In an effort to protect privacy, all names and identities in this book have been altered; therefore, any similarity to a real person or character is coincidental.
The author’s information is not designed to take the place of medical advice from a trained, licensed professional, and the author assumes no responsibility for any actions taken after reading this book.
Copyright 2011 by Marie Robichaud
Published by Marie Robichaud at Smashwords
Cover by Rita Toews
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you.
Dedicated to Martin, my Rock, and to my many anonymous friends on the High FSH Support Forum, who mean more to me than they’ll ever know.
Part One - Can’t Catch A Break
Chapter 1 - The Impossible Dream
Chapter 2 - At This Point, All Seemed Possible
Chapter 3 - I Find Out Quickly That All Is Not Possible
Chapter 4 - Infertility, The Early Years
Chapter 5 - Feeling Desperate, We Turn To The Fertility Clinic
Chapter 6 - At Last, A Diagnosis, But One I Wish I’d Never Heard
Chapter 7 - A Brief Return To The Organic Approach, Then Back To The Fertility Clinic
Chapter 8 - Two Depressing Rounds of IVF
Part Two - Coming Out Of My Slump
Chapter 9 - My Salvation: The High FSH Chat Room (Also My 3rd IVF)
Chapter 10 - The Final Year, But It’s Really A Brand New Start
Chapter 11 - A Complicated Side Story: Immune Issues
Chapter 12 - Finally I Am Ready For The Expert, But First Another FSH Level
Chapter 13 - Disastrous FSH Results, Yet A Resolve To Move Forward
Chapter 14 - At Long Last, A Meeting With The Illustrious Doctor
Chapter 15 - A Slight Detour To Mexico
Chapter 16 - Preparing Practically And Emotionally For The Fourth And Final IVF Cycle
Chapter 17 - Another Godforsaken Test Needed First
Chapter 18 - The Devastating Results From That Test
Chapter 19 - Please, Not The FSH Level Again!
Chapter 20 - Who Is Going To Fix Me?
Chapter 21 - A Potential Repairman, Or Maybe Not
Chapter 22 - Another Potential Repairman...Jackpot!
Chapter 23 - My Surgery Is Set, Or Is It?
Chapter 24 - A Back-Up Plan Set Into Motion
Chapter 25 - My Surgery Is Quick And Successful
Chapter 27 - Another Detour South of the Border
Chapter 28 - A Trying Thanksgiving
Chapter 29 - The Early Days Of My Fourth IVF: Everything’s Going Great
Chapter 30 - The First Ultrasound Of The Cycle: Not Good
Chapter 31 - Subsequent Ultrasounds: Really Not Good
Chapter 32 - The Egg Retrieval
Chapter 33 - The Fertilization Results: Not Great; Thoughts Return To Adoption
Chapter 34 - The Embryo Transfer
Chapter 35 - An Uncertain Christmas
Chapter 36 - The Best Day-After-Christmas Present Ever!
Chapter 38 - They’re Still There!
Chapter 39 - Two New Red Sox Fans
Can't Catch A Break
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Chapter 1 - The Impossible Dream
Hailing from Boston, Massachusetts, I am, not surprisingly, a baseball fan. You can’t call me a Pink Hat, otherwise known as a female fan who jumped on the Red Sox bandwagon in 2004, when our team, at long last, put together a World Series-winning season. I applaud those women with their pink hats and shirts, as I think, “Better late than never,” but I am different from them.
My allegiance to the team goes way back to the early 1970’s when I was a toddler and fell in love with the likes of Jim Rice, Fred Lynn and Carl Yasztremski. Yasztremski’s biography was my choice for a school book report when I was 10. I even played hookie from grammar school on one occasion to catch an early afternoon playoff game between the Red Sox and their arch enemies, the New York Yankees.
Given that kind of resume, I hope you won’t begrudge me a few, brief baseball references in this chapter as I turn your attention toward something more serious, namely, my seemingly endless, painstaking struggle with and eventual conquering of a doomsday infertility diagnosis.
It was December 2006, when I embarked on a fourth in-vitro fertilization (“IVF”) procedure. In deciding to abuse myself once again and endure yet another one of these potentially heartbreaking endeavors, the larger part of me thought, “Are you crazy?! You have three strikes against you; you’re already out.”
