first appointment at 7 weeks. They were on the low end and she did end up putting me on supplements for my first trimester. I hate to think what woud have happened if I didn't continue on with acupuncture, I'm certain it helped bring them up so I was able to sustain the pregnancy until I was on the supplements.
For anyone going through this, my heart goes out to you. I had some of my darkest days during this fight. My best advice is to chart, track and write everything down so you know what your body is doing and can pinpoint the problem. That and, DON'T GIVE UP!
We now have a beautiful (boys can be beautiful!) and healthy baby boy. I am thankful and now treasure all the sleepless night and in a strange way, am thankful to have struggled through the process. I think it has made me a better person.
But first a BIG disclaimer here - I'm in no way a medical doctor or infertility expert. This is just my experience and things I learned along the way.
So here it is...
We started trying back in December of 2009 and I just knew we'd get pregnant on the first try. So much so that I didn't want to start trying until we were 100% ready. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Most OBs and all that you read on the internet tell you it could take up to a year, so be patient and don't worry until you reach the one year mark.
We reached the one year mark and I put off going in for the big fertility talk. I don't know why, it was something I/we wanted so badly, but at the same time just wanted it to happen and didn't want to learn I or the hubby were 'broken'.
My husband was also not on board with going too far down the fertility road, no IV or IVF. So I'm sure some of it had to do with not wanting to be told that was our only option.
A few months later, I had a horribly painful cycle and it was a little off schedule. I was during the 'two week wait' time where you may have conceived, but too soon for it to register on a home pregnancy test.
I have a co-worker who has experienced a miscarriage and suggested it might be that. It freaked me out, I called the OB and they saw me immediately. They just did a pregnancy test and it came back negative so they said it wasn't that, but no explanation of why I was having the pain and started early. And they made feel a little dumb for thinking it could possibly be a miscarriage. I felt stupid and just broke down and cried in the doctors office. Emotional? Yes. The one good thing that came of it is that they had me schedule a follow-up to come back and do some testing.
And so the testing begain...
I came back in for a full workup. The regular yearly exam along with blood work to check my hormone levels. My day-21 blood draw showed my progesterone levels were low. Levels were high enough to indicate that ovulation did occur, but too low to sustain a pregnancy.
Basically the elevated levels of progesterone help keep the uterus lining around for baby to implant and stay in the uterus after conception. It takes a few days for the fertilized egg to travel down so normally your progesterone should spike to keep you from starting your period and maintain a healthy home for baby to attach to. This also explained why I was spotting days before my cycle started, hello red flag! I had mentioned it to doctor's in the past, but no one was every too worried about it.
First drug of choice to help with low progesterone is Clomid, not a progesterone supplement like one logical person would think. And they were never concerned with why my levels were low, just wanted to give me drugs to get them higher. Clomid is an inexpensive fertility drug that is step one in the fight for most doctors. It is cheap and easy and works pretty well. However, the longer you stay on it, the more challenging it can also make it to get pregnant.
Around the 3rd month mark on clomid I still wasn't pregnant so they suggested I do a procedure to make sure my tubes weren't blocked.
I had an appointment at the local hospital in radiology and die was inserted into my tubes while xrays were taken. Everything was clear and good, and this procedure was sold with the bonus of an increased chance of becoming pregnant after it. It seems to kind of clean everything out and straighten the tubes.
I was happy that nothing was blocked and very hopeful this was going to be THE month. No such luck. Another "not pregnant" on the good old digital pregnancy test.
Around this time hubby also got sent off for testing. He was not thrilled about it, but finally agreed and he came back with normal counts and all was good there.
On month 5 of clomid I got shuffled from the OB I had been seeing to the "infertility specialist" in the office. Nice, and why the heck did I not see him to start out with? Your guess is as good as mine. So he goes over my info, we chat and thinks I could have endometriosis. But there is no way to know without going in for surgery. Yippie.
He decided to not continue me on the clomid and seemed a little surprised I had been on it for 5 months already. He said 5 months is a bit long to stay on it, generally if it is going to work, it will during the first 3 months, but then said each doctor has their own opinion. Oh this made me M-A-D.
Among many side effects, and there are lots, clomid can actually thin the lining of your uterus, making it near impossible to conceive if it gets too thin. He did do an ultrasound to take a look at things at this 5 month mark before scheduling me for surgery. Luckily it wasn't too bad yet, but had defiantly decreased in thickness.
AND to top it off, my day 21 blood draws never really showed an improvement in my progesterone levels the entire time I was on the stupid drug. Another red flag waving vigorously around.
Around this same time I decided to book an appointment with an acupuncturist. I was loosing all faith in the medical profession and needed to find another avenue. I had a few friends who had had some luck with acupuncture and figured what the heck, might as well give it a try.
I had my first appointment with the acupuncturist right before I went in for surgery. She recommended moving forward with the surgery because that obviously needed to get fixed if I did in fact have endometriosis.
But let me tell you, that fist visit with her was the first time I finally felt like someone cared about what was going on with me and wanted to fix the problem, not just treat the symptoms with drugs. She was very certain she could help and knew why I was having some of the issues I was.
So surgery took place and after a lot of pain and money I found out I did NOT have endometriosis, everything actually looked great and I got slapped with the diagnosis of "unexplained infertility" - the worst news I think I could have been given at that point in time. The doctor recommended we move on to IVF and that was "for sure to work."
I was crushed. I knew that wasn't an option for us. The husband wasn't on board for IVF nor were were financially able to pay almost $20,000 for the procedure.
I ended my doctors visits and kept on with the acupuncturist. She recommend I go every week, but after all I'd been doing and paying for, cash flow was a little tight so I just went every other week.
I noticed physical changes in my body. Thing that you wouldn't even think were related to reproduction, but apparently are tied into the same system. And my system was blocked. For example, I've always had very tight hamstrings. I couldn't touch my toes without bending my knees if my life depended on it. Well, guess who could touch her toes after a few visits.
With all the charting and talking with the acupuncturist, the biggest hurddle I had to overcome was ovulating too late in my cycle, called luteal phase defect and the low levels of progesterone. Between the acupuncture and chinese herbs, we worked on the progesterone levels and for the late ovulation I did a lot of research via google and decided to take vitamine B6. Several woman had success in moving back their ovulation with this simple over the counter remedy. It's cheap and I really think it worked for me.
The general rule of thumb is that it takes 3 monthly cycles to get hormones and systems balanced out with acupuncture for infertility. That is just about what it took for me. I started go mid-cycle, so technically 2.5. I found out I was pregnant during my 3rd month of treatment and almost exactly 2 years from when we fist started trying. I remember being so excited to tell my acupuncturist, kind of like a big hooray, we won!
I continued going to her throughout my pregnancy. With the progesterone issue, I ran a higher chance of miscarrying and the OB wouldn't test my levels until my first appointment at 7 weeks. They were on the low end and she did end up putting me on supplements for my first trimester. I hate to think what woud have happened if I didn't continue on with acupuncture, I'm certain it helped bring them up so I was able to sustain the pregnancy until I was on the supplements.
For anyone going through this, my heart goes out to you. I had some of my darkest days during this fight. My best advice is to chart, track and write everything down so you know what your body is doing and can pinpoint the problem. That and, DON'T GIVE UP!
We now have a beautiful (boys can be beautiful!) and healthy baby boy. I am thankful and now treasure all the sleepless night and in a strange way, am thankful to have struggled through the process. I think it has made me a better person.
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