Thank goodness for that cyst; our journey through fertility treatment

I have wanted to write about my infertility journey for quite some time and before Chloe was diagnosed I had begun jotting my thoughts down.

Infertility is scary. That quiet idea of having two or three cherubs at home while being happily married or partnered is certainly a dream most of us share or aspire to.  I had always imagined having three children by the age of 30 (if only!). My hubby has always wanted kids as much as me but while we were in our twenties we decided to live abroad and see what the far side of the world to Ireland had to offer. So we settled first in Brisbane Australia and then to our home here in Auckland, New Zealand. Our dream to have children was somewhat diverted until July 2013 brought the discovery that I have PCOS, or Polycycstic Ovarian Syndrome.

PCOS affects a woman's ovaries often causing too many follicles to develop and grow too large. It affects ovulation and a woman's monthly cycle along with a myriad of different things. That is the very simplified version. If you're worried you have something similar or have concerns about your fertility I suggest you talk to a specialist and get the ball rolling. As me well I was completely asymptomatic apart from very irregular periods, until I had a ruptured cyst on my right ovary.

Panicked and eager to get pregnant my hubby and I decided to try straight away hoping we would conceive naturally. We got ourselves on the waiting list for publicly funded IVF, as going private was never a realistic option. In other words we were not cash flash enough to be able to pay for making a child. And so our journey began…

In New Zealand once you get on the waiting list it can take close to a year before you are seen and assessed for suitability for treatment. And you needed to be try trying for a child at least one year before this and have some sort of fertility issue. It is a long way to have a child let me tell you. In the interim my doctor suggested taking something to help me regulate my cycle as if I did not ovulate, I could not produce an egg to fertilise. Initially she talked about putting me on the contraceptive pill but I had always become a crazy moody monster while taking the pill (probably because of my PCOS hormonal imbalance).

Because I have PCOS I was prescribed Metformin to help me ovulate in a regular monthly cycle. Metformin is a drug used to treat Diabetes but can also aid in regulating menstruation. I gladly started taking this as a tablet once a day on week one, twice a daily on week two and thrice daily from week three. I took this drug for roughly just over 3 years. Man this prep for an IVF cycle was tough! I am back on it once more to try and regulate again after having my daughter.

My doctor did warn me that Metformin is known to be harsh on the system, causing nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. Bring it on I thought when I began taking it. Turns out I have a soft constitution and subsequently lost some weight, about 4 k.g. which is quite a bit on a five foot nothing frame. And honestly getting a bit skinnier was a perk! Undaunted I stuck with it from September 2013 right up to 10 weeks into my successful pregnancy following a frozen embryo transfer in 2016.

Yes it was bloody hard to take, but after a while you kind of get used to being nauseous, and know not to over eat or pay the price! It was so completely worth the sickness and curbed appetite because I knew I was preparing my body for fertility treatment in the future. I was getting my body ready to hold and grow a baby.
My dreams were full of smiling infants and both P. and I were sure we would manage to conceive as my periods were so regular. But nope, nothing doing.

As the time went by and still no baby in sight I suffered intense guilt as I felt it was my fault we were not able to have children. After a year or two the guilt began to take its toll. It sometimes felt like a weight around my neck and even though my wonderful hubby swore he did not feel that way I could not shake the feeling I was defective and not good enough as a woman. Looking back now I guess that was a normal response but it really sucks to feel like you are not woman enough to ovulate and have the ability house a child when that is your all encompassing dream. Top that with watching my friends and family members getting pregnant and I was a mess. Oh, on the outside I was fine, and tried never to let my jealousy or sadness leak out when congratulating them. I thought they wouldn’t understand.

I was happy for them. Really, I was. But my frustration and grief for my own inability to have children and my anger at my own traitorous body was enough to drive me to hide in my car weeping. It was hard. But I kept telling myself I was lucky to be able to have the treatment that might mean a baby of my own was in my future. P. was so supportive during this time. Believe me his support was the only thing that kept me going sometimes.  

After two years of taking Metformin and no child in sight it was suggested that P. get his junk checked to make sure the infertility was on my side only. Looking back now I wished we had done this way earlier, maybe we should have. Maybe the clinic should have checked before this time. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

P. had something called Oligospermia with a left varicocele. In other words P. had an extremely low sperm motility count that was aggravated by a vein that was overheating his little swimmers, further decreasing his sperm quality. He felt so so guilty, doing what I had done and blaming himself on our inability to procreate. And so it was my turn to support my husband. I recognize now that we survived our journey through infertility by having a strong relationship, believe me it is a must if you are a couple getting on this roller coaster.