The first strike was one you might be able to argue – a low, called strike on the inside corner, for example. That was my age of 38. Certainly women had succeeded in conceiving both naturally and through assisted means at age 38 and far beyond that. The second and third strikes will clarify, however.
The second strike, a big swing and a miss (no arguing there), was my follicle stimulating hormone (“FSH”) level of 25. This hormone level will be explained in more detail, but, suffice to say, it turned my chronological age of 38 into a reproductive age of approximately 46. Not ideal.
The third strike was another enormous swing and a miss, the kind taken by Red Sox slugger David Ortiz that nearly knocks him off his feet; and that was the length of time my husband and I had been at this conception business: five and one-half years without a hint of success.
So, what on earth was I doing, putting my heart, soul and pocketbook on the line again to be met with almost certain disappointment? Well, that is the story I want to tell you.
In case there is anything you can take from my experience, I want you to know how I was misdiagnosed and, what I’ll call, “underdiagnosed” for so many years. I want you to know about the endless research I was forced to conduct in order to have my myriad of fertility issues brought to the surface and treated.
I want you to know how the doctors, instead of focusing on those issues, zeroed in on this FSH level of mine and ignored most everything else. I want you to know how many doctors I had to consult with as a result, how many letters I had to write, how many phone calls I had to make, how many fights I had to have with insurance agents and doctors’ offices. I want you to know about the mind-numbing frustration I endured for far too long.
I also want you to know that I ultimately found a life-saving forum of women who educated me on my fertility issues and directed me to two brilliant doctors who made all of the difference: one who performed a surgical procedure that corrected many of my previously undiagnosed problems, and one who presided over my fourth IVF procedure. And, most importantly, I want you to know that it was worth every moment.
For many chronically infertile women, a pregnancy comes out of the clear blue sky after one has just about given up. I find such stories to be wonderfully inspiring, but my story is different. For me, it was work, work, work. It was researching, analyzing, negotiating, bargaining, handling more setbacks than I could have possibly imagined, and, in the end, trusting and finally succeeding.
I’ll fast forward to Opening Day for the Red Sox on April 2, 2007, my final baseball story. As I stood, a spectator at Fenway Park, I realized I was about to hear what I determined to be my theme song during this trying period, “The Impossible Dream.”
It just so happened that during these April 2007 Red Sox Opening Day pre-game festivities, the club was honoring the 40th anniversary of their 1967 Impossible Dream Team, and I chuckled to think how much this team and I had in common.
After eight consecutive, miserable losing seasons and a 1966 season when they finished a half game out of last place in their league, the bookies in Las Vegas gave the 1967 Red Sox team a 100 to 1 shot to win the American League pennant. Yes, those odds sounded familiar to me. I was given about the same chance of conceiving a baby by most of my doctors. Yet, somehow, this 1967 team worked long and hard, rallied and put together a season that fans still talk about to this day, winning that elusive pennant for the first time in 21 years.
As I stood at Fenway Park on Opening Day in April 2007, I looked down at my shirt, a present from a good friend given to me a couple of weeks before. It was a blue Red Sox shirt with a big white baseball on the belly and the words underneath it “Future Fan.” I bought a letter “s” from the local fabric store to iron onto this shirt at the end of the word “Fan,” for I needed that “s” to accurately describe my condition.
Then my happy tears flowed, as I listened to the lyrics rising through the air, speaking of foes, sorrow, wrongs, hopelessness, quests, striving. And I wistfully recalled my own struggle that I will reveal to you.
Chapter 2 - At This Point, All Seemed Possible
On August 26, 2000, I married a prince of a man named Martin.
Prior to meeting Martin in December 1996, my life was filled with sadness. I longed for a family of my own, probably more than most, due in part to my miserable upbringing, which, suffice to say, included nearly every dysfunction suffered by the most dysfunctional of families.
A reprieve came in college, when I enjoyed four fun-filled years away from the chaos of home. Once college was over, however, I was left with a real sense of loss and an intense desire to settle down with a husband and children. When I look back, I realize I would have been far too young and financially unstable for such life events. I wonder at times, though, if somehow I instinctively knew I needed to get started early because, if I did not, the struggle to conceive would prove close to unbearable.
