It was July 11, 1992 when my journey began. I was 20 years old and about to walk down the wedding aisle toward my soon-to-be husband and my future. We had grand dreams of a life full of happiness and a home full of children. Little did I know then that sometimes you have to put a whole lot of prayer into dreams to make them come true!
In August of 1993, after one full year of unsuccessfully trying to conceive, I made an appointment with a doctor. After some bloodwork and an ultrasound, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). This is also referred to as Polycystic Ovarian Disease and Stein-Levinthal Syndrome. Basically, this means that I do not ovulate on my own. Along with infertility, PCOS can cause obesity, hirsutism, diabetes, hair loss, and an increased risk of uterine and ovarian cancers, heart disease and stroke. It is a serious condition that needs to be legitimized in the eyes of insurance companies, but I won't get on that soapbox here :o)
Even with this diagnosis, I was optimistic that very soon we would be pregnant. The doctor put me on 50 mg of Clomid that first month. I honestly believed that I would be able to go home, pop a few pills, and be able to conceive. How naive! I was crushed when I found out a few weeks later that the Clomid hadn't worked.
This was the start of a full year of Clomid therapy. We finally stopped at 250 mg, when all it was doing was giving me incredible headaches and mood swings. Even at 250 mg, I was not producing mature follicles or ovulating. I decided at this point to switch doctors and my new gyn started me on injectibles.
My life became a blur. For the next three years, it was nothing but 5-7 days of shots, daily bloodwork and ultrasounds for two weeks out of every other month, and back to back IUI's around ovulation (if we even got that far). Metrodin didn't have any effect. I hyperstimulated on Perganol and Humegon.
Month after month of of negative htp's and unsuccessful cycles were taking their toll on me. Emotionally, I was a wreck. Physically, I was tired.
I will never forget the day in October 1996, when my gyn called and told me that she could do no more for me. She suggested I consider IVF at one of the large fertility centers in Boston, Ma. This was definitely not a proceedure that we could afford and I would have to say that I was at the lowest point of my infertility journey. I had lost all hope of ever having a child of my own.
However, there is ALWAYS hope!!! I made an appointment with Dr. Vito Cardone at the Fertility Center of New England in Reading, Ma. He suggested trying a round of Clomid combined with Metrodin and followed by IUI. I wasn't very optimistic but went ahead with it anyway. After careful monitoring via bloodwork and u/s, our first cycle was a success! I did not get pregnant but I did ovulate on the meds without hyperstimulating! What a miracle!
I decided to take the treatment plan back to my own gyn, instead of driving the hour and a half to the fertility center. My gyn was just about as happy as I was! In November of 1996, I did my first round of this new treatment with her. Once again, it was successful in the sense that I ovulated but I did not get pregnant. We skipped the December cycle and started again in January of 1997. Again, no success in getting pregnant.
I think the disappointment was almost more than I could bear at this point. Here I had gone through so much just to get the right combination of medication and yet it still wasn't working. One thing that I have learned is that you can never give up. My cycle in March was just awful. Nothing went right. The week before I was to take the hpt, I started cramping. I kept thinking, here we go again. The day before I was to take the hpt, I couldn't stand it anymore. I wanted to get the stupid test out of the way and be done with it.
I took the test and let it sit in the bathroom while I finished the dishes. I knew full well that it was negative because of the way I was feeling. To torture myself, I went in the bathroom about 10 minutes later and it had TWO lines! I could not believe my eyes. I took that test to every window in the house because I just knew I was seeing things.
I called my doctors office and asked for Kathy. She had been my nurse for seven years. I said "Kathy?" and she said "Yes?" "Kathy, if I get a faint pink line.." and at this point, Kathy just started hollering and crying and I couldn't get another word out. I finally calmed *her* down and told her that it was probably wrong and I wanted a blood test, which she ordered immediately. That fateful phone call is forever etched in my memory...I answered the phone and Kathy said, "Karen? Congratulations, you're going to be a mom...you ARE a mom!" I had rehearsed in my mind for years how I would react to such news but all I could do is stand there in awe. I had NOTHING to say!
Four and a half long years of heartache were all washed away on December 30, 1997...
