So...infertility sucks

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

When we were going through our infertility, there were two things that were important to me to remember. One was that there was no universal baby pool - this meant I could allow myself to be honestly happy for friends, knowing that they weren’t ‘stealing’ my go at being a mum.

And as someone else suggested upthread, we made a real effort to have a lot of non-baby related goals to look forward to - holidays, sporting challenges, etc. That meant it wasn’t the wasted year we didn’t get the baby.

IVF, as Neeps said, was a relative breeze - the anxiety and apprehension we faced before it were the worst bit. And the technology is amazing these days. Hopefully it gives you what you are longing for. And in the meantime, there are a lot of us here on the boards who have been through the processes, so reach out if you need to. Sometimes you just need to talk to someone who understands how it really feels.

22

Me, but I get us confused sometimes too…

Jelly, It sucks, and I’m sorry. I think we do no favors to women in our society by extending adolescence as long as we do so that few people are “ready” for kids by your age and pretending like there is plenty of time for all of this.

I would recommend letting people know that you have mixed feelings right now about other people’s pregnancies - if your friend is a good friend, she will understand and try and tone it down around you. I skipped baby showers and baptisms while going through infertility - and walked away from a lot of conversations. I’d also start working on making peace, whatever your peace is, with the situation. As a parent of two now, childfree doesn’t look nearly as bad as it did back then. And doors for adoption close as well as you get older, so you might want to start digging for information there sooner than later if that is a path you’d consider - even if you don’t end up following that path having the information at hand won’t hurt and will help you feel like you have some control over something.

23

Add me to the chorus of people dealing with the same thing. About two years ago, I had an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured one of my fallopian tubes. At the time, I’d known the pregnancy wasn’t viable and truly thought I’d already miscarried, so I didn’t understand the symptoms until too late. Emergency 7-hour surgery, yadda yadda, I came out down one tube. At the time, the OB/Gyn told me that there was no reason I couldn’t get pregnant, it would just take longer than average.

So, I waited all these past two years, getting my hopes up every fucking month (all the while telling myself NOT to get my hopes up). A couple of months ago I finally saw a reproductive endrocrinologist, who reviewed everything from my surgery and laid it out for me: My remaining fallopian tube had extensive scarring on it and probably would be unable to function. I got a hysterosalpingogram (sp?) – the fancy X-ray where they pump iodine into the tube and take a bunch of photos. Hurt like a son of a bitch. The dye didn’t come out the other end, and that was it. It’s either IVF or adoption or nothing for us.

I’ve been taking the summer to get used to the idea. Still working on getting used to the idea. I think I am finally past waiting for a miracle… that little surge of hope just before my period would arrive got to be a habit, but I think I’m over it.

Maybe by Labor Day I’ll have an idea of what to pursue. The costs of IVF and adoption are both staggering to me. There is no path that is calling to me; they all make me sad AND think, “Well, that could be really cool.”

Sucks.

24

Yeah infertility does indeed suck.

I know someone with two kids conceived naturally in her mid-forties. She is of course divorced from the kids biological father and living with her boyfriend who is periodically using dangerous drugs. She likes the sex with the druggy and refuses to kick him out even though he is clearly putting the lives of her children in danger with his drug use. She, of course, whines constantly about the burdens of having two children. In my darker moments I dream about calling her ex and letting him know what’s going on.

Having faced similar issues myself at a slightly older age I would sometimes like to strangle her with my bare hands.

I know your pain all too well. The only thing I can tell you is that you have age on your side and the odds of a baby at your age are still probably ten to twenty percent overall.

Unfortunately POF is the one fertility condition doctors cannot really fix.

Hugs to you.

25

Sorry to hear about your issues, Jelymag. I’m not someone who has gone through this (I do not want to have kids) but I have all sorts of friends and relatives who have gone through infertility and miscarriage issues, and I know how painful it all is.

I even have a hard time dealing with being happy for one friend while another suffers through infertility. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for all of the women (and men) who have to deal with it directly.

26

I’ve been where you are, and wondered if God (or the universe) didn’t want me to have kids. Then I realized that whether a person has kids has ZERO correlation with their worth as a human being and a lot of great people are infertile and a lot of horrible people are baby machines. So for me, it was a minor comfort to know that it wasn’t a judgment on me, just a random deal of the cards. Made me feel less responsible for my infertility.

27

Sorry for the OP’s and your situation. As I have stated in a few infertility-related threads, IANADoctor but my company works with some of the top Infertility docs (Reproductive Endocrinologists) in the U.S.

Fwiw, if you are considering IVF, please note that: a) it is better to think of a multi-cycle course of care - meaning that if you can plan for 3 or more IVF cycles (before you spit out your coffee, give me a sec) you should, simply because the average success rate on a single IVF cycle for a woman <35 with no male-factor issues is ~40%, whereas the average success rate for 3+ cycles is ~75%.

