The Nitty Gritty of Trying to Conceive

It's been a while. It's hard for me to write anymore, as I don't find it very helpful for me to have to write out my thoughts and feelings in a way that makes sense to other people reading. I know this is lazy, and most people don't have the patience to read crap. But given our current situation in life, this private blog seems to be the only means to effectively share my heart to those I know care about me, and who happen to be very far away geographically.

To counter fears of being isolated, I've decided to blog again. I have to say that this will be rather detailed, so warning you that this could be gross to read.

Ben and I started trying to conceive (TTC) at the beginning of December last year. Some of you might know that I have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). Much like any other disease, it has lots of variants, but the bottom line with it is that I didn't have regular periods because of this. I was diagnosed my first summer in NY. I specifically remember walking around Wall Street for my summer job, stunned with the news. Naturally, once I started dating Ben, I shared with him this fact. Being the planners we are, we both of course set our expectations about how hard TTC would be, knowing well that it could take multiple years.

Since December, I've basically ovulated 5 times. We tried from December-June by ourselves, then I started going to the Fertility doctor in July. Good news is we did a full screening, and only Ben has some sort of super obscure rare disease that he could possibly pass on in his genes. I have none, therefore making the odds super small that we would pass it on. Also, I was always told that starting to try early would be to my benefit, and the doctor seems to confirm that letting me know that my uterus, my eggs, Ben's sperm is all good in the hood. The essential issue here is that I'm just not ovulating enough and it would take forever to conceive if I had to wait for my body. One of my cycles was seriously 142 days...

So 2 of these times I ovulated were from the help of some medicine, which tricks my body into creating more hormones for the growth of an egg. This requires some trial and error as I go into the doctor's office multiple times, almost once a week, as she checks to see whether an egg is getting ready to be popped out. This requires many vaginal ultrasounds (yes, through the vagina), which of course, as you can imagine, sucks. I've had some side effects with the medicine, including hot flashes and once my vision got really weird. Also sucky.

Once the egg looks good to go, she tells me to have an injection of HCG (administered by Ben at home), which should trigger the egg to be released, and BINGO I've ovulated. This last Monday, we also did a intra-uterine insemination (IUI), where they basically collect the sperm, clean it, and put it in through the cervix via a catheter so it's placed where it needs to go. Don't worry, we're still having intercourse too, but this IUI piece I guess is the extra help. So the waiting begins, and I hope to pee on a stick in 2 weeks to see if one of the 46 million sperm inserted into me met with my 1 egg.

Fertility medicine, visits, etc. is actually not something that is usually covered under insurance. It's rather ridiculous, because it's such a common thing to need really. I was rather worried about this in the beginning, but by God's grace a majority of this stuff is free when we do it through UCLA. So far I have not paid a penny, though I think I'll get billed for the IUI. So a good time for us to be having babies!! This is beyond awesome. I think we've probably spent thousands upon thousands at this point in the process.

So I'm supposed to start taking progesterone vaginally (yes, through my vagina like it's a mouth) 3 times a day tomorrow. Last time I did this was in early August, and I unfortunately reacted very badly to it. I'm giving it a try again and will see if it happens again.

If you are wondering how I'm doing this while still working...that's probably the next post. Give me some love in the comments and let me know if you're interested in reading this.