The battle continues... Chapter 2

I never thought I would have to see a fertility specialist. My mother and sister had no trouble getting pregnant, so I thought there would be no problems for me. I guess that is what I get for assuming. It took me a few weeks to actually make the appointment. I didn't want it to seem real that there was a problem. But finally I made the appointment. I was pretty intimidated walking into the office. Thankfully I had my husband by my side to help me through it. They started off by taking my history and doing some blood tests of their own. Again, things came back normal. After that, they mentioned surgery to rule out endometriosis. That diagnosis had never crossed my mind. I new people who had endometriosis, and they experienced painful periods. Other than a few cramps, my periods were pretty painless. After finding out that the surgery would be covered by insurance, my husband and I decided to go through with the surgery. I had to do anything I could to figure out what, if any, problem that might exist.

Coming out of the surgery, I was pretty groggy. My husband tried to explain to me what the doctor found, but I wasn't really getting what he was saying. We went to the doctor for a follow-up appointment and he explained the findings. The had found endometriosis. The end of one tube was almost closed off and the other tubes' opening was stuck to the side of my uterus. That would explain things. With one tube being non-operational and the other being pretty much closed off, that would explain the problem. The did what they could to correct the problems. With everything else being normal, they told me to try for 3-6 months to see if I could become pregnant. Roller coaster #3


We had a new ray of hope. (or so I thought) We tried for a month or 2 and nothing had happened. I received a call from the fertility office letting me know that there was an opportunity to participate in a study to test a different drug for invitro fertilization. Participating in the study would give us a free cycle of invitro. After all the waiting, we felt like we hit the lottery. We hadn't tried that long, but we didn't have anything to lose.


Some blood work needed to be done before the procedure could you begin. On my way to the appointment where they were going to explain everything that was to take place, I received a call. They told me that my blood work came back and it showed an increased Prolactin level. (The word Duh came to mind) I new that my Prolactin levels were elevated. They told me that this disqualified me from the study. They told me that they should've never offered me the study because I had a history of increased Prolactin levels. I was crushed. Invitro fertilization (IVF) isn't cheap. I didn't know how we were going to afford to do the procedure on our own. I guess we were back to trying the old fashioned way. Roller coaster #4

This was the start of IVF for us. More of our adventure will come later.