My Story...The Long Version!

Someone asked me recently to share my story, so this is probably as good a time as any to do so. In March of 06’ I had my second surgery for endometriosis (endo). I was diagnosed with stage IV, the most severe stage. Cleaning me out wasn’t quite good enough, so to keep things at bay, I went on Lupron (to medically induce menopause) for 6 months. After 5 months of complete mental torture, I had to stop the treatment. At 30 years old, I was beginning to feel the ‘clock ticking.’ My husband and I knew that we wanted children, I just wasn’t sure if this was the right time, with some of our goals a little out of our reach. We decided to blow those off and try for a family. My doctor told me that we should try for 6 months and then if we weren’t successful, we should come in and talk about our next step. The short time frame was given to us because of the severity of my endo. Doctors prefer to treat endo, with medication and if you are not on medication, then you better be pregnant or nursing to keep it from growing.

So six months go by and we see the doctor and he is not concerned and tells us to try another 6 months. Another six months go by and no positive pregnancy test. (At this point, I have been tracking my ovulation through body signs and temperature). We go to see the doctor again. He tells us the same story again…keep trying. So for the next six months, I put myself through the emotional and financial ringer. I continuously read pms signs as potential pregnancy signs. I continuously misread every sign my body is giving me with hopes that I am pregnant. There was one time in particular that I remember thinking that I was pregnant and I had mixed emotions about it because of other goals in my life that had not been met yet. Turns out it was just pms.

At this point, I felt like I was being strung along by my doctor, so on the advice from a couple of friends, I sought out a second opinion. The doctor that I went to see was very nice and very medically driven. She sat me down with my husband and said that she was going to cut to the chase. She said that my endo is so bad, it’s as if my tubes are tied, and the best chance we have of conceiving a child is through IVF. She spent a lot of time with us explaining everything and I greatly appreciated her being so straight forward. I did give my old doctor one last chance to fess up, at the request of my husband, and it was in that last appointment with him that he finally said the same thing as the doctor who gave me a second opinion. I did decide that I was tired of being strung along on a wing and a prayer, so I switched doctors. I often get very frustrated with the situation with my old doctor, but I think I needed to go through the experience. Sounds kind of funny, but it wasn’t until I was so frustrated with all of this that I realized that I truly did want a child. This gave me some comfort because know I know that mixed emotions will always likely be part of this, but I can recognize this and know that my strongest feeling in all the mixed up stuff is that we want a baby. It helps to keep me grounded. I know that everything will fall in to place when the time is right, I just need to focus on doing the best I can to increase my chances of pregnancy.