For whatever reason, life happened to throw at me one loser after another in both college and throughout my 20’s. Not until I was 28 did I meet Martin, who was a complete breath of fresh air – so different, so polished, so kind, so accomplished, and, best of all, such a genuinely good person. My life really opened up at that point, and everything changed drastically for the better. Finally there was something to celebrate in my sad, tattered family.
My engagement and subsequent marriage to Martin made not only me, but my mother and brother, feel “normal” and made us believe that our lives were at long last taking a different turn. From here on, things would be better, we felt. No more walking under black clouds.
Martin and I were of the same mind on many issues, and certainly children were a priority for both of us. We felt we had to wait several months until our wedding was paid off before we could try to conceive in earnest. I was 31 at the time and Martin 29, so we figured we could afford the luxury of waiting a bit.
When we were deep into our infertility woes, we regretted waiting even those few months.
Chapter 3 - I Find Out Quickly That All Is Not Possible
I remember starting out on the road to conceive a baby with Martin vividly. The rhythm method worked quite well for us during the 10 months we waited, but that didn’t worry me. I thought, “I just really know how to pick the right and wrong days.” My cycle was so regular that I figured I had this whole thing down pat, and the month I wanted things to change… boom, they would!
So, we gave ourselves the all-clear in June 2001, and I was full of anticipation, planning for the time of year when the baby would be born, thinking of names, trying to figure out what I’d do with my career – either stay at the law firm where I was currently working to take advantage of their generous maternity policy, or attempt a move over to the Juvenile Court system, where I would have more flexibility but far fewer benefits and pay. Or maybe I would want to be a stay-at-home mother? The options appeared plentiful, and it all seemed completely under my control.
With my very regular cycle, I could count on my most fertile days falling on the last weekend in June 2001. Martin and I then tried to think of a mini vacation spot close by our home in Massachusetts to celebrate this special weekend when we would most surely conceive our first baby. For this respite, we settled on Montreal, a fairly short, five-hour ride from our home, which is located just north of Boston, Massachusetts.
The weekend was not only memorable because we had a wonderful time but also because we discovered that it was Canada Day on July 1, 2001, a Canadian patriotic holiday similar to our July fourth. Martin’s family roots are French Canadian, thus, the beginning date of our ordeal was entrenched in our memory.
Back in the summer of 2001, I was volunteering at a suicide prevention hotline, one of the most challenging but also rewarding assignments I’ve had in life. Those who call the hotline are rarely acutely suicidal but rather are incredibly lonely, depressed, often mentally ill individuals from all walks of life.
Two weeks after our trip to Montreal, I was manning my station at the hotline, fielding the most difficult of phone calls. Halfway into my time there, I took a ladies’ room break and discovered in the stall that I may not have complete control over this impending parenthood thing after all.
It was a rude awakening, this knowledge that I was not pregnant, and I was surprisingly, positively crushed. I cried and cried in the ladies’ room stall and lost all heart to speak to the desperate individuals on the other end of the phone, feeling such a heavy burden myself.
How naïve I was. If I ever knew what lay in store for Martin and me over the next five and one-half years, I might have been seeking the solace of the counselors myself!
Chapter 4 - Infertility, The Early Years
I would come to find out in time that I had one of the most dreaded of problems, a high FSH level, but Martin and I rode our first two years on the infertility roller coaster as unexplained infertiles.
Unexplained infertility is an exasperating diagnosis which left us with the internet to try and figure out what could be wrong, and we guessed and wondered from July 2001 until October 2003. I recall longing during my unexplained infertility days for a specific diagnosis. When I received the news of my high FSH, however, I wished for anything but.
We first went to a so-called specialist in October 2001, to whom we lied and said that we had been trying to conceive for six months, when it had really only been three. I just had such a strong feeling that something was amiss; I didn’t want to wait the requisite amount of time to start questioning professionals about it. In response, this Health Maintenance Organization (“HMO”) doctor, who was the only one our former health insurance plan would allow us to see, said, “It takes a year to have a baby.”
Even though I had just turned 33 at the time, the doctor did not want to do any further testing on me. He did, however, have his nurse talk to us for about 20 minutes and provide us with the most basic of information that I had already read three times over on the internet about temperature taking, cervical mucus, etc.
I also had some blood drawn during this visit and was told all of the results were normal. And, wouldn’t you know it, these results included a supposedly normal FSH level. The HMO doctor ordered my FSH level taken at the wrong time of the month, however, so that the results were useless.
