Well my TTC story starts waaaaaay back in early 2001…
My now XH asked me to marry him and we set a date for the end of 2001. I had been so clucky for so many years, that I immediately made plans to come off the pill many months before the wedding so that my body would be ready to fall pg. XH was paranoid about me falling pg early, so we compromised on how early I could come off the pill (5 months) and I went along to get a diaphragm fitted so as to avoid pg before wedlock at all costs.
I had been on the pill for 10 years, so had forgotten how irregular my cycles were and in any case had never thought anything of it, I had read that ‘on average’ cycles are 26-35 days, and if you took a long-term average, I just about fitted into that, so thought I was normal.
Once we got married, I immediately started getting my hopes up for a honeymoon baby. I wasn’t too upset when AF showed, but then the very next cycle went for 45 days and this suddenly rang alarm bells for me. I went to see a GP (was living in London) and the GP told me to come back after 12 months, wasn’t willing to look into it at all. I waited until we moved back to Oz before seeing a GP who referred me to an OBGYN. Finally saw the OB in October 2002 who listened to my history, took a CD2 blood test and declared I had PCOS. He put me on Clomid and gave me a schedule for having sex and sent me away. For the 4 cycles I was on it, I o’d on time twice, o’d late once and didn’t o at all once. As well, I got very bad hives all over my body and gained weight and became very very depressed.
In early 2003 things went from bad to worse, firstly XH and I attended a family gathering of all his rellies in Sri Lanka. His sister had just got married and had made it clear that she was trying for a baby, not that she was clucky at all, her hubby really wanted one and that was how she managed to get him to marry her. Now XH’s mother knew about our fertility woes and I’m sure she told the rest of the family. So you’d expect some understanding on their part. No way. XH and I were completely ignored (which is a weird thing to happen at a family event, sort of sitting alone in the dining room while unbeknown to us, everyone else had decided to have an impromptu party in one of their rooms). Worse, people were going up to XH’s sister and rubbing her stomach and wishing there was a baby inside her, despite her saying she wasn’t pg. I was on my final cycle of Clomid at the time, so I pretty much fell apart during that ‘holiday’.
We got home to Oz, I saw a GP and begged for a second referral, as I knew from reading on the internet that PCOS should not be diagnosed from a single blood test, and Clomid use should be monitored. The GP was lovely, referred me to a better OBGYN, one that specialised in fertility problems, and also referred me to see a shrink, as I was not coping at all. The second OBGYN did an u/s on my ovaries, took more complete bloods, confirmed PCOS and did a lap/hyst to make sure I didn’t have other probs too. Oh and XH’s swimmers were checked. XH was cleared (his results were good, so much so he was puffing out his chest, and his mother proceeded to call me and tell me just how fertile she and her family was…like I needed to hear that). I was also found to have moderate endo which was removed, also I had ovarian drilling (small holes are burned into them, not known why but injuring them can help them to kick start and work properly again).
In the meantime, I was seeing the shrink, who helped me to see that infertility was not my only problem, actually there were big problems within the marriage, in that my XH was controlling and emotionally abused me. When the shrink suggested that I consider avoiding falling pg (…hello!) until I worked things through with my relationship, I realised that I needed to think long and hard about whether I’d be happy being with my XH for the rest of my life, with or without children. I made the heartwrenching decision to separate from my XH in July 2003. I also decided that I would quit being an accountant and go back to uni to study psychology, as the thought of being childless AND doing a job that I detested was way too much to bear. It was incredibly scary, going single just at the point that I wanted nothing more than to have children, but it gives some indication of how dire things really were in the marriage.
I tried to put the whole ‘baby’ thing out of my mind, planned to start uni in 2004 and tried not to think about the likelihood of meeting Mr Right in time to be with a real chance of having children. At the place where I was working (my last ever stint as an accountant) there was a guy there that I got along well with, he knew (thought) I was married and unavailable, plus I was determined to stay totally single for at least six months. Anyway, we became good friends. He eventually let me know that he was interested in me now that I was single, but I wanted to fully assess him first! The chemistry between us became to much and in early 2004 we started going out. Through some very weird timing, I was kicked out of the group house I was living in and ended up moving in with him after we’d been going out just 4 days. We never looked back.
I told him from the start that I wasn’t sure if I would be able to have kids, so we took no precautions from day 1. After 4 months together and my cycles were going completely haywire, as we both really wanted kids and knew it wouldn’t be a mistake to have a child together as we were amazingly compatible, I saw my GP again and asked to be referred to a top IVF doctor. The IVF doc told me straight away that I was a candidate for IVF, so we got my partner’s swimmers checked out and waited to be scheduled into a cycle. We did our first IVF cycle in October 2004, with 7 eggs collected, 6 fertilising and 4 going to blast stage. When we got our single blast put back the doc said he wished he was putting back such quality blasts every day. I started spotting three days before the blood test, and AF arrived with a vengeance on the day of the blood test. We then waited a cycle, as you usually have to, before we could do a frozen embryo transfer cycle. We decided to have two blasts put back, so they were thawed in late December 2004. They didn’t thaw well, one had only 60% of cells survive, the other 70%. The embryologist didn’t look so hopeful and so I wasn’t at all hopeful. Being a medicated cycle, AF didn’t show but the blood test was negative.
At this stage we’d decided to leave Sydney, and finances were stretched, so we met with the IVF doc and told him we’d be taking a break from IVF, waiting until I had a break between semester one and two at uni. I asked the doc if I could go on Metformin (a diabetes drug that can help PCOS women ovulate properly) and also give Clomid another go, seeing as I wanted to feel like I was still doing ‘something’. He was happy to prescribe them both, but told me that Metformin really only worked on large women, so thought it would do neither any harm nor any good. We moved to Ballina, I started uni, started taking Metformin in January 2005 and also Clomid in February and March. The Clomid made me start to feel depressed and also gain weight again, so I stopped taking it. As we were nearing getting into another scheduled IVF cycle, I decided that I wanted to lose a few kilos in preparation.
So in April I continued to take Metformin, stopped taking Clomid and folate (for the first time in 3.5 years) and hit the gym hard, with a severe eating regime. I lost about 3 kilos and was starting to feel fit again. As I had stopped taking Clomid, my cycles were free to return to their stupid random state, so as CD34 passed, I just started feeling anxious that I might not neatly fit into the IVF schedule that I wanted. I went to a GP and got prescribed the pill, so that when AF showed I could take the pill and thus be ready to start the IVF cycle when it suited me. On CD37 I started to get pretty peeved with my body, as I started seeing eggwhite CM, something that indicated that I still had not o’d. So I cycled to the shop, bought a preg test and a pile of chocolate bars (consolation food) and came home to confirm what I already knew – that I wasn’t preg, that my body sucked and that I would naughtily take some of my IVF progesterone pills in order to bring on AF so that I could start the pill. So I ate the choccy bars, in readiness of seeing my umpteenth preg test with a single line. Then I peed on the stick and put it on the counter. I nearly fainted when the second line came up after about 10 seconds and became extremely, unmistakably dark. I burst into tears and tried to call my darling partner at his work but couldn’t get through. So I shared my amazing news with the special LT TTC gals first! My partner called me back a few minutes later and though choking with tears I told him the news.
I’m getting a little teary just thinking back to that day again! It was such a shock, I have heard of others falling preg whilst on an IVF break, or when they have given up entirely TTC, but being a long-termer with TTC you just never think it can happen to you. Anyhow, that is why my preg ticker has “…a miracle!†written in it. And to top things off, my partner is now my gorgeous DH!
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