INFERTILITY: THE THIRD YEAR: - Hope or Denial?

October 2008 through October 2009

Our third year started with renewed hope…or maybe it was just denial. We started doctoring at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. I thought, if the “world famous Mayo Clinic” as they call it, couldn’t get us pregnant, than who could? We might as well give it all we’ve got. We went through more testing there with a more specific sperm analysis called “morphology.” The morphology came back with interesting results. Nick’s sperm count wasn’t necessarily “low,” but other issues were recognized with the motility. They look closer at "perfect" sperm. All of that was really confusing to me, but from what I understood, we were at around the 3%, where the chance of conceiving on our own was very slim.

I endured tests and more tests. We wondered if there would be an end in sight. We did 2 more IUI’s with no success. This year was difficult with fitting in treatments. Time just didn’t always work out for us. We’d be out of town during ovulation, peak times, etc. So, we’d be forced to take another month off. We voluntarily took some shorter breaks in-between treatments to regroup and rejuvenate.

At then end of the third year, when we started the process for in-vitro, I felt bewildered that we had really been on this journey for this long. I never imagined it would get to this point. I naively thought we’d be one of those couples who would start going to the doctor and naturally get pregnant by ourselves during the in-between times of non-treatments. I don’t know why I even thought that would even happen to us since I actually only personally know one person that has happened to!

So, now it’s been over 3 years since we started this infertility journey. Wow! We’ve done all we can medically available up to this point. Now on to the next step..in-vitro! Since it had been 1 year since Nick's last sperm analysis, they requested another. Apparently it was also a newer, updated "test." It can study more into the specific appearance of the DNA and how it binds to protein. (Blah, blah, all of this stuff I don't understand at all!) This time the results were different! The sperm seemed to have "improved." In fact, they told us that we may not have to go ahead with the IVF-ICSI, as we had discussed, but just to go ahead with the IVF. But after some more thought, our RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist) suggested that we still go ahead with the IVF-ICSI, just to maximize for best results! (The techniques for IVF and IVF-ICSI will be explained in a future post!)

We are optimistic that IVF should be successful for us! If we haven’t been able to get pregnant due to the sperm not being able to get into the egg, then this should work! Mayo stats show that it’s about a 50% chance we’ll become pregnant. And if we are pregnant, then it’s around a 20% chance it will be twins.