Robin and Jim
Jim & I met in May of 1990, I was 16 & Jim was 22. We were engaged by December of 1990. We both knew we wanted a house & kids in that order so we waited until we had saved enough money to put a good down payment on a house. Finally in October of 1997 we found our “land”. We started building in December of 1997 & it was due to be finished in June of 1998 so we finally set a date for our wedding of October 24, 1998. Our house was finished in August (a little late) so Jim moved in right away. We were married in a beautiful ceremony with 400 of our friends & family in attendance. I moved in after the wedding. We did not get to have a honeymoon because Jim had gotten in a very bad Motorcycle accident in March of 1998 & did not walk until 2 weeks before our wedding & so he could not miss anymore work. But having a family was next on the list so I went off the pill to begin “trying”. After years of “trying” on our own & finding out everyone (it seemed that way) was pregnant but me I went to my gynecologist & she ran a sperm test on Jim & put me on Clomid. Jim’s sperm test was normal so we just kept trying the Clomid month after month until finally in May of 2002 after being on Clomid for 8 months my doctor said she wanted to do a HSG “the dye test” so I agreed to it & scheduled it right away. The test hurt so bad, they could not get the dye to run thru either tube & they tried to push it thru with more dye but nothing happened except more pain. My tubes were completely closed. Operating was not an option, they were VERY bad. I had had cysts on my ovaries when I was a teenager & 1 time it ruptured & they think that is what caused the scaring & closing of my tubes. I immediately contacted a Reproductive Endocrinologist since I knew IVF was our only option. I was able to get an appointment fairly quickly which I was happy about since I was 30 & Jim was 36, time was no longer on our side. In June of 2002 I saw the RE & he said in order to give me a 55% chance at IVF working he had to remove both my scared, distended tubes (they were in the way & could be leaking fluid into the uterus that would prevent implantation). With my tubes in there was only a 5% chance. I right away wanted them out so less than 1 week after meeting with the RE I was having both tubes removed. I was told I had to wait until September to try IVF so I waited & was excited that finally I was going to be a Mom, it just has to happen the 1st time, right? They are putting an embryo in why would it not work I thought.
In September of 2002 I did my 1st IVF we transferred 3 embryos & waited….. It didn’t work! I could not believe it. I was so sure it had to work. We were crushed. But quickly we scheduled the 2nd IVF for November of 2002. Again we transferred 3 embryos & waited….. It didn’t work again! How could this be? I did everything I was told & prayed & still no baby. My heart ached for a baby so badly. I was so depressed & was tired of all the questions from everyone. They would always ask: “why don’t you have any kids yet?” as if we were trying not to get pregnant. It hurt so much when someone would announce they were pregnant. I found myself crying in the store when I would see a pregnant woman, I would end up leaving & Jim would have to go back & shop for food it was just too much for me to handle. After talking to the RE we decided we would do a frozen embryo transfer in February of 2003. We transferred 5 embryos & waited….. I was pregnant!!! YIPPEEEE!!!!! We were so excited we told EVERYONE who had ears! It was finally our time.
Then I started bleeding & having terrible pain at about 9 weeks we went in to see what was wrong & they said the embryo had implanted in the top of the uterus in a pocket near where my tubes had been removed, the baby was growing & the area could not expand so it was causing pain. The pregnancy would not make it 9 months & I was told I would need to be given a shot of Methotrexate to lose the pregnancy. We were devastated. Our baby was there & now we had to terminate because it was in the wrong place & could cause me to die.