Secretly I was quietly glad I was not the only reason we did not yet have a child. And so united in our mutual inability we soldiered on. P. was offered a surgery to embolize the the vein causing havoc with his sperm though it did not guarantee any successful results. My hubby went straight for it in August 2015, result in a slight increase in his sperms motility. Not enough though and we were given the green light for ICSI or Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection as an IVF procedure.

And so because I had PCOS and P. had some lower than average sperm, we shot to top of the list for the full whack of IVF treatment. Sometimes what seems to be a tragedy can turn out to be a blessing. So we went through all of the invasive procedures (imagine a third attempt to use a thin scalpel scraping the inside of your womb lining in the hopes an embryo will attach to your womb better, that was freaking horrible but hey you will try anything to become a Mamma), all of the tablets, injections, all of the appointments, the egg collection (which the run up and procedure was the hardest for me), waiting on embryos to grow successfully and finally the embryo transfer.

Cycle 1 of our ICSI treatment began April 2016 resulting in a failed pregnancy test in May 2016. I will never ever forget that phone call. You will know what I mean if you have had fertility treatment. That damn phone call after which maybe you can call yourself parents, or maybe not as the case may be.

We had gone out to lunch as neither one of us could sit idle at home, needing something to do we went to our favorite eatery. I was sure 100% sure I was pregnant. I could feel the baby I knew had to be in there, there was another life growing side of me. I felt nervous and excited waiting for that phone call. P. was much more cautious, saying it probably didn’t work and not to get too excited about it. But I could see the gleam of hope growing in his eyes before that call. Our hope was so strong.

Instead we got devastation and an empty womb. The nurse rang as our food came out. The conversation passed in a blur with plenty of “I am sorry to inform you..” and “It’s fine thank you”, a lot of politeness surrounding what seemed like drowning grief, shock and a kind of numbness. Yes, we had been told repeatedly that the first cycle of treatment rarely actually worked, and acted as a way to prepare the body for the next cycle where the chances of success increased. But secretly (like everyone else I think) we thought that just maybe the embryo would take and we would be in the small percentage of success stories.

I really, really wanted that maybe-baby.

Our saving grace was the fact that we still had three viable blastocysts (embryos) frozen and ready for use. Thank goodness we decided to freeze them because one of them is now our beautiful daughter, Chloe, who I am so blessed to say is just about 13 months old.

I can honestly say we wallowed in sadness and grief for that maybe-baby for about a month or so until we turned to the future. I know that sounds like a short time and it was, but we focused on those three frozen future kiddos and tried not to look back. In saying that, we were battle hardened by the failed cycle and more than a bit cynical in hoping the next time would work.

After about three weeks I pushed for a frozen embryo transfer. The clinic had not contacted me and I thought, what have I to lose? So I called them and my persistence paid off. I began taking Clomiphene along with Metformin to ready my body until it was time to put that frozen little maybe-baby number 2 in.

Chloe was conceived in May 2016 and put on ice before snuggling into my womb and growing in July of that year. Our maybe-baby became a real miracle and now is a little buster and a total champion.

Our wee miracle

If your are reading this chances are you’ve read how she has fought for life since she was 3 months old and I am so happy to say she is a very healthy happy child now after battling for her life when she was younger (Check out my post Sick Bubba Strong Mamma on this blog).

If anyone is facing into fertility treatment I applaud you. It is so tough but you know every day is worth it for that maybe baby.If your cycles are irregular, get checked, check for any issues causing it. There is no harm.

If you are concerned about your ability to conceive talk to your doctor.
Get the ball rolling.
Get checked.
Do research.
Eat better.
Work out.
Find out if you or your partner have fertility issues so you can plan your infertility journey.
Act on it. If there is an issue and you can, get started on a fertility plan. Trust me you may end up regretting waiting until a little later down the line.

If I had not had felt that ruptured cyst on my ovary at the age of 27 no doubt we would have left it even longer to have a child. Thank we didn’t. Our life has been a roller coaster since then with so many lows but more highs and I would not change my girl for the world. She is perfect.

Thank goodness for that cyst.