Saturday, December 17, 2005

INFERTILITY FEARS

Now that my winter vacation from school has started I can finally write in our blog!

I got to go visit a friend’s new baby today and she was really beautiful. She was a little on the fussy side, but I think she was tired and hungry and I was nervous. I am sure that babies, not unlike wolves, can sense fear and will cry upon contact with the fearful individual, immediately identifying them as incompetent. I used to not be afraid of infants; it has only been since we decided to have one that this has become an issue for me.

I think that I’m mostly worried that I just can’t have one. I have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and while lots of women with PCOS get pregnant everyday, I do not have the luxury of time -- meaning, I can have all the sex I possibly can, but the potential for accidental pregnancy will never be there. I can’t "try" conveniently, making it harder to know if I am fertile. All I know about how easy/hard it will be for me to get knocked up is that I have PCOS and that will make it harder to get pregnant and possibly harder to maintain the pregnancy. I have heard carrying reports on the latter issue and it’s scary!

Our medical plan as it stands is to start off pretty low tech/low cost. I will take a combo pack of Clomid and Metformin, which should increase our chances along with two inter-uterine inseminations with previously frozen sperm per cycle for three cycles. According to all of the research and physician advice we have garnered, if it hasn’t happened using those methods after three tries, it probably won’t take without some additional help.

To be honest, I am unsure how invasive I am willing for things to become or how much our budget can take. Right now, I just am really hoping that we won’t have to cross that bridge and we will magically become pregnant within the first three months. I am hopeful but not confident.

5 comments:

Eryn said...

Good luck! I keep telling myself we're on a journey and I need to enjoy all of it.

I hope you get pregnant quick and with little intervention!

Anonymous said...

Good luck! We found the docs at ACRM so helpful and knowledgable that we were retroactively disatisfied with our docs back in DC.

(And we were totally surprised when our adoption lawyer told us that a lot of lesbian couples have had negative experiences at ACRM. I never even got a bad vibe.)

Trista said...

well, I hate giving false hope, but Kristin has PCOS, and she started metformin in January, we started TTC in June. It looked like she was ovulating fine on the Met, but we didn't get pregnant for 4 cycles. So we started clomid and got pregnant the 2nd cycle. We were using fresh sperm at home 3 times a cycle, so that may have helped, but we know that it was the clomid, rather than the type of sperm, that was instrumental in the pregnancy.

Good luck.

Katie said...

There are so many worries, and mostly I feel like I'm a lot like you are-- thinking about all these things well in advance. I just hope it works for you guys fast, and anytime I can help you with information about anything we've gone through, I am more than happy to do that.

Estelle said...

It'll happen. It took us five years (not exactly what you wanted to hear I'm sure) but Charlie is worth every single bit of it.
Hopefully it happens much quicker for you!