diagnosis...

This is part one of my infertility journey story. It was a long journey to get to princess and pumpkin so I decided to break it up and I will interweave it into the blog leading up to the walk.

I always felt like there was something wrong with me but it was hard to speak up as a high school and college student. After years of infertility I can speak about any embarrassing or disgusting medical condition both with MDs and with others without even a twinge of embarrassment on my part. I guess you can only get wanded so many times before you just don't give a crap what people know anymore. Anyway, now you all will know way too much about me. I started asking doctors questions in high school. Why aren't my periods regular? They simply said I was young and I was too thin and once I gain weight things will work out. In college I gained weight but the new excuse was that I was stressed out. All I needed to do was relax a bit. It wasn't until my junior year when I fessed up to the doctor that I hadn't had a period in more than 9 months. He freaked out immediately and ordered bloodwork. The NP followed up with me and told me I must have PCOS as per the bloodwork, mentioned infertility in passing and then gave me birth control pills to regulate the PCOS.

Fast forward to a year post grad school and I realized if we wanted children we would need to see a doctor. I started at an OBGYN but I was concerned that she didn't seem to know what she was doing and that is when I discovered what a reproductive endocrinologist (RE) did and made an appointment. Before your first appointment you have fill out the most thorough booklet of all of your medical information that you will probably ever see in your life.

At my first appointment, the RE asked myself and my husband a lot of questions and then we were promptly put to the wanding and bloodwork. It turns out I don't have PCOS after all but that means we have no idea what is causing this. The RE lists off things and we start trying to eliminate them. In the end it comes down to a chromosomal issue or a pituitary (brain!) tumor. There were a few weeks I couldn't keep it together thinking that one way it is game over and the other way would mean I had a brain tumor. It seemed like there were no good options. My karyotype came back normal female which then left me with tumor. The scan to determine this takes over an hour in an MRI where I try to focus on not freaking out or thinking about coffins. I barely manage. The only think that the MRI proves is that I have a brain... no tumor. So we were left with as many questions as we started. Months of testing and I had no real reason why. This consumed me. I was trained in grad school to ask why, to do experiments, to try to find reason. I had none.

We moved on to IUI with injectibles and then IVF. I will detail those later. Looking back at the last 5 years now I see the reason behind my diagnosis doesn't matter as much as I thought it did. It didn't impact my treatment. There is no need for me to know why anymore. I just know it is and I accept it. The only nagging worry that I am left with is that I could have passed this on to my daughters. I know it isn't logical but it is there.

I can't capture the desperation I felt at the time to find a reason. I simply don't have the writing talent to capture the feeling. It was always there and all I could think about. I read obsessively anything I could get my hands on. The best thing I did which helped keep me sane during the dark days of my treatment was join resolve. The women on the boards are amazing. Once I was part of the boards there was a safe place I could go to write about my feelings and there were people who understood. They were my lifeline.