I’d come to learn that the FSH level, one of the hormone levels most crucial to the conception process, needs to be tested on Days 2-4 of a woman’s menstrual cycle. Mine was instead taken on approximately Day 20 and proclaimed normal. Over time, I heard from dozens of other women whose doctors made similar mistakes, as there are many who know little about the importance of testing FSH.
The Allure of the All-Natural Approach
After finishing up with the HMO, our quest for a baby continued privately as we grappled with this supposed unexplained infertility diagnosis. I began buying book after book in an attempt to diagnose myself and ended up becoming excited by the theories of many more so-called specialists, who will claim to have the cure to infertility. And they will share this cure with you, all for a not-so-modest fee.
What drew me to the organic, all-natural approach I initially chose, was that it appeared healthy, and I felt that if I cleansed and treated my system with supplements, vitamins and organic food, as suggested in several books, and also filled up my schedule with the acupuncture treatments, acupressure, yoga and relaxation exercises that went along with this new lifestyle, how could I go wrong?
Now, I believe those that say this approach is the cure for them and that they become pregnant within months following these types of regimens, but all these methods did for us was put a serious dent in our bank account.
Acupuncture, as it turns out, is $60 to $100 a session, and those who push it say you should ideally go four to five times per month. They also recommend at least one $80 to $100 massage per week, about six bottles of supplements per month at $30-$35 dollars a bottle, the consuming of all organic food, which will likely cost you at least $150 per week, and the purchasing of relaxation, yoga and tai chi DVD’s. Also, you are welcome to go on a “retreat” where you can learn more about these methods and receive in-depth diagnoses.... all for the mere price of $3000 to $9000!
I tried to go to acupuncture sessions a couple of times a month, always racing from my job to catch the train there, then running from the train stop to the acupuncturist, arriving 10 minutes late, sweating and exhausted each time. On the way back, I’d race to and from the train again, thinking all the while about my overflowing voice and e-mail boxes, so that I arrived back at my office more stressed than when I left.
I tried to cut some corners with the supplements as well so as not to go broke. I told myself, “This one can count for two purposes, and that one can count for three.” While taking the supplements, part of me remained nervous about what I was putting into my system. My thoughts would drift toward articles I’d read about the lack of oversight regarding the contents of these bottles.
Instead I’d try to think positively and would naively say to myself, “The people in this naturopathic industry appear so balanced and kind, how could they want anything but the best for their customers? How then could they ever put anything but the proper amount of ingredients into these pills?” Desperation can bring along with it a head-in-the-sand type of approach.
So, I also bought all of the DVDs mentioned above and actually found these to be the only bargain, as I was able to make a one-time purchase and do all the stretches, relaxation and other exercises out of my home and on my own time.
The Mind/Body Class
In addition to the activities related above, I also enrolled in a Mind/Body class, which I hoped would strengthen my emotional/physical connection, encourage me to think positively, help me relax and inspire me to continue with this wholesome, all-natural approach toward fertility. For all of this I had to shell out another nearly $600.
The statistics from the program appeared impressive, with something like 80% of participants eventually conceiving either naturally or through assisted reproductive technology (“ART”). I was thus inspired to stick it out.
The program was split over about 10 weeks and was all fine and good, but, looking back, I realize I should have just bought another relaxation tape for $8 and saved myself $592.
Each Tuesday night, I would dash from work to the facility where the program was held, trying to get there for the 5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. group therapy portion but never making it. I would have to bring snacks for everyone, with this talk of snacks and who was bringing what taking up the first 15 minutes of each session. I’d have to make sure the snacks were healthy; then go about getting plates, utensils, etc., lugging everything to and from the program site. I remember even having one of the participants shove some grapes I’d brought toward me, saying, “Marie, these aren’t properly washed.” Shame on me!
Besides the group therapy session, a different relaxation technique was taught each week of this Mind/Body program along with an information session about diet, stress, etc. and their effects on fertility. All good stuff, yes, but nothing I hadn’t already read in books or on the internet many times over.
We also reviewed cognitive behavioral therapy techniques in an attempt to ward off depression, and we’d perform role-playing and other exercises, with the facilitator trying the entire time to get us to admit that getting pregnant was not the important thing. Instead we were told, “You must learn to live with whatever happens.” I knew she was right, but getting pregnant remained the goal for me.
