MY INFERTILITY TIMELINE
March 2014 - Scott and I have been married a month (short timers I know) and I visit my OBGYN for my annual check up. I talk about starting a family with Dr. Cook (who is amazing) and he advises me to get off birth control 2 months before I would like to ideally be pregnant. Scott and I talk about it and decide May is when I'll stop taking it. Then we think about it some more and decide, why wait? I get off bc in March 2014.
April 2014 - I have my period and purchase at at home ovulation test. Full disclosure, I've had irregular periods my whole life. Sometimes I would go 2-3 months without a period then the next month my period would last 2-3 weeks long. What's that guy saying - never trust anything that can bleed for a week and not die. I see your week and raise you 2.
In April I'm counting on having a regular 28 day cycle, I take the at home OT and I get a :) ie I'm ovulating. Yada yada yada. Then a few weeks later, I'm late, I take an HPT...negative.
May 2014 - Cycle is normal (mine's actually 30-31 days). Yada yada yada. Not pregnant.
June 2014 - Cycle is normal. Yada yada yada (Scott's not a fan of all the planned yadaing). Not pregnant.
July 2014 - Cycle is normal. Not Pregnant
August 2014 - Do not have a period. HPT is negative. Happy birthday to me!
September 2014 - Do not have a period. HPT is still negative. After 2 months of no period I make an appointment with Dr. Cook to check me out. He confirms the HPT negative test and prescribes Provera to kick start my period and Clomid to regulate my ovulation. Commence pill/timing extravaganza:
1. Days 1-5 take Provera
2. Day 5 period starts
3. Days 5-9 after day 1 of period take Clomid
4. Days 14-19 intercourse AT LEAST every other day
Not pregnant month 1 Clomid
October 2014 - Cycle is normal repeat steps 3 & 4 above. Not pregnant.
November 2014 - Cycle is normal repeat steps 3 & 4 above. Not pregnant.
December 2014 - Cycle is normal repeat steps 3 & 4 above. Not pregnant.
January 2015 - New year, new us! :) I'm off Clomid, the Doctor regulates it to 4 month periods because of the tendency to create ovarian cysts. My cycle is normal, we're timing ovulation the best we can, not pregnant.
February 2015 - Cycle is normal. Not pregnant.
March 2015 - I have my annual checkup with Dr. Cook and we decide that we need to take additional measures. First & easiest step is to get Scott tested. Scott is testing and his sperm count and mobility come back exceptional...of course. Now I'm back on Clomid.
April 2015 - I go in for my progesterone/21 day test and my results are 2.74 ng/mL. Normal ovulating women test at 10-20 ng/mL. My OBGYN doubles my Devil medicine does to 100 mg.
May 2015 - I finally get a positive ovulation test on the 100 mg dose of Clomid. No pregnancy.
June 2015 - We know I'm ovulating on 100 mg of Clomid so Dr. Cook thinks we should continue with that dose for 6 more months. I also get scheduled for an HSG test to make sure there is nothing blocking my tubes. Of course I'm traveling for work on the day they need to do it so we schedule for July cycle. Oh, no period obviously.
July 2015 - The HSG test reveals that my tubes are clear. 100 mg of Clomid, no pregnancy.
August 2015 - After a clear HSG and months on the 100 mg Clomid I decide I want to see a specialist. I want to note here that this is my one regret this whole time. I wish I wish I would have sought additional help sooner. I meet with Dr. Hines of Mississippi Reproductive Medicine (MRM). We start with a Counsyl test to check for genetic disorders and I switch off Clomid and on to Letrozole. If the Letrozole works for ovulation, we plan on moving to IUI.
September 2015 - I get a positive ovulation test back on the Letrozole and on the 14th day like a normal human. My ORT test comes back great and shows that I am in top 10% of all women my age when it come to number of follicles. IUI is scheduled for next month.
October 2015 - Unfortunately there is a timing conflict with the lab around the time of my IUI so we have to plan an intercourse cycle this month. I'm pissed and surprise, it doesn't work.
November 2015 - My cycle lasts 46 days. Given that and the timing we decide to skip IUI and go straight to IVF. I get on birth control (OCP) and schedule to take part of the January IVF cycle.
December 2015 - Dr. Hines finds a polyp in my uterus after completing an SHG test. That has to me removed before we can start IVF. Second to last day of the year I go in to have it removed. I love anesthesia.
