From the Kiddie pool to the American Crawl

When Josh and I moved to Indianapolis we switched me to his insurance and made the decision to run at this baby thing full force.  The caveat (because there always is one when men are concerned) was that I had to defend the elusive PhD and get a job before going forward.  So, in February I defended and in April I started my job which meant...FULL STEAM AHEAD.  No need to waste time finding an Ob/Gyn and going through the whole riga-maroll to end up being referred to a reproductive endocrinologist at the end of the day so I decided to call the insurance company directly and figure out what I had to do to see a RE stat.  Luckily, our insurance was very accommodating and gave me a few names that I could choose from.  I called the clinic (that all of them were a member of) and settled on Dr. Bopp because I loved his name and totally sounded like someone that could get people pregnant.  I set the appointment and that was that.  No big deal, right.  Just taking things one step at a time.  What should I do next?  I should make an appointment with Dr. Bopp, DONE.  I should go to said appointment, DONE.  I should get a pap-smear and blood work on the second day of my cycle, DONE.  I should get an intrauterine x-ray, DONE.  Now what?  Well, turns out that that was the end of the step by step instructions.  From here on out, the path is specialized based on my test results, boo.  This does not sit well with my controlling personality, but not all is lost yet.

I get the call from the nurse with my initial blood work results and my thyroid is off and my estradiol is high.  She says, "Dr. Bopp says not to worry and that we will just retest, it is probably just a fluke."  Fluke my ASS, I am totally freaked out at this point because I just happened to do some research on the topic before her call and knew that high estradiol is one of the only conditions that can not be treated and it pretty much seals your fate on infertility.  I was NOT expecting this.  I was not ready to accept the fact that I would not be able to get pregnant.  So, I pretty much just keep going forward and schedule my next appointment for blood work for both the retesting of the estradiol and a full thyroid panel.  Well, thyroid came back totally out of whack and I was put on Synthroid to get it under control.  Retested after 1 month on medication (results were in range).  For the estradiol retest, I  had to wait for my next cycle to test before moving forward....what is one more month?  Well, for insurance purposes...one month cuts my time for fertility treatments by a quarter.  Maybe I have failed to mention the fact that Josh and I decided to go  balls to the wall until January then it is adoption for the Judds, so every month til January is VITAL.  Being a post doc only pays so much and we have a mortgage to pay, a line had to be drawn.

So, back to the story, the retesting of the estradiol came back the following month and it was higher than the previous month.  Allyson, the Dr. Bopp's nurse, calls with the results to say that Dr. Bopp would like to meet with you to discuss the results.  Way to be vague and freakishly passive Allyson!  If I was not freaked out before, this omissive comment sent me over the edge.  The appointment 10 days away (Dr. Bopp deserves a nice month long vacation too), and those 10 days were sufficient time to totally work myself into a complete dooms day scenario.  I have Josh join me for this appointment where I am convinced that he is going to tell us to stop all hope and effort, that it is all futile, my body will never carry a child to term.  Turns out, that was not at all what he was going to tell us, he said that he thought IUI was worth a shot and that we should do that at least 2 times then go for IVF.  So, from the kiddy pool we graduated to the American Crawl.  We are learning how to swim people!

Self fulfilled prophecy?

I am starting this blog to release all of these thoughts that are swimming in my head...drowning out all of the other thought that might bubble up if these thoughts were not there.  Josh, the husband, is dealing with this journey completely differently from me which is making it increasingly harder to digest.

When I am alone with my thoughts, when I start analyzing the road I took to get to this point, when I continue to over-think EVERYTHING, I usually end up at the same logical idea: is this a self fulfilled prophecy? 

1. When I was 17 I was told that my uterus was totally wack and that getting pregnant would be difficult.  Now, I was 17 and could not really care at that time in my life, but I tucked it away to bring back to the surface some 12 years later. (Dr. Bopp says this was ridiculous and would not effect my fertility)
2. When I was 20 I was told I had an overgrowth of bacteria in my vaginal cavity and that there was a possibility it traveled up my fallopian tubes and scared them making it difficult to get pregnant. (Dr. Bopp says this is crap and HIGHLY unlikely)
3. From the age of 17 to about 22 I was on the Depo-Provera birth control shot and after reading a few blogs on the shot's side effects (one being infertility) I stopped getting the injections.  It took 18 months for me to get my periods back. (Dr. Bopp could not lay to rest this fear.)

The shit of it is that even though I told Josh when we were still dating that I might not be able to conceive a child and it was an issue that I always acknowledged...up front about with him and to myself, I don't think that I ever really believed it.  Almost like I was planning for the worst but never really expected the worst to actually happen.  I know this because after 3 years of "not preventing" pregnancy and then being classified as having a "fertility" problem, I was pretty much devastated, and in a state of denial and shock.  But...STILL...did not really accept the fact that we would not have a baby...that I would not be pregnant.  A little insight into my current psyche, I still do not believe this.  Which, might be my undoing if this saga does not result in the ever elusive baby Judd.  Hope is a tricky thing...when do you know when you have crossed the line over to delusional?  For now though, I think that I reside safely on the side of healthy, optimistic HOPE!