Trying to conceive made me infertile.

So what went wrong? How did we get to come back empty handed (or empty wombed) from the Mecca of Infertility? 

At first we were in the dreaded “undiagnosed” category. All my tests always came back normal, as did DH’s. The only thing the RE’s ever had as an excuse was my irregular cycles. In my opinion irregular cycles are the easiest treated diagnosis of IF. I know girls who go months without AF, but when they started TTC, one or two rounds of clomid was all that was needed.

After years of being undiagnosed, and uncategorized, we discovered DH’s Balanced Translocation. I don’t know if we were more alarmed at the discovery, or more relieved that we had finally found something! I kept asking the doctors to give me a reason why my treatment didn’t ever work. I have a scientific, logical mind. I can only buy the “bad luck” answer for that much. Not longer than that. Give me a reason, and maybe I can put closure to the questions in my head.

With PGD tested embryos, we figured there was nothing that could stop us from bringing baby home. How wrong we were.

In 2007, when I first got pregnant after IVF#2, I was on baby aspirin for the first few weeks. At about 8 weeks I had an episode of bleeding – major bleeding. Convinced that we had lost the baby, we rushed sobbing to the RE’s office. He checked, and showed us that the baby was doing fine. He showed us the spot in my uterus from where the blood was coming, and he said “Maybe you can stop the baby aspirin now – your blood may be getting too thin”

I stopped the baby aspirin that day, and that was the day the baby’s heartbeat stopped (approximately, because when the missed m/c was discovered 10 days later, the baby had not grown much in size from that emergency u/s day) 

I had a D&C, and the RE ordered a repeat loss panel for me (though it was my first loss – he wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything)

Then we discovered MTHFR (I call it the mother fucker gene). I should never have stopped that aspirin. And I will never understand why doctors don’t check all this before an IVF procedure! Why can’t these tests be done as part of our pre IVF work up??

The next IVF resulted in a biochemical pg, and the one following that resulted in an ectopic that they could never find. I had another D&C then. And methotrexate to kill the poor embryo that was growing somewhere where it shouldn’t have. We still don’t know where it was. 

Then we went to CCRM for our last and final cycle. During the one day work up, Dr Schoolie said he thought my uterine cavity was tiny, and could be the reason why I was not being able to stay pregnant. He did a surgery on me to fix the shape and grow the size of the cavity. So, in the course of 12 months, I had had 2 D&Cs and one uterus surgery.

The result? Poor uterine lining. Dr Schoolie thinks it’s the D&C’s that “damaged” my lining. I don’t know how he can be sure the surgery did not contribute to the damage. It’s the same process right? Scraping the insides of the uterus?

Last week, after my BFN, right after the nurse from CCRM called with the news, Dr. Schoolie called to say he was “shocked the cycle didn’t work”. Yes, we were shocked too – I was getting BFPs locally, and I got nothing at CCRM!! He also said that given the fact that I have never carried a pregnancy to term before, and the fact that my lining does seem badly “damaged by the D&C’s”, it may make sense to look at surrogacy for the remaining 2 blastocysts we have. He did mention that if I wanted, we could try to prep my lining again. I told him I did not trust my uterus. He then said, “In which case, honestly, you should consider using a gestational carrier”

So from being “undiagnosed” to becoming someone that probably can never carry a pregnancy to term, what a downhill slide huh?

Bottom line – our struggles with TTC and with IF ended up making me even more infertile. Now I am definitely barren. Before this, I could dream and carry a hope in my heart that it will work - someday, somehow. Now I know it won’t.

Trying to conceive made me infertile. Perhaps I just should not have tried so hard?