The most vivid memory I have of the program is the writing sample we were asked to produce. I had always wanted to document this “journey” (journey being a corny name that folks such as the program facilitator choose to label the misery that is infertility) but never had the time or the energy to do the journaling while I was on the journey.
I instead had to reserve all of my spare time for scouring the internet in an attempt to diagnose myself and figure out our best course of action. I also had to save all of my energy for celebrating the fertility successes of my friends, relatives and colleagues, leaving no time or energy for self-reflection.
Only when I came out of the darkness, did I find myself able to write at length about my experience, but the tremendous angst I once felt had dissipated, so I often found it difficult to accurately describe the agony that one suffers along the way. It all came rushing back to me in seconds, however, upon finding the above-mentioned writing sample.
I was only two years into the process at the time of the exercise; still the bitterness, the stress, the mind-numbing frustration, and the gut-wrenching sadness were palpable from reading the one long paragraph I came across that was meant to describe my hopes and fears at the time. It highlighted for me what a truly brutal journey it is that we are asked to endure as infertile individuals.
Chapter 5 - Feeling Desperate, We Turn To the Fertility Clinic
On the Same Page and Lucky Enough to Have Insurance
After giving the naturalistic, holistic path the old college try for a good year, I became fed up, and we became increasingly broke, so I figured Martin and I better turn back toward western medicine.
It probably sounds like I am leading the charge, and Martin is just along for the ride, but he played a crucial role in the journey as well. Lucky for me, I was supported by an incredible husband, who made these years much easier to take than they otherwise would have been.
Martin is a typical man in many ways, and, as such, did not involve himself in the research of the medical issues contributing to the infertility (I’ve heard of very few husbands/partners who do), but he was there to hear ideas, redirect me, keep me focused, and keep me from tearing every last hair out of my head.
I know that many in this situation are not so fortunate and instead have to deal with anything from ambivalence, to snide comments made out of frustration, to lives that drift apart and end in separation. My heart truly goes out to those women.
My heart also goes out to those who have to pay out of their pocket for infertility expenses, as it turns out that insurance plans in the majority of states will not cover infertility tests and procedures. If one is lucky and has a fairly benign problem, the costs can likely be limited to less than $10,000, but I’ve heard of couples spending as much as $150,000 of their own money when try after try is needed for success. Martin and I were spared this extra burden because we live in one of the states where the tests and procedures are covered pretty much in full.
For these reasons, it was easy for us to make the switch from eastern back to western medicine. Martin was always comfortable with all of the procedures we had read about, but I was not.
You’d think I was raised in the Christian Scientist religion the way I was completely paranoid about putting infertility or “stimulant” medications into my system. But these substances, that are designed to basically play with the brain, pituitary gland, and ovaries in an effort to make them work better, scared the life out of me. And I knew the medications were just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaking of religion, I am not a Christian Scientist but a Catholic, raised by a mother who was in a convent for two years, thinking her vocation was to be a nun. The ramifications of some of these procedures, most notably the destruction of embryos during the IVF process, consequently filled me with loads of Catholic guilt.
Lastly, I feel that I have a high pain tolerance, but the idea of being poked and prodded in such a delicate area was very disturbing to me. For all of these reasons, I struggled with the idea of turning back to traditional medicine. But turn back we did.
First Invasive Test – The Hysterosalpingogram
My first procedure after reconnecting with an obstetrician (“OB”) was a test of my fallopian tubes called a hysterosalpingogram. This procedure involves a colored dye being shot up through the cervix into the uterus, and the aim is for the dye to come dripping out of both fallopian tubes, thus proving them to be unblocked. The test also examines the shape of the uterine cavity.
I am the type who likes to know what’s coming, so I kept asking the doctor and the nurse if the dye was already shot into me, and I thought I got a “Yes” out of one of them, but the next second I was gripping the sides of the table with all my might from the intense pain coursing through my body.
Later down the road, I found out that the amount of pain caused during this procedure is directly proportional to the technique of the doctor, and this OB, while a kind man, was about as gentle as a grizzly bear. (I did have another one of these tests five years later with a different practitioner, and it was virtually pain-free.)
Even through the pain of this particular test, I could see the OB communicating by eye contact with the radiologist behind the glass who was watching my insides on a film. They both seemed to frown a little, as it turned out that the dye wasn’t spilling out readily from one tube in particular. Eventually it did, though, so they professed me to be fine.
