Infertility is a word I never knew could apply to me. I remembered hearing it the first time as a child; a lady next door was trying to get pregnant and after awhile people started referring to her as barren, mule, etc.
As a young child I didn’t understand the full meaning of the word, all I knew at the time was that when I grew up, I wanted to have a child so that no one would let me feel the way the lady felt or that people would not talk disparagingly behind my back.
I had it all planned out in my mind. I would have a career by age 23, be married at age 25, would have a child by age 28, a house soon after and by the age of 40, and would be living comfortably.
Well things did not go exactly as planned, in other words not even close. Yes I started working at age 18, but the marriage part did not materialize until 21 years later, when I was 39 years old.
Yes I had suitors from ages 18 – 39, but just did not feel compatible and my primary focus was trying to build a career so that I wouldn’t had to depend on a “man” to look after me and my child in the event that the marriage did not work out. Guess I am just a realist – not all marriages last forever.
Well from age 26, I started to get pressured from family members, friends and colleagues about me not having a child. The subtle: so when am I going to get a grandchild, niece, nephew, cousin, god-daughter, to the outright, don’t you think it’s about time you have a child. My answer would always be the same, “when I find the right person, when I am married or when the time is right”. Those answers would satisfy them for awhile and then it would start all over again.
After I got engaged, well wishers would say, “Finally, now you can have a child because now you will be legally married”, and honestly I was looking forward to having a child myself. As fate would have it, I was not that lucky.
One year after being married I realized that something was awfully wrong, we weren’t using contraceptive and somehow I wasn’t getting pregnant.
Slowly my world started to collapsed, all kind of thoughts were going through my head, am I going to be labelled as barren, get those horrible stares etc. Is there something wrong with me or hubby dearest, will my marriage ends because I cannot have a child?, to be honest, the marriage ending part didn’t upset me that much, because I think that it would be only fair that if he wants a child badly and he isn’t open to the possibility of adoption, then it is only right for him to leave if he wanted to.
My biggest fear was the thought of “me” not able to give birth. Now the fight is on, I must find out the reason to my inability.
First my husband and I sat down and discussed the options. We decided to go to the doctor for a check up.
I remembered the doctor telling me at the time that I am still young, that I have nothing to worry about, that I should just relax and it would just happen naturally. This advice was given without me being checked out. Since the advice was coming from my family doctor, I said to myself fine, I’ll wait. In the meantime the doctor had my husband do a sperm count. His sperm count came back fine.
We tried for another year and a half and nothing happened. I went back to the doctor, explained my fears and was told again to give it time and to take a vacation which may help me to relax.
At that point I said to myself, I need a second opinion. The predicament was who I ask for advised. In those trying years, I felt the pressure from both sides mine and his. Case in point, I was at a dinner with my in-laws and my husband had recently bought me a used vehicle, his aunt husband goes; the time you guys spend buying cars you should be trying to make babies. I was about to ask him if he wanted to come do the job but I bit my lips.
When the doctor suggested that we wait, I went home, picked up a telephone directory and started flipping through the pages. I called a hospital in my area, was referred to a fertility clinic, call and booked an appointment and from that point, my medical journey to get pregnant began.
When I met with the gynaecologist for the consultation he told me that he is the best in the area, how he was able to get the majority of his patient pregnant and how fortunate I was to be referred to him because he can make it happen.
I was thinking, great, now I would be able to have a baby and how glad I am that I took it upon myself to make the call. He called the hospital and booked a time for me to have some type of lapararoscopy done.
The day of the test, it was a total disaster; he had some trainees with him and a technician to operate the machine. When he started to insert the catheter, I saw all the stars in the Milky Way; it was so painful that I start screaming for him to stop.
He stopped for awhile and tried to push the tube in, I heard the technician telling him that the tube wasn’t going in correctly; at that point he started pushing the catheter. I felt like I was going to pass out with pain, so I did the only thing I could think of and that was to reach down and pull the speculum out. When I did that, I heard him screaming for me to stop before I tore my inside out. During my ordeal, my husband was banging on the door when he heard me screaming. I felt weak, was bleeding but the pain was gone.
They showed me to the bathroom, let my husband inside and by the time my husband helped me clean up everyone disappeared. He left some note for me to come see him at his office immediately. We went and the first thing he said was, “I know you may not want to see me again because of what I put you through”, I thought, you are darn right. He prescribed some painkillers, I left and that was the last time I ever saw him.
After that traumatic experience, I seriously thought of just letting nature take its course, but after about six months, I was on the hunt again.
This time I called up a family member and asked if she knew of any good gynaecologist, she gave me the number of hers. When I called, I was told that I needed a referral. My family doctor called and the appointment was confirmed.
