Our Story So Far

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January 2010: Happy New Year! In two months I will be 30, and I am ready to start trying for a baby. I go off birth control without first consulting Philip. Philip is not ready yet and feels strongly that we need to first take an exotic vacation to Thailand that we’ve been saving for and dreaming of for years. After a couple of months, I go back on birth control and carefully read Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler cover to cover.

August 2010: I officially start charting my cycles, ditch the Nuvaring again and start using FAM as a method of birth control.

March 2011: I am now 31, and we are finally going to Thailand! It has taken us over a year to plan and book this trip, and I’ve been faithfully charting my cycles all the while, using FAM successfully as birth control, even though as time wears on, we grow less and less cautious. I ovulate about a week before we leave, and we decide to try for the first time. It’s exhilarating and incredibly intimate to think we could be starting a family in this moment. I’m extremely familiar with my cycle by now, so I know that our timing is just right. My period is fairly regular, so I see no reason why we won’t conceive on our first try, as most of our friends have done.

April-May 2011: Not pregnant. Already at this one-month mark, I break down into tears, the disappointment is so great. We decide to take a two-month break from trying so that I won’t be due right at the time of a friend’s upcoming wedding, in which I am a bridesmaid.

June 2011: OK, it’s really time to start trying now! There is nothing in our way.

July-September 2011: Every month, my period comes, followed by the tears. Something is not right.

October 2011: I go in for my annual OB-GYN appointment. I tell my doctor that we’ve been trying for six months, and because I chart, I know our timing is right. I ask about seeing a fertility specialist. She is dismissive and tells me to try for a year. I pull the over-30 card, and she relents, recommending the Center for Reproductive Medicine in Orlando. She also agrees to perform a pelvic ultrasound, which she tells me comes back normal.

November 2011: Philip undergoes a semen analysis (SA), which sounds like a tremendously awkward experience, and his general physician tells him he sees nothing to be concerned about, even though this is “not his area of expertise.” We study the numbers on the results and don’t know what to think.

February 2012: I go in for my annual physical with my general physician, and she is quite sympathetic to our plight. She tells me some God-awful story about friends of hers who tried for years to get pregnant without success, and the strain it placed on their marriage was so great that they ended up divorcing. A couple years later, the woman’s horse died, and her ex came to comfort her. They ended up having sex — and conceiving, and now the woman doesn’t even want the baby. Um, why does everybody feel the need to tell me nightmarish tales like this? Not helpful. Anyway, my doctor agrees to order a blood test and check my hormones. Everything comes back normal.

March 2011: I’m now 32. Each month, baby-making sex gets harder and harder. The pressure works against us. We’ve been trying for 11 months, and I am desperate to attempt anything new to increase our chances. After countless friends recommend acupuncture, I start treatments. The acupuncturist says she thinks we will need a maximum of five treatments over the course of five weeks to conceive. She tells me what my treatment schedule will look like soon once I am pregnant. She puts me on an anti-inflammatory diet.

April 2011: After one month of acupuncture (and an official year of trying), I am still, you guessed it, not pregnant. I read the pre-conception chapters of Real Food for Mother and Baby by Nina Planck and dramatically alter our diet. My acupuncturist breathlessly tells me she feels something different in my pulse!

May 2011: My period comes as I’m driving to my eighth acupuncture appointment. I sob bitterly in her office. This is not how acupuncture was supposed to end. Over $700 later, and I’m still as childless as ever. We’ve now been trying for 13 months. I tuck my fertility charts away in a drawer and decide to give the whole thing a rest for at least a month. I’m just so fucking over this, and we haven’t even started fertility treatments yet. I decide I don’t want to be poor, miserable, infertile Erika. I don’t want people to pity me; I have a great life. I focus on other goals. The diet has helped me shed a few pounds, and we’ve got our first 5K race under our belts. We have a number of fun trips planned for the summer. The shift in attitude helps, and I certainly don’t miss taking my temperature every day. But in the back of my mind, the desire and pain still simmer.

June 2012: “Not trying,” as so many clueless people have recommended, doesn’t work either. We go to an open house at the fertility clinic. Our intentions are to be casual and to just kind of settle into this new reality of being officially clinically infertile. It could be years before we’re able to grow our family, so we need to bring the intensity level down about 300 notches. We book an appointment for six weeks later, and already I’m fighting to feel relaxed.

July-August 2012: Full infertility workup. My tubes are open, and everything else looks good except my AMH level, which is found to be above normal, suggesting PCOS. Philip undergoes a second SA; morphology is slightly low, but results are otherwise normal.

September 2012: First treatment cycle with 2.5mg Letrozole, Ovidrel trigger shot and timed relations. BFN.

October 2012: Second treatment cycle with 2.5mg Letrozole, Ovidrel trigger shot and timed relations. BFN.

November 2012: Attempt first IUI treatment cycle. Cycle is cancelled when follicles don't grow past 9.5mm (they need to be 18mm or larger for the trigger shot).

December 2012: Doctor diagnoses me with PCOS and prescribes Follistim to stimulate my follicles. We scramble to figure out the best/cheapest way to fill the prescription, which is a nightmare. After dozens of phone calls to our insurance and various pharmacies, we finally make sense of our options and coverage, but we're unable to get the meds in time to do a treatment cycle in December. I'm disappointed, but it turns out to be a relief, as the holidays are crazy enough.

January-February 2013: We've got the meds in the fridge; we're ready to go! Just kidding. Our cat Abbi falls deathly ill, and our focus is turned 200 percent to getting her the care she needs. We wait to start any fertility treatment while Abbi is on the mend. (Don't worry -- she's fine now!) 

March 2013: The month I turn 33 and our second attempt to do an IUI cycle. We cancel the cycle ourselves when three follicles mature (two 20mms and an 18mm); although the danger is tiny, we don't want to risk conceiving triplets. 

April 2013: First IUI goes off without a hitch (hubby's sperm sample is described as "A+"). At CD11, we measure a 15mm and two 13mm follicles. We did one more 50iu injection of Follistim post-scan, so who knows how the follicles did from there. BFN.

May 2013: Second IUI. Hubby's sample is adequate; I have two mature follicles (one 18mm and one 20mm). My own doctor actually does the procedure -- amazing! BFN.

June-July 2013: Taking a break from treatment to prepare for and go on a big trip to South America to meet our sponsored child.

August 2013: Third IUI with Letrozole, Follistim, Ovidrel, the whole shebang. BFN.

September 2013-February 2014: Take a break from treatment.

March 2014: Hysteroscopy to begin the process of first IVF.

May 2014: Egg retrieval. 23 eggs retrieved, 17 fertilized with ICSE, 3 six-day-old blastocysts frozen (14 deteriorated). One is found to have an extra chromosome. Transfer date TBD.