This little episode came back to haunt me later, and it turned out over time that my tubes were anything but fine.
My OB informed me at a subsequent visit that, because I was “fine,” there wasn’t anything more he could do for me, and I would thus have to enter the world of reproductive endocrinology and fertility clinics.
The Dreaded Meeting with the RE
I was happy to leave the OB and his waiting room filled with content-looking pregnant women behind, as it was all I could do to hold back the tears while I was waiting to be called in for my appointments, thinking all the time, “What am I doing here, when he has ‘real’ patients to tend to?” However, I absolutely, positively dreaded the idea of putting my body in the hands of a fertility clinic.
This is certainly not to demonize fertility clinics and the reproductive endocrinologists (“REs”) who I know have the best of intentions. It primarily comes down to my aforementioned fear of medication and my mother’s words ringing in my ears that fertility doctors do the devil’s work.
Of course, my mother was not savvy enough to know about the many more benign, simple procedures that involve no destruction of embryos. She did know about IVF (or IFV, IBF, as she would sometimes mistakenly refer to it) and warned me against the “evil-doers” who perform this work.
This potential destruction of embryos weighed heavily on my mind, along with the idea that I’d be shooting myself with drugs, possibly giving myself cancer (this is just a fear of mine, and no connection between fertility drugs and cancer in women has been proven), and submitting to more painful procedures.
Martin, who is also Catholic, agreed to look on the internet for the Catholic Church’s position on assisted reproductive treatments. The information we read was actually quite supportive, and the main message I took away was that the church wasn’t ready to condone IVF procedures but did not forbid some of the other, less-invasive procedures.
More importantly, there was a touching message throughout the readings about the cross infertile couples are asked to bear. The church leaders admit that they cannot fully understand but can imagine how difficult it must be. There was also the definite implication that we had to make up our own minds about how we should proceed and that whatever plan we came up with would likely be the right course of action for us.
So, the time had come to book at least our initial appointment with the fertility clinic close by. The first visit with our assigned RE took place in late June 2003, during which time we went over our histories for the umpteenth time and were told nothing was wrong. OK, then why had we not conceived in two years?
This is where the frustration from the unexplained infertility diagnosis comes in. Again, however, this frustration is nothing compared to the frustration and torment that accompany the high FSH diagnosis I would receive in a few short months.
Three Rounds of Clomid and Two IUIs
This RE first suggested trying the drug Clomid with “relations,” a very polite word for sex. So there would be nothing invasive during this first month. Clomid is a drug that tricks your brain and ovaries into producing more eggs than usual. In my case, with my particular dosage, I would ideally release about four eggs from my ovaries instead of one, thereby increasing our chances of the sperm connecting with and fertilizing one of those eggs.
The first month we tried this was August 2003. Though it was only one pill a day I had to take for about six days, I felt like I was ingesting poison. Little did I know how many drugs I’d be not only ingesting, but injecting, over the next three years!
We did as we were told, and I had a couple of vaginal ultrasounds at the clinic along the way, showing that I was, in fact, ripening about four follicles that would turn into eggs (some regrettably suffer from empty follicle syndrome, but I was lucky enough to avoid this).
I remember vividly a sinking feeling welling up a couple of weeks later when Martin and I were walking around a section of Boston, our minds otherwise occupied with thoughts of purchasing a condominium in this area, and suddenly I knew that this attempt at Clomid plus relations had failed as well.
When this gnawing feeling of futility snuck up on me, I tried to suppress it with logic, saying, “You’re just used to the failure; you have no proof this didn’t work. Stop being negative.” All the time, my instincts were telling me I was right, however.
The next two months, September and October 2003, brought more Clomid and two intrauterine inseminations (“IUIs”). The IUIs weren’t too bad and just involved a nurse placing a small plunger into my cervix and releasing some of Martin’s sperm that had been washed and cleaned in some centrifuge-like device to get the best little guys available. In this way, the finest of Martin’s sperm were optimally placed to meet my four or so eggs that were coming down the pike.
There was one shot required to complete this procedure, and I clearly remember getting the package of materials and especially the syringe that came with it. I threw a mini-fit at the sight of this package and needed Martin and his comedic antics (he does improvisational comedy in his spare time) to calm me down. It’s funny to think back on how bothered I was by this lonely, little syringe, when I ended up injecting myself with at least 50 more of them over the next few years.