Of course I was apprehensive, I didn’t know what to expect. This time I asked a lot of questions about the procedure and was assured that he was going to do a dye treatment, it would be a day surgery and that I would be asleep the whole time. He asked why I waited so long and told me that I should have started when I was in my 20s and shouldn’t have waited for marriage. Again I bit my lips.
My surgery went fine, my tubes weren’t blocked but he found out that I have fibroids and endometrioses; I thought shooks, double whammy. I didn’t know exactly what those words meant so I went home, got online and start researching. My findings were disturbing. I learned that these are likely culprit plus the age factor.
The dreaded thought of my infertility drove me to semi-depression, what am I going to do? I allowed a few months to pass before I could bring myself to talk to anyone about it.
I called up a friend of mine and she suggested a surgeon/gynaecologist whom she believed is very good. It took awhile but finally an appointment was booked. Three weeks prior to me seeing him I realized that my period was two days late. I thought, this is strange but I will wait for another day just in case. The next day no period, so I went out and bought a pregnancy kit. I peed on it, close my eyes and waited for 2 minutes, when I took a peek, I almost did a somersault.
Was my eyes playing tricks on me or is that a definite plus sign, I held it up to the bathroom light, I took it outside for a better view from the sunlight and there it was, the positive sign. I was so excited that even if the house had fell down, it wouldn’t have mattered. I couldn’t wait until hubby dearest to come home. I guess the look on my face told him that something good had happened. When I told him, well actually showed him the stick, he was beside himself with joy. He lifted and spun me around. For the next day, he was making big plans for the baby.
...And then it happened. Two days after, I started to bleed, it started lightly at first and then my belly started hurting. At this point I started to panic.
My husband was outside with my parents because they were visiting with my sister and I was alone in the bedroom. I didn’t want to tell anyone but when the bleeding start getting heavier I told my sister.
Eventually I went to the hospital and like what seems like eternity waiting in emergency, I was finally ushered into a room, at that point I felt like I wanted to urinate, I went into the bathroom and while peeing, I heard a “plop”, I didn’t know what it was, just thought that maybe I wasn’t pregnant, just that my period was late and I had just passed out a blood clot.
When the doctor finally saw me, he ran some blood test, told me that based on the numbers, I am either just a few days into my pregnancy or that I am loosing the baby and that I should get another test done in seven days time. I went home feeling distraught knowing in my gut that I had miscarriage. The next day I peed on the stick and it was negative, went and did the test after the allotted time and it too was negative.
Although I was feeling desolate, I kept the appointment with the surgeon, holding onto the possibility that I may be able to get pregnant again.
He had me done blood test, X-rays, the whole nine yards, he also had my husband do sperm count etc.
When the results came back, he told me that I have to get the fibroids removed. Surgery was scheduled, by this time I was so accustomed to these procedures that it was no big deal as long as I will be asleep during the surgery.
After the surgery I stayed in the hospital for about three days, everyone one was really nice but I felt like I want to go home. I was released and was told to visit his office for a check up after six weeks. I went to see him and was told that he would be referring me to a fertility clinic.
When I went to the clinic, they ran different blood test, did various examination, checked to see if I am ovulating and the size of my eggs. Again my age was suggested as a factor as to why my eggs were small. I was given different fertility medication for hormones and some to increase my eggs. After months of treatment they suggested invitro. I thought about it but the price blew the wind out of me. The chance of me having a baby seems a distant hope.
I spent nights just laying in bed thinking and blaming myself, thinking that maybe the doctor was right, maybe I shouldn’t have waited to get married first, maybe I should have being promiscuous, maybe I should have started having sex early so that I could use contraceptives so that I wouldn’t have endometrioses.
All those maybes were floating in my head. For months I blamed myself until finally I stopped. Self blame wasn’t going to solve the problem, so I did what I did best, I jumped online and start to research. I looked up various ways to increase my chances, from lifestyle, health, everything. I looked at traditional and unconventional remedies. I called clinics from different provinces in Canada to different States in the USA. I was on a mission and finally I found it.
A simple eBook that teaches me what to do, I read the book from cover to cover in two days flat. After reading it, I said to myself. I am going to try some of the advice just to see if it is a fake. For two weeks nonstop I did what was suggested. When I started to menstruate at the end of the trial period, I went back to the fertility clinic for them to test the size of my eggs.
When the result came back they couldn’t believe how big my eggs were and that was only day 2, by day 5 they were completely blown away and wanted to know what is was taking.
Now I have a new outlook on life and know that once I stick to the advice in the eBook, then there is a possibility that my dream will come through.
For more information on getting a copy of this book, feel free to email me. I didn’t write the book, I found out about it online but what I can say is that I tried one of the suggestions and not only was I pleasantly surprised but the doctor and nurses at the fertility clinic were as well.
Now whenever I hear the word Infertility, what comes to mind? A courageous female, who has tried or is trying her hardest to conceive, if she is successful, more power to her and if not yet, then baby dust her way.
