Bridget and Bret
I have just turned 29 years old, and my husband is 32. We have been married for a little over 3 years, but have been together for 7.
We started trying to conceive when I was 26, pretty much as soon as were were married. We thought that I would go off birth control, and we would be pregnant within a few months. Boy was I wrong!
As the months passed by, I knew deep down inside that there was something wrong. Everyone thought that I was crazy, because after all, I was young and healthy.
After about 10 months, I went to my OB/GYN for my annual exam. When I told her that we had been trying to get pregnant for awhile, but weren't having any luck, she told me "not to worry about it", and that, "sometimes it takes people a little while." I asked her if she thought that I had endometriosis, (I had always had severe cramps), but she told me that she didn't think that was the case. I left the office that day more depressed than when I went in.
Six months later I called the Dr. again to say that we still weren't pregnant. For the next 6 months I had the normal blood work and tests that are performed at the beginning of suspected infertility. All tests came back normal, my tubes were clear, I was ovulating on my own, and I was again told that endometriosis was not my problem. My Dr. then started me on a few rounds of clomid. None of this seemed to do anything, so I decided to contact a fertility specialist myself.
In February of 2006 we had our first consult with an RE. Within 10 minutes of speaking with us, he determined that I had a slight ovulation dysfunction and endometriosis. I was so relieved that someone had actually validated my feelings! I thought that I would be pregnant within a month!
My husband and I went through 4 more months of medicated IUI's with the RE, but still had no luck. In June of 2006 I had laparascopic surgery to remove the endometriosis and endometrioma on my right ovary. What should have been a half an hour procedure, was close to 2 hours.
My RE said that I had the worst case of endometriosis that he had ever seen and said that he didn't know how I had ever walked around like that for as long as I did. He told us that the only way for us to get pregnant was to go through with IVF, something that I never in a million years thought I would need.
My husband and I had a very hard time coming to terms with this. Our world had been turned upside down overnight. We had no idea how we were going to pay for any of the medications, surgery, etc, as our insurance didn't cover anything. I was also advised by my boss not to say anything to anyone. I am a Catholic school teacher, and I was told that I would be fired if I went though with the IVF.