April has been infertility awareness month. As someone who has struggled with infertility, I felt that i should have put ONE post up about it to help educate my readers about the pain and suffering that goes along with infertility.
what infertility is...
Infertility is a disease that results in the abnormal functioning of the male or female reproductive system. Both the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), World Health Organization (WHO) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recognize infertility as a disease.
That means infertility is NOT a curse from God. you aren't being punished for the possibility of being a bad parent. disease is NOT your fault! it just happens. this was one of the obstacles i faced. Large quantities of shame and guilt. many women feel this way.Being a woman of "advanced" age (28) when i found the right man to marry i felt it was all my fault for screwing up my life so completely prior to meeting him, then playing it safe and wanting to wait until we had been married for five years prior to discussing children as i didn't want to find out i had brought another child into a broken marriage. i was over 30 when we started trying.
Infertility is defined as the inability to conceive after one year of unprotected intercourse (six months if the woman is over age 35) or the inability to carry a pregnancy to live birth.
When we had not conceived by the time i was 35, we sought professional help i was convinced that I was simply "too old" only to find my fertility doctor was my own age and 6 months pregnant! she assured me that i was NOT too old that most of the women my age were simply on their 3rd pregnancy, provided of course that they weren't teen moms (16-20)
Infertility affects 7.3 million people in the U.S. This figure represents 12% of women of childbearing age, or 1 in 8 couples. (2002 National Survey of Family Growth)1 in 8 couples. to me that's huge! i had no idea that it was that high. but where there is guilt and shame people just don't talk about it. that needs to change. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
unexplained. that's what they told us they didn't know. it wasn't my fault, it wasn't his fault. did that help? nope! cuz then it was OUR fault. it didn't help the guilt. it didn't help the shame. we just didn't know who to blame.
A couple ages 29-33 with a normal functioning reproductive system has only a 20-25% chance of conceiving in any given month. After six months of trying, 60% of couples will conceive without medical assistance.
this information cracked me up! i mean facts are facts right? So how are there so many teen pregnancies? only a 25% chance? during my years of infertility, i saw a girl have three "unplanned" pregnancies! yea that was insane for me. it felt like the whole WORLD was preggers! every where i looked there were women that were HUGE with babies or pushing babies in strollers and grocery carts. it got so i never wanted to leave the house because just grocery shopping hurt too much.
Approximately 44% of women with infertility have sought medical assistance. Of those who seek medical intervention, approximately 65% give birth.
Approximately 85-90% of infertility cases are treated with drug therapy or surgical procedures. Fewer than 3% need advanced reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization (IVF).
65% those are good odds aren't they? so we went that route. three courses of a drug called "clomid" it stimulated ovulation. combined with taking my basal temp every am and charting it and counting and waiting. and GOD KNOWS how many dollar store pregnancy tests. it still didn't work! before we started the drug therapy, we sat down and discussed how far we were willing to take this and we decided IVF was not for us. especially since our insurance does not cover ANY fertility treatments. all treatments we had were paid out of pocket.
Fifteen states have passed laws requiring that insurance policies cover some level of infertility treatment: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and West Virginia.
Kudos to these states!
so three months of the drug therapy was all DH would allow me to try. the wrecked havoc on my emotional state i cried all the time i was so miserable every time i had another negative test i wanted to die. i don't mean sadness i mean literally wanted to die. i have never in my life felt like such a failure. I kept believing that there was a reason.
I was diagnosed with cancer within a year of stopping treatment. had i conceived i probably would have had to terminate my pregnancy due to chemotherapy.
WELL THERE IT WAS. my reason my cause. down int he bottom of my heart i felt maybe there was a chance that later we could try again. BUT before i started treatment, my oncologist asked if i was planning on having any more kids. because i would have to freeze my eggs and have IVF to be able to conceive. that was it. the finial blow. it was not going to happen. EVER. not only did i have to deal with cancer but I had to give up my dream of having a second child. I was crushed. i had cancer, i couldn't give my husband a child, i was worthless. I was a burden.
Every drop of money i had saved toward having the baby slowly went to cancer treatment. gas to drive me there, specialized food my system could tolerate, mouth washes that didn't help. medications my insurance didn't cover.
As I got healthier, I came to terms with my infertility. and with God's help I accepted the fact that i was alive and i was loved my my husband regardless of a child. I even learned to love myself once again. I was grateful for my journey through infertility. I found some wonderful friends through my support group whom i still talk to daily. these wonderful women now rejoice with me at Gods great gift of Matt. How after all I have been through God has bless us without a drop of trying or fertility treatment.
yes, i'm 40 now. I don't know if i would have tried clomid again after the cancer treatment if i had been told i could "try again" honestly probably not. there are so many more risks at 40 but its far from being unheard of. the one thing i was NEVER going to do was sneeze at a gift from God as this. no matter what some people said to me.
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information for this page has been taken from the national infertility association and there is so much more information on their page! local support groups online support if you have problems with infertility please check out their page here
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