The Situation...

..No, I am not talking about the Jersey Shore (I can proudly and honestly say I have never watched a single episode) I am talking about our situation, Winship and mine, with fertility!  I thought a lot about whether or not I wanted to blog about this whole ordeal and I came to the conclusion, (well obviously) that I did...

Here's why: I have learned that for me talking about things makes me feel better about them.
I don't know if it is because I become more comfortable with the idea of it by actually hearing myself talk about it or because telling people that I love and care about what I am going through makes me feel like I am not going at it alone, probably both! Anyhow, I have realized that for me talking is therapeutic, so I figure... blogging would be as well!

Here is the story up till now: (brace yourself, it's a long one!)
After we got home from our honeymoon I was almost 3 weeks late (yikes) so naturally we thought I was preggo; Hello Honeymoon Baby!!! I of course finally let myself get excited and took a pregnancy test that obviously came out negative. :(  Adding insult to injury I "started" like an hour after taking it, LAME! (maybe a little TMI, sorry!)

Originally, Winship and I didn't plan on "trying" to get pregnant so soon after getting married, we had figured we would have a year of just enjoying being married and then we would give it a go.  But after the false sense of excitement over the possibility of me being pregnant (Winship would literally talk to my stomach every night hoping and thinking there was a baby in there, when all it was was my dinner! ha ha ) and  realizing we were both super disappointed to find out that we weren't, we decided: What the heck, Let's Try! Wow, is all I can say, I am so glad and grateful that we did!

It was in October that we decided to start "trying". After a few months with no luck we learned something about Winship that gave us cause to worry. He went to a Urologist and they recommended that he get a semen analysis. After seeing his results his urologist told Winship that is wasn't great, he was very vague but more or less told Winship that we had a less than a 25% chance of getting pregnant naturally in a year...Well, that clearly isn't great odds but it is still not terrible, right! However, I just had this gut feeling that we should see a fertility specialist and see what they had to say.  Since we already had reason to worry we were able to make an appointment with a fertility specialist to have them look at his results. Usually they won't take you unless you have been trying to conceive for over a year or the woman in over 35.  So I scheduled an appointment at Shady Grove Fertility for an initial consult to see what they thought about his results and was hoping there were some simple things we could do that could help.

The week of our appointment comes and Winship gets called to be a Juror, (D*mn Civic Duty) and he is not able to go the appointment with me.  We decided not to reschedule (the appointments book up fast and I didn't want to wait another month to hear what they had to say) so I went to the consult alone.

Poor Dr., is all I have to say.
We sit down in his office, he looks at our charts and then sympathetically asks me if my husband will be joining us? Nope Jury Duty...
He break right into Winship's Semen Analysis and pretty nonchalantly tells me that with numbers like this we have basically a less than 5% chance of getting pregnant on our own.  That the first step fertility treatments would be a waste of time, energy and money for us. That we will need to go straight into IVF (invitro fertilization) and ICSI.  At this point I have still managed to keep my composure...The Dr. then goes into explaining the process by drawing diagrams of the procedures I will undergo and a time line of how it works and throwing out numbers of typical cost!

I was overwhelmed to say the very least and bust into tears. The Dr. patiently and very kindly sat with me handing me tissue after tissue and did his best to make me feel better. He said a few things that have stuck with me. The first was that I have every right to be sad and even mad. The second was, that he promised me I WILL HAVE A BABY!!!!

After I finally regained my composure, he continued to tell me more about the procedure and our options and where we go from there.  He kept telling me how I was lucky because I am still young and that I have time on my side. That so often he has to tell women that they have to act NOW if they ever want to get pregnant. He told me to take some time to fully accept and understand what I am about to be going through, discuss it all with my husband and come up with a game plan. He then gave me a list of tests that I needed to have done in the meantime. 

I went forward with all the tests the Dr asked me to get done: Blood Work(came back all normal), Internal Ultra Sound,which was really cool, they stuck a camera inside me to look at everything to make sure it all looked good. They showed me on the monitor my Uterus (looked good) and my Ovaries where they were looking for follicles to see how many I had (which also looked good, I had 9 in one and 8 in the other so 17 total. 10 total is normal so i was above that Yay!)  and finally the HSG Test, which is where they put a catheter in you and then shoot blue dye in your female parts and take an X-ray to make sure it goes all the right places and that my Uterus was the correct shape. I was really nervous about this test because I had heard it could be really painful and well it just sounded scary. Luck for me it wasn't too bad at all. It was really weird to be able to feel the dye going in and moving inside me. There was definitely some pressure and cramps but it only lasted a short while. Then after they were done they showed me on the screen the dye going inside me and my Uterus filling up and then it going into my Fallopian Tubes, it was neat. I had just felt it happening and then I was seeing it, technology is pretty cool!

Everything looked great, all my parts were the right shapes and no blockages :) To be honest this was bitter sweet for me.  I now knew that I was all good, healthy and my female parts were all in good working condition, yay! Unfortunately, that didn't change anything. I still had to go through this whole process to have a baby! I know I know, it didn't make it worse which getting bad results could have, and I am grateful for that.  But it was weird that the good news didn't make our situation any better...

Anyways...now we just have to wait for our follow up appointment with our doctor to go over everything again and then decided when we will start this whole process...
It is overwhelming and scary to think and learn about what they will be doing with my body.  But honestly I am just anxious to get this show on the road,  i want to start the process and see how it is instead of thinking and worrying about how it might be.

I of course will keep you posted on how it all goes and what the doctor says at our next appointment (which annoyingly isn't until April 14th).

I really do feel blessed that we found out what we did when we did and that we didn't go for years trying to conceive without any luck, only to find out years down the line that this was the road we would need to take.

This whole process has already taught me to have more patience and that what i have "planned" for my life isn't necessarily what the Lord has planned.  I need to just trust and have faith that it will all work out. I know that it is going to be a scary and intense experience, but one that will only make me and Winship grow stronger as individuals and more importantly as a couple. I can only imagine that it will only make us love, appreciate and be even more grateful for our child, that I KNOW we will have one day! :)

Thank you so much for everyone's love and support already, you have no idea how much it means to me!


Well, that is all I have to say about that...for now! :)


After all that writing I need some sort of picture...so here is my little baby boy for now, Henry!