How can you do that? There are multi-cycle treatment plans, where you pay a fixed fee up front. The number or cycles and whether you want to be eligible for a refund if your treatment doesn’t work affects the price, but, for instance, for a fee up front equivalent to ~2 IVF cycles you can qualify for up to 6 cycles AND, if the treatment doesn’t work get 70% or more of your fees back - which you could apply to adoption, etc.

Financing is typically available to help fund that up-front fee.

Examples include IntegraMed’s Attain Program, packages offered by ARC and many home-grown versions offered by individual RE practices. You might Google “IntegraMed Attain” or “Shared Risk” to learn more on your own.

Hope this helps,

WordMan

28

Another thought on the financials - as someone who is childless you have two big advantages in terms of money you won’t have once you have kids - you have time and you don’t have kid related expenses.

Today start putting aside all the money you would spend on diapers, daycare, formula and baby clothes (our infant expenses - ten years ago - were over $1000 a month for ONE kid in daycare/diapers/formula - since we had our surprise bio child, we had two in diapers and daycare at the same time!). Start using the time that in the future you are going to spend taking care of kids to pick up a second job, have a garage sale, ebay your Precious Moments collection. Its hard to eat out when you have kids, so stick that money in the fund as well. IVF and adoption aren’t cheap, but kids themselves aren’t cheap either, and if you save what you would spend having them, and use the time you aren’t going to have in the future to earn some additional income, you’ll find that you have a nice nest egg for adoption/treatment pretty quickly. And you won’t have the “I don’t have time or money!” shock that happens when kids enter your home since you’ll have already made the time and money sacrifices to bring them into your home.

Another option is to mention it to the people who care about you. More than one person I know has had their adoption or IVF expenses assisted through an “early inheritance” from Grandma. Make sure to understand if insurance will cover any costs (sometimes they cover something) for IVF, and what the tax breaks are for adoption.

On adoption boards, I’m always amazed how quickly motivated people can manage to “find” money. I’ve watched some people with fairly low incomes scrape up money to adopt - and I’ve watched people who already have kids at home do it. Some of it is the really basic “cut the grocery bill, don’t go on vacation, keep the clunker running for another year by having my brother in law do the breaks, eat a lot of rice, pasta and beans” sort of budgeting. The numbers look daunting - but thousands of people manage to do this - you should be able to as well.

29

I have gone through infertility (recurrent miscarriage, nothing to be done, IVF non-applicable) and my best friend just had a baby. It is very hard to not let that come between you. Just do your best to at least pretend to be happy for her but remind her about your situation and if things become too much, you need to let her know. If she is really that kind of friend, she will understand.

Otherwise, I send good vibes in your direction and strength to get through.

30

Thank you everyone for the info and advice and well wishes. I appreciate the ability to vent about it. My parents have been a little heartless about it (they don’t seem to think it is a big deal) and my in-laws seem to have this “What is WRONG with you…EVERYONE can have babies…” mentality. I’ve mentioned it to a few friends, and while they’ve been great, they try to distract me from it and I’d reached the point where I wanted to vent.

31

Good luck to everyone in this thread, especially Jelymag. Fingers crossed for all of y’all.

And Neeps’ (hopeful) fetus – stay sticky!

32

Shared risk programs are generally limited to people who meet certain criteria such as low FSH. Unfortunately the person in the OP may not be able to pass that hurdle if she’s already showing signs of POF. Success rates with IVF unfortunately are far lower for women with high FSH. RE’s do often do not like to treat women with this condition because their chances of success per cycle pale compared to say a thirty year old with blocked fallopian tubes. Since RE’s are judged on success rates they do everything they can to discourage such women from cycling including denying them the right to attempt it.

33

Glad we could help a little bit with this. Infertility is a BIG deal, and I’m really sorry that your parents can’t understand that. As for your inlaws, well, shouldn’t it be obvious that everyone can’t just pop out a baby when they decide to schedule it into their lives? I really don’t understand how this can be hard to wrap your head around.

While my parents have been great about everything (if a little naive at times), we have not told my husband’s parents about any of this. They don’t know we were trying, or having problems, or have just gone through IVF. That led to a few comedy moments during the week were actually doing egg retrieval and embryo transfer - trying to dodge my MIL when we supposed to be at work (she has a habit of popping into our house when we’re out!). I don’t know if we’ll ever tell them as I doubt that they would understand any of it. Actually, I know they wouldn’t get it, so why bother?

Friends can be tricky. I would say that if you are having issues with your pregnant friend, if she’s a good friend she will hopefully understand why you are going to have problems from time to time and give you the space you need. I went through the same thing with one of my best friends. She saw our how hard it was for us to get pregnant, decided to start trying before she would have otherwise, and got pregnant the first month. That was awful to start with. However, we came to an understanding - she wouldn’t feel bad talking about her pregnancy, and I wouldn’t feel bad about talking about how difficult it was for me. I didn’t want to take away from her joy, and she didn’t want to stomp all over my feelings. It worked pretty well, even if it was difficult at times.

I’m sorry that I don’t know too much about POF, but I wish you all the best, however you decide to proceed. I think that the waiting is the worst thing. Sometimes coming up with a plan of action or a timeframe for what you are going to do can make you feel like you are more in charge of your own fate.