The purpose of this particular syringe and medication was to trigger all of the follicles that had ripened on my ovaries so that the eggs would spring from those follicles and begin their journey down the fallopian tubes to meet the sperm that would be injected inside me in the next couple of days.
Another thing that makes me chuckle now is the way Martin and I were initially so paranoid at the thought of test tubes being mixed up and the wrong sperm being injected into me. Martin even called someone in the lab and asked for a complete account of where the sperm went and who handled it. He was fortunately connected with a very kind, patient employee from the lab who went over, point by point, their system of accounting for the correct sperm going to the correct individual.
I also found their system to be quite thorough. They were always checking wrist bands and confirming names, making us read the information on any bottle, syringe, or anything else that was needed for the process. They never appeared rushed or put upon. The nurses especially were very supportive and nurturing.
It’s remarkable how much we tried to control the process at the beginning and then let go of it over time. I guess you learn how little power you have, and, if a mistake is going to be made, it’s going to be made. Mistakes are in actuality very infrequently made in these types of situations from what I’ve read and been told. We came to realize that we had to trust the clinic staff members to do the right thing and expend our nervous energy in different ways.
Approximately 14 days after my first insemination took place, I got the aforementioned sinking feeling, then the dreaded phone call with the negative results. Second verse, same as the first.
After each procedure, I had about a two to five minute recap and how-do-we-go-forward discussion with the RE. The recap after my second failed IUI had an added bonus, something for which I was completely unprepared and which hit me like a ton of bricks: my doomsday diagnosis, my second strike against me – a high FSH level.
Chapter 6 - At Last, A Diagnosis, But One I Wish I’d Never Heard
It was October 2003 when my RE told me about my primary problem. I had high FSH, surely one of the last things a woman struggling to conceive wants to hear about. This diagnosis, I’d come to find out in time, would brand me a problem case, a hopeless case, a person that the fertility clinics wished would walk in the opposite direction.
My level was 14.9 at the time, but it would rise markedly from there. I hadn’t a clue what this meant, and my RE’s 10-second explanation didn’t shed much light. She only said, “I’m a bit worried about your ovarian reserve.” Again, whatever that meant.
As with all of the reproductive challenges I ended up having and the two or three-word definitions from the doctors that accompanied them, I consulted the internet for clarification.
My eyes widened and my jaw dropped upon reading the first site I encountered that explained my new and seemingly ominous diagnoses of high FSH and diminished ovarian reserve. It was filled with such dire doom and gloom. Angry tears spouted from my eyes before I knew it, even though I was in my office, where my boss or colleagues could have entered at any moment to chat.
Denial is a powerful agent in a person’s life, and I clung to it, thinking there was no way this one website was right about this godforsaken condition I was suddenly told I had. So, I frantically skimmed some more.
After reading through the seventh or eighth site generated by Google on the topic, resignation and despondency set firmly in, and I was actually crying out loud in near hysterics. Apparently, at age 34, I was on the fast track to menopause with little to no chance of conceiving!
Fortunately this call from the RE about my new diagnosis and my subsequent, frantic internet search took place close to 5:00 p.m., and nobody ended up entering my office, but I don’t think I would have cared if they did. I could only focus on the utterly miserable facts that lay before me in black and white on my computer screen. People were going to have to get used to coming into my office and seeing my tear-streaked face anyway in the years to come, so that day would have been a good warm-up.
I will need to explain this high FSH but will try to make the biology lesson short. FSH is one of the six hormones secreted by your pituitary gland, and its purpose during ovulation is to ripen a follicle on your ovary from which an egg will spring. Once this egg is released, it will travel down the fallopian tube, and, if you’re trying to conceive, it will ideally be fertilized by the waiting sperm, then continue traveling down the fallopian tube to the uterus, where it will implant, become an embryo, a fetus, and eventually a baby.
As women age, their egg supply dwindles, and it becomes harder for follicles (that will turn into eggs) to be stimulated by the FSH hormone. This happens to every woman as she grows older, but, for some, like me, it happens far too early. A way that the doctors think they can identify this dwindling of eggs (in other words, poor ovarian reserve) is by testing the FSH level.