We talked about it several times and we decided to wait a little while.
Well February 2009 I went off my birth control. This was it! I had been on The Pill since I was 17 and rarely did I get a period. So when I stopped taking it I figured it wouldn't be long before it started. Well it was over two months and no period. So I went to see my OB who gave me some Provera and told me that my period would come and to try and track my temperature. So I did just that.
The Provera made my period show and then it was over 60 days without another period and no shift in temperature showing ovulation. I went back to the OB and that is when we started to look into other things. We did a couple rounds of Clomid to try and help me ovulate and nope, that didn't work at all...
So while we kept trying higher doses of Clomid my OB decided to do a hysterosalpingogram to check to make sure my tubes were clear in case we were able to get me to ovulate. The procedure was painful. My OB was having a hard time getting the catheter to stay in and I was watching the x-ray screen and not seeing the dye the injected move through my tubes like I had seen online. After about 30 minutes my OB gave up and said that she wasn't sure if I had a uterine septum or a bicornuate uterus. The next step was to go for an MRI to determine what was going on.
Of course I Googled everything and scared myself to death.
I had the MRI done and it was determined I had a uterine septum. In October of 2009 I met with a fertility specialist who was going to perform the removal of the septum at UCONN. And the surgery was done. It wasn't a bad experience and I was happy to be seen by a specialist. Maybe he could get me to ovulate. We tried Clomid once more. Then we tried Femara. Still nothing was working...
Then we moved on to injectable medication. This scared me to death. But our first injectable cycle on Follistim it worked!! I ovulated one lone egg!! We did IUI and, alas we did not get pregnant. But we were hopeful!! The next cycle was in February 2010, one year had gone by and we were doing another round of Follistim. This cycle I did not respond well. I did over 30 days of injections with no response. We cancelled the cycle.
The next cycle we tried again but we decided to do a combination cycle of Clomid and Follistim, one to keep costs down, and two to hope the Clomid would wake the follicles up and hope the Follistim would make them take off! We ended up with yet one follicle and another negative pregnancy test at the end.
Right before we did this cycle, Todd was presented with the opportunity to relocate due to his job. After careful thought and consideration we decided to make the move from Connecticut to Colorado Springs, Colorado!
We decided to take a break from trying to conceive with a fertility specialist until we could settle into our new life 2,000+ miles away. Low and behold I didn't get my period for 122 days. Wonderful sign right?? All pregnancy tests were negative.
So we finally get to Colorado in September 2010. Todd got settled into his job and I settled into mine. We ended up building a house and I finally decided I was ready to get back on the wagon.
I first needed to find a new doctor. The first guy I met I did not like. He wouldn't do ANYTHING until I lost 50 pounds. No tests or nothing!! So I moved on and found another office associated with the University of Colorado. I love this office. The doctors, nurses and staff are amazing!
My new RE (reproductive endocrinologist) started by rerunning a bunch of tests and blood work. She also wanted to rerun the HSG test. I wondered why and she wanted to make sure the septum was removed well enough.
So back to the x-ray room and this HSG was much less painful but still showed a significant amount of tissue remaining. We decided it would be best to go in for a second surgery to try and remove the remaining tissue. During the procedure (which took place at the hospital in Aurora, CO) they did another HSG to remove any blockages from my tubes. Two weeks later they did ANOTHER HSG and lo' and behold my uterus was damn near perfect!!
Because I was not ovulating my RE allowed me to start injections immediately and surprisingly it showed I had three follicles that were going to release eggs! This had never happened to me before!! What a great response!!!
We went ahead with our first IUI here and Colorado and were blessed with a positive pregnancy test!! It was a miracle!!!
At our first ultrasound we were about 6 weeks along and my RE was awfully quiet. She said quietly there were two babies and they were in the same sac. Identical twins! The scary part is she could see no separation between them. Which could cause a higher risk and premature birth.
What a miracle! Out of the three eggs one of them became fertilized and split to create identical twins! We were thrilled!
To read more about my pregnancy visit my other tab on Tobin and Miles.
After the loss of my boys, I took several months off to grieve and regroup. Todd and I spent time talking about what to do next time. During my break it was amazing to find out that for the first time I started to ovulate on my own. We tried one cycle naturally but it didn't work out for us. So we went back to the RE.
We decided to go back to IUI and try again. We ended up doing 3 more IUIs with natural cycles in between with no positive results.
How frustrating that it happened so easily the first time and now it wasn't working. Todd and I sat down and had a long conversation about IVF. This was not an easy decision to make and it wasn't a cheap one either. We thought about the money we threw away every IUI cycle for a 15-20% chance of success. Why wouldn't we shell out the big bucks for a 55% chance of success? With a generous loan from a family member, we had our IVF consult with my RE in September of 2012. She said first thing first is I had to lose 20 pounds and once I had they could start the testing.
I went on an alkaline diet and lost my 20 pounds over the course of the next month. My RE had already approved my case with the IVF board and the University of Colorado and we were able to move forward with a November IVF cycle.
We managed to retrieve 21 eggs, of which 17 were fertilized through ICSI. We did a 5 day transfer of two blastocysts, and had 6 leftover to freeze. We have been blessed with twins yet again, this time a little boy and a little girl due Summer 2013. Hoping to make it as far as possible but I know this time we are going to make it to the end and bring these two home.
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