Our TTC journey

Pregnancy does not come easily to some couples, and, unfortunately, we are one of those couples. It’s been 17 months of TTC (Trying To Conceive) for us and still no luck. We did get pregnant after 9 months of trying but had a miscarriage at 7 weeks. It’s been a long 8 months since then, filled with days of hope, followed by days of despair, then the cycle repeats.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

– Martin Luther King Jr

I’d been on the pill for about 13 years, with a few breaks, but still, it was too long. I went on the pill because I had extremely painful and heavy periods, with vomiting and diarrhea. Painkillers did not help as my body would dispose of them immediately. Even a glass of water would not stand a chance to stay inside. It was a monthly nightmare. Doctors could not figure out what was wrong with me, I was just one of those “lucky” women. Once I got on the pill, the pain and bleeding became bearable, I stopped dreading my periods every month. So I did not want to stop taking the pill until I was ready to start a family.

In January 2018 we decided to start trying for a baby. Have you heard the stories about women who would come off the pill and get pregnant right away? We thought it would happen to us. We were wrong.

After a few months of trying without success, I got a referral to the fertility doctor. We went to see the reproductive endocrinologist in August 2018 and had a lot of testing done: everything looked good for both of us. I also had an HSG procedure done which was painful as hell, but thankfully, it showed no blockages in my tubes. There is a belief that “flushing the tubes” can help you get pregnant. I am not sure how true it is, but we did get pregnant naturally a month after HSG. By my calculations, our baby was due on June 16th, 2019. I still keep that positive pregnancy test…

Then the spotting started. It was the weekend, so I went to the emergency to get checked. My blood test showed that my HCG levels were not as high as they should have been around 7 weeks, but they did see the pregnancy on ultrasound. It gave me hope. The doctor said that I needed to come back the following day for them to do another ultrasound with the proper equipment. The one she used in the emergency room was a small machine.

I went back the next day, and I knew it was over when they said they could only see an empty sac. There was no embryo. I had another blood test to check my HCG level and it barely rose. They told me to prepare for a miscarriage. The heavy bleeding started a couple of days later. I miscarried at 7 weeks, 1 week before our first scheduled ultrasound. It still feels unreal that it happened. I believe what helped us to live through this was the fact that I did not really have any early pregnancy symptoms, and we did not see the embryo on ultrasound or heard the heartbeat. We still could not quite believe we were pregnant. It all happened so quickly. But regardless, it was devastating when it happened.

That’s when I learned that every 4th pregnancy ends with miscarriage, this is just cruel. I also learned that doctors will not run any tests to find out the reason of miscarriage until after a woman has had two or more consecutive miscarriages. Apparently, the first miscarriage is just bad luck and does not signal any big problem, from a medical perspective. This approach makes me angry.

We did not tell a lot of people that we got pregnant. We wanted to wait until Christmas to surprise my husband’s family in person. So, there was only a handful of people we had to tell the sad news to. The hardest was my mom, she cried more than I did. I had to make sure she was ok as she was going through hell with my brother’s illness. The only reason I told her in the first place was to give her something good to look forward to. I totally get it now why people wait until they are past the first trimester to share the news. There is a lot of uncertainty during the first 12 weeks, and that’s when most miscarriages happen. I think we will be even more secretive when we get pregnant again, and we hope our family and friends will understand why.

My bleeding subsided by the end of December and my period resumed in January. We started trying again, and after a couple of months without any success, we decided to do IUI. My biological clock was ticking and I was beginning to panic.

We did 2 IUI procedures with letrozole, but we did not get pregnant. For our last IUI, I had 2 mature follicles, both being over 20 mm, I had a Pregnyl shot to stimulate ovulation, but unfortunately, it did not work. Our fertility doctor said that we should do IUI 4 times, and if they do not work, then try IVF. IUI costs $650 and has about a 10% success rate. IVF costs $15,000 and has about 15-20% success rate for my age. So our chances are pretty low for both procedures. The low success rates did not give me much hope, they actually stressed me out more.

I am very upset that no one can tell us the reason why we cannot get pregnant. Surely, there should be an option to do more tests, to monitor my estrogen and progesterone levels and see how my hormones behave throughout the cycle. But my doctor only sees one thing: I am 39 and the only way for me to get pregnant is IVF. What if I have very low progesterone levels and it is pointless to do any IUIs or IVF? It almost feels like I need to have another miscarriage to get additional testing done. This is very frustrating and stressful.

I could have never imagined that it would be such an emotionally devastating experience. There were days when I was completely overwhelmed by hopelessness and a sense of failure, and there were days when I felt strong and hopeful. It was such an emotional roller coaster that sometimes I felt I was about to go mental. My close friends kept telling me that I needed to relax, rest more, pray, cut down on exercise, stay positive, and then it would happen. But it was easier said than done. I completely understood that they had the best intentions at heart, but it did not comfort me and it did not help. This obsessive desire to have a baby infiltrated my daily life and affected my ability to function normally both at work and at home.

Stress had been a major challenge for me for the past 15 years when my dad’s and my brother’s addictions got worse, and especially in the past 5-6 years when their health deteriorated significantly. And even though I lived far away from my family, the whole family drama affected me a lot. I never reached out to any counselor or psychologist to deal with the stress caused by my family situation, nor after my dad and my brother had passed away, and that grief and pain are still so recent that I am sure it affects my fertility as well.

At one point I knew that I needed to change my mindset about the whole situation, I needed to learn how to surrender, and how to trust my body. And I wanted to find out other alternatives as I could no longer rely just on Western medicine. I started with meditations and affirmations, then I got interested in learning more about fertility. I also started seeing a psychologist, and I discovered acupuncture fertility treatments and Chinese herbs. And wow, it is helping! I now have this clear vision and understanding that I need to have a stress-free body in order to be able to conceive naturally and welcome a healthy baby into this world.

During the last couple of months I noticed that I am getting calmer, that I do not get angry or frustrated so easily anymore. I am beginning to understand my emotions better and I am able to analyze and control them. And even though we did not get pregnant last month with the second round of IUI, I know that I am taking better care of myself and I am healing myself instead of just relying on the doctors to fix me. It is work in progress and I know for sure it will get me where I need to be. I trust my body and I know I will get pregnant when the time is right and when my body is ready.