January 2016 - We started our IVF shots. I was on the baseline doses of 75 IU of Menopur in the am and 150 IU of Follistim in the pm. I go in 1/6 and that dose didn't work. My follicles were so small Dr. Gebhart was perplexed. They double my doses for the next few days. I when I went back in for a final checkup, doubling the dose didn't work either and we had to cancel the whole cycle. Needless to say, January was a sad month for me.
February 2016 - February was a crazy month. My cycle after the cancelled IVF lasted 45 days. After I started we began shots again; 150IU of Menopur and 300 IU of Follistim. It works, almost too well and my meds are bumped down to 75/100. I end up with ovaries so big that they are "kissing." Retrieval comes and goes and they get 15 eggs. My day 3 report comes back and we have 9 contenders for the chosen one.
March 2016 - Of the 9 only 3 make it to the stage to be biopsied for PGS testing. Of those three, 1 came back normal, one came back with Trisomy 13 and the biopsy on the 3rd didn't survive the shipping process. So for now that one will be frozen and re-biopsied at a later date and the good one is going in. However, MRM decided that since I showed signs of hyperstimulation that it would be best if I waiting until my NEXT cycle to transfer them back in. They want me at my healthiest.
April 2016 - Needed Provera again to kickstart my period. I finally start but the timing of my transfer date will fall in the week MRM is doing egg retrievals and they don't do transfers the week they do retrievals. They had to postpone the FET by 3 weeks and I'll be taking birth control for the next two weeks to pause any uterus changes.
May 2016 - We start estrogen and progesterone shots in while we're in Mexico and finally transfer our one good frozen embryo on 5/23.
June 2016 - We got confirmation that our first embryo transfer failed. We had 1 more undiagnosed embryo that we were going to retest however, it did not survive the thaw. We now have to do the whole IVF process over again. Months of shots, footing the bill for the entire process again, but still holding on hope.
July 2016 - I started birth control to prevent any ovary changes for the upcoming IVF cycle. I go in August 8 for my baseline ultrasound. Silver lining, I had meds left over from the double dose cycle which saved us tons (about $3k) this round.
August 2016 - IVF round two begins this August. Shots were uneventful, 21 eggs were retrieved, 2 made it to the blastocyst stage and were eligible for biopsy.
September 2016 - Embryo report came back and both blasts tested normal!
October 2016 - On the day of transfer the first blast they attempted to thaw did not survive, however, the second one did and was transferred. Unfortunately, that transfer resulted in a BFN. On to #3.
November 2016 - Started stims in early November. I was slow to respond but finally made it to retreival and got out 23 eggs, of those 17 made it to day 1, 6 made it to day 3, but by day 5 all of them had fractured and died. The day before Thanksgiving I received a call letting me know and recommending we move on to donor eggs. I have my first ever panic attack.
December 2016 - We get a second opinion at another local fertility clinic. The doctor looks at our files and tells us that we should do IVF one more time, even if it's not with him. We just so happen to be traveling to Denver to see Scott's brothers so I call up the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine (CCRM) and miraculously get an appointment while we're there. CCRM is the number one clinic in the country with the highest success rate. If you watch Giuliana and Bill, that's where they made Duke. :) We meet with Dr. Sara Barton and decide to do IVF one more time at CCRM.
January 2017 - My day 3 serum test required by CCRM for the one day workup was mishandled and couldn't be processed. We have to wait another month. Int he meantime I'm taking 23 vitamins a day, recommended by CCRM.
February 2017 - Rerun of the day 3 test was successful and we flew to Denver to complete our one day workup. What do you know! All tests come back just fine aside from the PCOS diagnosis. After my next cycle start date we're required to do a prime month.
March 2017 - Prime month consisted of antibiotics for Scott and me and a lot of waiting. I started home testing for ovulation but never got a surge so I have to have blood drawn to confirm or I can't move forward with this cycle.
April 2017 - Blood drawn (twice) confirmed I in fact ovulated and we can start round 4 after my next cycle day 1. Stims started on the 21st since this last cycle lasted 42 days. Our fourth stims month was a breeze. Headed to Colorado end of this month.
May 2017 - Retrieval came and went early May and we ended up with FIVE PGS normal embryos. Now we wait for a period and the start of transfer meds.
June 2017 - Our 3rd embryo transfer was a breeze, I was bed ridden for 2 days and Scott's treating me like I'm made of glass. Fingers and toes crossed, we are PUPO again!
July 2017 - I'm pregnant. Like really pregnant!
March 2018 - Our sweet baby GIRL, Rhodes Pearl Wilson, is born.