April 24-April 30, 2011 is National Infertility Awareness Week
and I’ll be sharing my infertility story with you.

Read The Short Version, or for the whole story read:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5

TRYING TO CONCEIVE: Take 2

On 09/25/2008 I had an ultrasound that confirmed the complete miscarriage of our first child. A week later I got a call from the doctor and she said that she also noticed what looked like a cyst near my ovary on the ultrasound. She said that it could be one of several things.
1. It could be a normal cyst that would come and go with ovulation
2. It could be a benign growth or tumor
3. It could be endometriosis.
She said that what they usually do is wait 6 weeks and then do another ultrasound to see if the cyst goes away on its own and if it doesn’t they do a laparoscopy. The way that they check for endometriosis is through laparoscopy and it’s one of the few tests I hadn’t had done yet. The doctor said that since endometriosis can be an infertility problem and we were already having trouble then we can just have the laparoscopy done right away instead of 6 weeks later. We decided to wait because we were going to be switching practices where the staff included an infertility specialist.

Less than 2 weeks after talking to my first OB about the laparoscopy I had an appointment with a new OB (not the specialist) at a new practice. She had me get blood work done to check my ovulation and thyroid and recommended we have another ultrasound done to look at the cyst. She said that there’s much debate about the existence of Luteal Phase Defect and that the small lag that I was showing is not enough of a diagnosis. Our infertility remained unexplained. The doctor said that we could start trying to conceive again and use the Crinone.

Three weeks later we had begun ttc again and I had another transvaginal ultrasound done. The ultrasound showed a very small (less than an inch) cyst near my left ovary. The doctor said that it appeared to be normal and that she didn’t see any problems with it, but that she’d like to see it on another ultrasound in 6 weeks to make sure it hadn’t grown or changed. If the cyst still appeared to be normal then she would put me on Clomid. If I didn’t get pregnant after 6 months on the Clomid she would refer me to the infertility specialist. She said that all of my other tests looked fine.

Eleven days later on November 16, 2008 I was at church and I just felt weird. I was light headed, dizzy, and woozy, I didn’t know what was going on. My period was due that Thursday and I thought maybe I was having some period symptoms, although I’d never experienced anything like it before. When we got home from church my husband left for work and I was going to head over to my mom’s house. The weird feeling was still there and I just had to take a pregnancy test so that I could prepare myself if my period was coming. I took the pregnancy test and it looked like it was negative. Then I looked again, really close, and I could see a very faint second line! I called my husband, who was excited, but because the line was so faint he thought it might be a false positive. We tested again on Tuesday and on Thursday, both positive, and my period never came. We were pregnant! We never went on Clomid or had the laparoscopy done.

We called the doctor and told them that we were pregnant and that we had an ultrasound scheduled for December 16 and could we still keep the appointment to check the progress of the pregnancy. They said yes! Another transvaginal (ug!) ultrasound. On December 16 I was 7 weeks and 5 days along when we got to see our precious baby for the first time. We were so relieved to see the little heart beating. It was such a different feeling from seeing the empty sac during our first pregnancy.

On August 04, 2008, 5 years and 8 months after stopping the birth control pill, after over 4 years of unexplained infertility, a miscarriage, and 2 hours of pushing, I gave birth via caesarean section to a beautiful, healthy 8lb 6oz baby girl…Adaline Rose.

To be continued

*National Infertility Awareness Week
*Childless Mother: Infertility Poem
*Trying to Conceive: Take 1
*My First Pregnancy
*My Miscarriage
*Trying to Conceive: Take 2 You are here!
*Trying to Conceive: Take 3 Secondary Infertility
*Spring Ahead: Reflections on Miscarriage
*Celebrate Your Name Week: Jordan: Why we named the baby we miscarried