Turns out, I had my first official infertility appointment yesterday. I guess I’m writing about it today because my doctor gave me a referral for a procedure, and on the “diagnosis” line she spelled it out, plain as day:
Infertility – 2.5 years.
So…it’s official. It’s written down somewhere on a medical file, not just bouncing around in my head. It still punched me in the gut.
I know. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m a pretty intelligent person, and I can add one and one and get two. No condoms or birth control pills for seven years and no pregnancies; no babies during the last two and a half years of actively trying? Something is clearly wrong, and I know this…intellectually.
But seeing it written down by a medical doctor changes things. It’s real now.
How did it come to this?
In September 2013 I had a chemical pregnancy, after six months of actively trying. I’d never even heard of that term until I mentioned a recent wackadoo period to my sister. I had spotted mid-cycle – a first for me – and then my period was 5 days late. Also a first; it’s usually spot on. Ha ha. Spot on.
Anyway. When it finally arrived, it was super heavy and lasted longer than normal.
We put two and two together and came up with a chemical pregnancy. The spotting mid-cycle must have been implantation, and I was late because I was pregnant. The extra heavy period was the miscarriage.
A chemical pregnancy is just that – a very early miscarriage, after the sperm has successfully fertilized the egg but before anything will show up on a test or ultrasound. Most women don’t even realize they’ve had one; they just chalk it up to a late, heavy period…which is exactly what I did until I discovered the term “chemical pregnancy.” Something goes wrong with the splitting of cells or the implantation fails, and you’ve miscarried before you really knew you were pregnant.
I figured then I need to see someone, just to get everything checked out. It took me until March 2014 – after we’d been trying a full year – to gather the courage and speak to someone about it. I remember thinking that I was just reading too much into stuff, but I went to my primary care doctor and asked his opinion.
I told him the whole story – we’d been using ovulation kits, calendars and perfectly timed (read: totally not romantic) sex for a year, but had actually stopped contraception 7 years prior. That got a raised eyebrow. Then I told him about the chemical pregnancy. That got another raised eyebrow, and a look of sympathy, which got me crying. I hadn’t told anyone before, other than Quincy and my sister.
Then he gave me some statistics. The average, healthy couple has a 20% chance of getting pregnant every cycle. So, most couples trying to conceive usually get pregnant by about the 5th month trying.
For couples who have been trying for a year – or for 6 months if you’re both over the age of 35 – you may have fertility issues.
A year. Wonderful.
He referred me to my current ob/gyn, and over the past year or so, we’ve done a couple abdominal ultrasounds to check for cysts, a pelvic ultrasound, which is JUST AS FUN AS IT SOUNDS, and Quincy’s even had a semen analysis. He’s got a fleet of navy seals and an ego the size of an aircraft carrier to go with them. He’s very proud of his swimmers.
Bottom line is my ob/gyn has no idea why I can’t conceive. My OPKs say I’m ovulating, Quincy is fine, we’re timing everything perfectly and she sees nothing wrong in my tests. So, yesterday she slapped an “infertility” diagnosis in my medical file, sent me off for another test, and I think she’s washing her hands of it all. She says getting pregnant is hard.
No shit.
My Stork Got Lost 