Cathy and Paul
My husband and I will be married 5 years June 1st. He is the most wonderful man anyone could dream of. I thank God for him everyday as we go through this journey. We have been trying for 4 years to start our family. In November 2002 I started talking to my ob/gyn about trying to concieve. I have had irregular periods off and on throughout most off my life. She did routine blood work and I thought nothing about it. We went to Disneyworld shortly after at which point my grandmother passed away while we were away. We called home to check the messages and there was a message form my doctors office saying they needed to speak to me. “Uh oh” I thought, “did I get a bad pap?” I had a hx of those as well. Well I called them back before leaving for the airport and got a nurse who said "your b/w came back is there any chance you could be pg?" I couldn't believe it! I of course had the feeling well with one life going in comes another one. We headed to the airport and it was the best day of my life! Paul carried the bags, got me caffeine free soda etc. We got hope and picked up a test. As I was in the bathroom the MD called...it was a mistake they misread the b/w. I was completely crushed but knew that we were truly ready to begin out family!
Months went by of not getting anything even close to positive so my new ob/gyn (obviously left the other office) started me on Clomid for three month and of course nothing! At this point even the hint of my period set me into such sadness. We then did an HSG and of course everything came back normal. When I called for these results a receptionist got on the phone and said, "You need in vitro to get pg!" I lost it...who the heck was she and why wouldn't the doctor tell me news like that. I felt like my whole world came crashing don upon me! The doctor later called and asked me if I had gotten over it and stopped crying!!!! (let's just say again we changed doctors!)
At that point we were referred to a local RE. What a disaster! My blood pressure was 148/95 because I was such a wreck at the though of being there. He had about 5 interns in the room listening to my story as well as in the room the size of a closet for my first vaginal sonogram with my period! Talk about humiliation! At this point I had so much same with regards to the diagnosis of infertility and was not comfortable talking to anyone about it! They suggested IUIs with Clomid. When we got home we talked for a while and decided we needed a break before moving forward.
We then went to Cornell in NYC for another consultation with Dr. Spandorfer who we absolutely adore. He was so knowledgeable and really gave us confidence that this was going to work for us. I was 31 at the time. After reviewing my records he recommended a lap/hysteroscopy. Again everything was normal. At this point it had become so frustrating b/c they weren't finding anything wrong so to me that meant they can fix anything either! He suggested that we try injectable IUIs. We waited a little longer. We bought our house and had to save more money because we have no coverage for any fertility treatment whatsoever.
We did 2 back to back IUIs with no success. Dr. S then suggested IVF. We waited a few months and then in November did our first IVF cycle. Everything was picture perfect...15 eggs retrieved, all 15 fertilized! We couldn't have been happier! Our embryos held out and we did a five day transfer which everyone told us was amazing. The nurses called and congratulated us on our fabulous success rate. We were on cloud nine! We did our 5 day transfer we so happy...for us this was the closest I had ever been to being pg...2ww pg until otherwise told different right! I read somewhere that you can POAS to see when the HCG leaves your system and closer to beta POAS again for a more accurate result. Well I couldn't even get a + test even when there was supposed to be HCG in my blood! Go figure! As I had figured this too was a failed cycle! All I could think was how could this be...everyone kept telling us how perfect everything was...what went wrong. I truly felt like I had lost something. We had this beautiful pix of out blasts and they were gone! That was a part of us.