Our Journey

     I would like to thank everyone who has shown support through kind words, comments, and messages. Your encouragement goes a long way to lift me up and gives me the push I need to keep trying when I feel like giving up. In my last post I mentioned that I would provide a little more information about how our family was thrust into the unexpected world of secondary infertility. Without going into too many of the gruesome details, I thought that I would catch some of you up to speed.
      About two and a half years ago my husband and I started the discussion about having another child. This was during the summer of 2010. We decided that I would go ahead and stop taking my pill, but that we would not actively start trying until after the first of the year. I wanted to give myself some time to lose some weight that I had put on after my grandmother passed away and to get my body into the best possible shape to face another pregnancy. I was naive enough to think that it would only take us a couple of months to conceive as it did with my daughter. I cleaned up my eating and started weight training and I took up running. I lost 25 pounds by November of that year and I was in the best shape of my life-happy and healthy. We took a trip to Disneyworld over Christmas Break and all was well.
      We decided to get real about the business of baby making the following January. I started buying ovulation tests and tracking my cycles closely. Everything seemed to be right on track like it always had been. I never had the slightest issue with my cycle. I continued exercising and eating right and started taking prenatal vitamins. The months went by. When summertime rolled around, I had been off of birth control for a year. Around that time, I began to have severe stomach/digestive issues. I tried some over-the-counter medications and started taking probiotics. That seemed to help some at first, but eventually provided little relief. After a couple of months of problems with my stomach, I decided to see my family doctor. He told me to try taking fiber and suggested some other over-the-counter remedies. It would be another seven months before I saw him again.
      In September I had a cycle in which my period was several days late and I just knew for sure it meant what we thought it did. My cycles had always been so predictable-just like clockwork. Sadly, my period eventually came. The months continued to pass and each one would bring another negative pregnancy test. Before I knew it, 2011 was gone. As time passed my stomach issue continued to interfere with my daily life. I began to develop other strange seemingly unrelated symptoms. My hands started turning white and  going numb at the slightest variation in temperature. I could open the refrigerator and my fingers would go numb and turn completely white. I was also becoming very sluggish-it was difficult to get through the day due to extreme fatigue despite having a very healthy sleep schedule. I began to develop this feeling that all of my symptoms were related and I felt prompted to see my doctor again at the beginning of February of 2012.
     I'm not the type to go running to the doctor all the time, which he acknowledged. He agreed that my symptoms were connected to each other somehow and decided to test me for several autoimmune diseases including Rheumatoid Arthritis. He also ran a test of my thyroid function, and a test for a connective tissue disorder called Schleroderma. I was exhibiting symptoms common with Schleroderma and that alarmed him. Just a few days after the visit to my family doctor I was due for my yearly visit with my "female" doctor. At that visit we decided to start treatment for infertility since we had been trying to conceive for over a year. I waited for test results from my family doctor and then a phone call came at 9:00 in the evening a couple of nights after the tests. It was my doctor, which surprised me. He was elated. It wasn't Schleroderma, but my thyroid and that would be much easier to treat. I saw him for more tests and we found that I tested positive for antibodies which means that my body is attacking my thyroid. The name for this condition is Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Most of the time it leads to hypothyroidism, a condition in which the thyroid does not produce enough thyroid hormone and functions in the body slow down. This was the source of the symptoms that were bothering me. However, at times my thyroid will function normally and with medication I can have too much of the thyroid hormone. It can make treatment difficult, but after months of trying different dosages of a synthetic thyroid hormone, visiting a specialist for my stomach, and almost being referred to an endocrinologist, my doctor and I agreed on a dosage that my last few test results have been registering as normal. It's amazing what all a small butterfly-shaped gland at the base of your throat controls in your body!      
     With my thyroid under control, I continued the infertility treatments. I began each new month with renewed hope and ended it with much despair. It took a couple of cycles, but we began to see my body respond perfectly. In August of last year, my doctor suggested an intrauterine insemination and we cautiously agreed, not knowing what to expect. When the doctor came in to perform the procedure, he told us that there was a problem where my husband was concerned. So the doctor arranged for some testing which resulted in us being referred to a specialist in Tulsa that would help my husband. They performed more tests and gave us two different scenarios-one could be helped by medication and the other would offer no hope outside of in vitro fertilization, a rather invasive and expensive procedure. Fortunately, based on test results the doctor felt as though the drug Clomid, which was what I had been taking, would work for my husband as well. He began taking it and I took a break from my normal regimen for a couple of cycles.
     After a couple of months of medication, my husband underwent more testing and was showing some improvement, though we were still far from the normal ranges. I decided to start my treatments again after the first of this year and each time my body has done exactly as it should. Two days ago we tried another intrauterine insemination. It will be two weeks before we will know if it worked. Please join us in hoping this journey will be over for us soon!

Where to Begin...

"Secondary infertility is defined as the inability to become pregnant, or to carry a pregnancy to term, following the birth of one or more biological children. The birth of the first child does not involve any assisted reproductive technologies or fertility medications."  After having no trouble what-so-ever conceiving and bringing a beautiful baby girl into the world, we never could have imagined that we would have any sort of problem doing the same when the time came for us to have another.  We could not have been more wrong. Our family has been facing secondary infertility for two and a half years now.  We have been receiving treatment for over a year. Our treatment at the moment consists of me taking the drug Clomid on days 5-9 of each cycle, getting an ultrasound on day 13 to see if I grew any egg folllicles, if/when a follicle is a good size taking a "trigger" shot of HCG to release it, using a hormone patch or pill for a week or so to build up the lining of my uterus, and then reporting back to my doctor's office to have blood drawn a week later to confirm that I ovulated. I have done this for just over a year, with a couple of breaks toward the end of last year. It took about 2 cycles to find the right dosage and then my body started responding beautifully. Just a couple of weeks before we started the infertility treatments, I had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that affects my thyroid. My family doctor made the diagnosis and I began seeing him every two weeks for blood tests to help him find the right dosage of medication for me. It was tricky and I was growing tired of getting blood drawn every week between the two doctors I was seeing, but after several months we found a dosage that worked for me and I started to enjoy relief from the symptoms that had been bothering me for so long. I just knew that our problem was on its way to being solved. My body was in excellent shape at that point. Last August, we tried an assisted reproduction procedure called an intrauterine insemination after 6 cycles of me ovulating perfectly. That is when we discovered my husband would need some help too. The procedure failed and we went to Tulsa to see a specialist for him which resulted in him taking Clomid as well. If you know anything about this medication you can guess that the two of us taking it at the same time can get interesting. With both of us on Clomid, we have picked back up with what has become the norm for us and we will try the same procedure that we tried before. If we are not successful in the next couple of months, we will be referred to a fertility clinic where they will be able to try a much more invasive procedure.  The emotional toll from this whole process has been one of the most difficult trials I have encountered. I decided to start this blog for several different reasons:

1. At some point I hope to be able to help others who have struggled through this same trial. This means that I first need to share my experience. 

2.  I have found that when I tell someone our story who does not know what we have been going through over the past couple of years, it lightens the burden a bit. I only share the details with a few close friends in different areas of my life. Infertility is not something that is easy to deal with alone and those with whom I have shared my experience have been a tremendous help.  I think being open about this trial will help me handle it better.

3.  There are many friends and acquaintances, some family even, who have no idea that we have been going through this or if we have told them they do not understand or know the full extent of our situation. People assume that since we have one child we should be able to have another.  Our situation is just is not that simple.

I will make a post with more details about how all of this started for us soon and I hope to update every couple of weeks or so.  I hope you will enjoy reading my thoughts on this struggle and will be inspired in some way!