Infertile? Really?

Infertile.  Is there a more loaded word to a married Midwestern girl in her early 30’s?  I’ve known that there could be issues with us trying to get pregnant since I was 26, that’s when I found out I had PCOS.  But I was 26, we were newlyweds and there was a LOT of time to worry about having a kid.  Spencer and I briefly considered moving up our time table for kids at that time, but decided against it.  Then in 2011 I started my current job, the job that has me living in hotels for 21 days a month.  I talked to my doctor in December 2014 about wanting to quit preventing kids, and we talked about the possibilities of it taking a little while and what steps we may need to explore.  One of the first things she brought up was that since I have Hashimotos (a form of hypothyroidism) that I may want to get some allergy testing done to see if I have a gluten intolerance.  I met this suggestion with laughter, anyone who knows me knows that bread and pasta are (or were) my go to foods.  Turns out I laughed too soon, I have a gluten allergy.  In Jan of 2015 I was diagnosed with the gluten allergy, along with some other random food allergies.  But GLUTEN.  I existed (almost) solely on pasta and bread with some cheese thrown in for good measure up until this point in my life.  I started seeing a functional medicine doctor at this point to try and get to the root issue of my medical issues, including but not limited to digestive issues, not having a regular period etc.  I was also diagnosed with adrenal fatigue (basically my love of caffeine and stressful job, along with things like my dads cancer diagnosis etc caused extra stress and taxed my adrenal glands to the point where they just basically quit working).  All of this led to some major lifestyle changes. Most notably the absence of fluffy bread from my life forever which, trust me, is sad; like really sad.  I’m also now that person at a restaurant who grills the waitstaff and managers about the kitchen and ingredients and if they have separate prep spaces for my food vs the gluteny food.  I also gave up caffeine entirely, this from a girl who had a Rockstar for breakfast every day for a decade and when going to Starbucks would order a quad shot tall drink, they usually had to put it in a grande cup because of the extra espresso. 

This is all in a 2 month period, I didn’t think there was anything to be super worried about. I told myself that I’d make these dietary changes and we’d be fine, I was sure I’d be knocked up in no time.  I noticed a lot of positive changes from cleaning up my diet. I noticed a big improvement in my sleep, skin and digestive system when I cut out gluten, dairy, soy and most sugar. I also started to have a regular period, so I thought our issues were solved.  A year went by, a year where I have slowly regressed back into my old eating habits (except for gluten and caffeine, I’ve cut them out totally) and did not get pregnant.  A lot of this is likely due to the fact that I was not near my husband for the necessary days of the month, but none the less there were a few times I was home during the “correct” window and nothing happened.  I had some blood work done that showed that even though I was having a period I wasn’t actually ovulating. 
EXCUSE ME?
So I was dealing with the cramps, the mess and the overall unpleasantness of Aunt Flo but wasn’t actually able to get pregnant? This seems like a crock.  My doctor advised that taking a drug to help me ovulate would be the next step, so I’ve taken Femara 2x so far, the 2^nd time it showed I ovulated, but no baby.  So we’ll try it one more time and see if it works, if not then its onto a Reproductive Endocrinologist to see what the next steps need to be. 

There’s a million blogs and posts about infertility, I don’t think there's anything I can write that hasn’t been written more eloquently by someone before me.  But this is where I’m at right now.  Month after month, wondering if this is “The Month”.  Seeing what feels like ALL my friends get pregnant, some after a long struggle, but most with seemingly little effort or even trying.  You feel like such a bad friend because your reaction isn’t 100% happy, of course you are happy for your friend and you can’t wait to meet their new little one, but inside you can’t help but feeling like every kid that someone else has somehow reduces the chances of you having one.  When one of my friends told me she was pregnant I literally cried for an hour before I was able to call her and tell her congratulations.  I tried to pass the stuffy sound of my voice off as allergies, but I’m not sure she bought it.  I never thought that we’d be in this position.  I never thought that something that is supposed to be so natural and easy would turn out to be something that at times feels like its sucking the life out of me. 

My Dad.

In July 2014 my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.  He passed away in Feb 2015, after being in the ICU for a week and a half with pneumonia. There are a million things I could write about my dad.  He was a phenomenal photographer, he was a marvelous wood worker.  He could cook (or so I've been told), he was quiet but not withdrawn, his favorite night was when he was in his chair with his dog Biscuit curled up with him.  There are always so many things that can be said *about* someone, but its so hard to capture someone's spirit.  I wish I was a better writer, or that I was more connected to him and had a better understanding of who he was.  My dad and I weren’t super close when I was growing up, a variety of reasons that are neither here nor there.  As I got older we saw each other more often, lunches and more phone calls etc.  After the diagnosis we saw each other more frequently, and the whole time he was in the hospital I was able to spend every day working from his room and we got to spend some quality time before he passed away.  The morning I found out that he died during the night was the worst day of my life.   

 

At my parents wedding

With his mom Ann and Dad Marshall

 

With his step dad Gene and mom at the reception

The average survival time for stage 4 lung cancer is 8 months, that was one of the first things I read on Web MD after I found out.  (I was subsequently banned from Web MD after hysterically calling Spencer with scary cancer facts for 2 days after)  The day after I found out about the diagnosis we were hanging out with some friends and I was holding their daughter, I remember thinking to myself that it was very unlikely that even if I got pregnant the next day that my dad would get to meet my kids.  – Sidenote: that night we went to go see Guardians of the Galaxy, you know the movie that opens with the mom dying of cancer? Thank God for the 3d glasses that hid 90% of the evidence that I was bawling, I hadn’t told any of my friends about the diagnosis so they would have been confused.  I think I almost broke Spencer’s hand I was gripping it so tightly so I wouldn’t react. 
 

 

 

 

 When I found out that my dad died I was obviously heartbroken because I was going to miss him, but I was also so upset because in my head I always saw us getting closer when I was older and a mom, he was such a great grandpa to my step siblings kids that I was excited to see how he was with my kids.  One of the worst things about losing someone so early in life is you feel cheated out of the things you never got to have.  I have the last voicemail he left me saved in 4 places, on it he tells me that I’m the best daughter in the world  and how much he loves me.  It’s one of my favorite things.  I miss my dad every day.