34

My wife and I are struggling with this as well. We’ve been trying for 2.5 years to get pregnant, and only recently began investigating treatments, and taking the first steps. Insurance is balking, so we’re presently discussing how much we are willing to pay out-of-pocket to keep trying, or if we want to just move to the adoption route. I’m 34 and my wife is 35.

It has been a struggle for us both. Seeing people we know have kids, watching my wife struggle with the issues women often face on discovering they have fertility problems. Our families have been supportive, and tried their best not to put any extra stress & pressure on us which has helped. But I don’t wish it on anyone.

One thing that really boggled me is that when I got tested to make sure my swimmers worked, the doctor seemed surprised at my lack of trying to avoid giving a sperm sample. Apparently many men aren’t willing to have their fucntions tested, which sort of boggled me.

The best of luck to all of us struggling with this.

35

Sorry - I have to address this; it is simply not true. The one package like this that I am familiar with accepts 75% of its applicants - which is a very high number - and regularly checks its processes to ensure cherry-picking is avoided.

36

Sorry to show my ignorance here, but I was wondering if you could do a shared risk programme with donor eggs? I was thinking that this is something that **Jelymag **may at some point consider, given her diagnosis of POF.

37

Yes - there are a number of multi-cycle treatment plans out there that include use of donor eggs. Try adding “donor” to the Google searches recommended above…

38

I feel for you, Jely - I’m going on Monday to see my doctor for our “been trying for one year” appointment, which apparently is the insurance minimum for actually starting to look at what the issue is or how to fix it. In that year I’ve had exactly two periods, one of normal length and the more recent one only two days long. This makes it unsurprising that we’ve been unable to get pregnant, but also very frustrating - every couple of weeks I get my hopes up and think, “maybe this time I’m not getting my period because I’m actually pregnant!” Then I take a test and nope, never. We’re still young, I’m 24 and my husband is 25, but we got married fairly young and always knew we wanted kids together. Now all our friends are starting to get married as well, and I’m kinda secretly dreading when they all start having babies and we still can’t. I try and keep a positive attitude (I’m very much a humor as a defense mechanism kinda girl), but it doesn’t always work. We haven’t told very many people, but my husband let it slip to his father (actually a good thing as my father-in-law might have helped to sway DH a bit toward adoption), so his parents know, and a couple of weeks ago there was a family wedding with DH’s cousins and their young children. Every time I would walk into the room where the baby was, someone would say something like “watch out, if you give her the baby she’ll never give it back.” I know they were trying to be lighthearted, and hell, maybe they’ve even forgotten, but I still bawled the whole way home.

Argh. Not to hijack the thread - with very few people knowing what’s up, and few of those who do understanding, I feel very isolated.

39

I appreciate the guidance, Wordman and Dangerosa. Thanks.

40

Thanks for starting this thread, it’s fairly timely for me as well. I’m not out of hope yet, but it’s rough to even have to consider infertility.

I think it was back in February that I posted a thread here like “When did you know you were ready to start having kids?”

The responses were helpful and I made up my mind to stop using birth control and see what happened. Several cycles went by with no luck, and a few months ago I joined a BabyCenter message board with a friend who is also trying to conceive and starting taking my temps every day and attempted to figure out when I might ovulate, the whole nine yards.

I’ve always been terrified I might not be able to conceive, as both my mother and sister have endometriosis. My mom was told she would never have kids, but managed to conceive twice naturally! And my sister is still trying but having a hard time. So I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have it easy, just from the family history. I had no history of endometriosis but did have the occasional ovarian cyst issues.

Well my basal body temps were all over the place and the longer I was off the birth control the longer my cycles seemed to get. It went from a regular 32 day cycle up to 35, 38, 40, and then after June I simply stopped.

At first I had that hopeful butterfly feeling–maybe this was it! But two negative home tests later I lost the hopeful feeling. Another week went by, and no period. A third home test was negative, and I felt pretty crushed. Finally, after I went 60 days with no period I called my doctor. A blood pregnancy test was again, big fat negative. My doctor referred me to a gynecologist.

He did another urine test, and I got to hear “negative” for the fifth time. A brief chat and a physical later and I’m diagnosed with PCOS. I’m not ovulating at all, I might never ovulate on my own without meds, and if I do get pregnant I have a high likelihood of first trimester miscarriage.

I think others on the board might have PCOS, from what I can recall. I’ve done my reading on the net and gotten tons of books out from the library, but it’s not been a great experience so far. Currently I’m undergoing one of the worst periods I’ve ever had after a Provera challenge, and it’s really bringing me down. I’m on day 4 of the Provera, and weepy as hell. Progesterone is a total bitch.

Mostly, I’m scared that even with drugs and diet changes I’m never going to carry a child of mine to term. There’s always adoption, but I want so badly to have that experience.

So while my situation isn’t as final as others who have shared, I’ve only just started associating myself with the word “infertile” and it’s hurting a lot right now.