More History...

Alright, back to my story…

Appointment day finally arrived and we got to talk about what my diagnosis was. Dr. P looked at the X-rays and calmed some of my nerves. He thought it was a septum instead of a true bicornuate uterus. He also said that just by looking at me he knew I had PCOS and that I was probably was insulin resistant (this is where the body over produces insulin to minute amounts of sugar and/or carbs thus preventing the right hormones to release to tell the body to ovulate). Some blood work for both my husband and myself and a semen analysis were ordered and an appointment was made for 2 weeks later. When I say 'some' blood work, what I meant to say was 3 vials of blood from my husband and 14 vials from me. It was highly suggested that I didn't drive after that lab visit. And to save face I'll just say all of our problems trying to get pregnant were because of my issues. All of my husband’s tests results came back beyond perfect.

At my second appointment I had my first ever ultrasound. That's right, a year of trying (with obvious issues) and someone finally thought to look at the problem area. After describing to us everything he was looking at and looking for, I got dressed and we met Dr. P in his office to talk about what was going on. My blood work said that I have PCOS and definitely was insulin resistant. Interestingly, I also found out that I am Rh neg. (That will come into play later.) Surgery was scheduled for 2 weeks later to remove several cysts on both ovaries and to (hopefully) fix the shape of my uterus.

My poor husband had to deal with an emotional wreck for 2 weeks, but he tried his best to comfort and calm me when I thought my dream of being a mother might be torn from me. To make it harder, we had to tell several people what was about to happen. Some of them didn’t even know we were trying to get pregnant. My dad was sympathetic and wanted updates whenever we had them. My mom seemed to finally understand that I had legitimate problems getting pregnant. The one that really hurt, was my mother-in-law’s reaction. She had been trying to help her daughter (who is only a month younger than me) cope with her own fertility issues and for her to find out that we were having issues as well hit her hard. “I guess I’m just not meant to be a grandmother.” Just like I can’t speak for my husband, I can’t speak for her either. I don’t know what it’s like to have 2 of your children struggle with infertility, I only know what it’s like for me. After her initial reaction, she has been nothing but supportive of the entire process. But hearing those words were awful! I didn't want to be the reason her son couldn't have children.

According to my husband, after the surgery I asked every person who walked passed me if I was going to be able to have kids. Apparently I asked him several times in the first 12 hours how everything went. I don’t remember a whole lot, Dr. P gives good pain meds. BUT everything went wonderfully. Dr.P said he got all of the cysts off and that I had a huge septum in my uterus. All he had to do to fix it was cut it out. The only thing is that no doctor in their right mind would let me go into labor because of the large amount of scar tissue I now had on my uterus. “When” (he used the word WHEN) I get pregnant, I’ll just have to have a C-section to deliver. Considering the possibilities I was facing pre-surgery, a C-section sounded great! I can have kids!

Insert bump in the road. In 2005 I had surgery on my ankle where I had part of my bone replaced with ‘false bone.’ I did awesome after the surgery, but it was starting to cause problems again. After much discussion with Dr. P and Dr. B (my ankle surgeon) we decided to hold off on fertility medications until we got my ankle fixed (it’s now August 2008). We were planning to wait for a cadaver bone to replace the ‘bad’ one, but I’m 5’1 and finding a donor bone that would fit proved to be much more difficult than we thought. So we waited...