I’m a 29 year old Southern girl, and I married my best friend in October of 2005. We’re in the process of trying to conceive our first child, and I needed an anonymous place to vent frustrations and flesh out my ideas about fertility and infertility and the sometimes not-so-clockwork process of trying to get pregnant.
I wanted to add this as a sidebar for easy reference, but since I can’t make it configure like I want it to, I’m adding it here to my “About” page for interested parties.
October 2005: Got married.
End of 2005/most of 2006: Blissful year of BC, telling everyone we were waiting two years before talking about kids.
November 06: Decided to kick the BC at the end of the month.
January 07: Officially started TTC.
July 07: Preliminary blood tests with ob-gyn. Progesterone, thyroid, and prolactin all came back normal. M’s SA came back with very good concentration, but volume and motility were at the low end of normal. They said as long as they’re in the normal range, he’s ok and no need to retest.
August 07: HSG all clear.
September 07: Discovered “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” and started charting temps. Also, used OPKs intermittently all year.
November 07: M and I met with my ob-gyn face to face to get help figuring out if we should go to a fertility clinic. She said she’d be happy to give us a referral if we wanted to go earlier than the typical one-year mark of trying.
December 07: First appt. with fertility program. All my bloodwork came back great, I’m ovulating fine on my own. M’s S.P.A. test came back great. She recommended 3-4 cycles of natural cycle IUIs.
January 08: IUI #1 with natural cycle (no meds or trigger). 7.5 million motile sperm post-wash. Low number, but all we need is one, right? (We weren’t able to abstain at all before the IUI because we had to do a PCT the day before.) Negative. Considered this one a learning experience.
February 08: IUI #2 with trigger. 19 million motile sperm post-wash. Decided 3 days of abstinence before IUI means good numbers for us. But alas, negative.
March 08: IUI #3, natural cycle with trigger. A little over 18 million sperm post-wash. Negative.
April 08: Began acupuncture. After a weird drawn-out cycle where we thought we missed ovulation, we had IUI#4. Natural cycle with trigger. 13 million sperm post-wash. Negative.
May 08: Skipping treatment this month, but continuing acupuncture. Also had an appt with our doctor to discuss what next. She suggested ivf as our next course of action.
June-July 08: No acupuncture, no treatment. We spent a couple of months trying to figure out what we think about ivf and if it’s the right course for us.
August 08: Had another appt with doctor to discuss ivf more in depth. We’ve decide we’re going to pursue this road. Started the insurance papers to figure out coverage. Not sure exactly when we’ll be doing ivf, but that’s what our plan is.
Later in August 08: Found out my insurance doesn’t cover IVF if you haven’t tried drug therapy. I wonder if this is God’s way of closing this door for us–at least for the time being. At the same time, tested high on a couple of blood tests that hint at endometriosis. Decided that was the road to take next.
September 08: Had laparoscopy/hysteroscopy. Mild endo and mild pelvic adhesions found and removed.
October 08: Post op appt, Doctor suggested we move on to next step: FSH shots to stimulate production of more eggs. But before moving on to that, she suggested we try naturally for 3 cycles while taking progesterone to help lengthen luteal phase.
December 08: Decide to move forward with IVF. Had to petition insurance company to extend coverage to us even though we hadn’t tried the “drug therapy” (read: Clomid) they want patients to do before doing IVF. I didn’t need Clomid, so my doctor asked them to extend coverage anyway. Through a miracle (and a good friend who works at the insurance company) we got a letter in about three weeks (instead of the more typical 30-60 days) saying we had coverage.
January 09: Began our first IVF cycle. Stim meds begin Feb. 8, retrieval Feb 20, 5 day transfer of 1 embryo on feb 25.
March 09: Received word of our positive test on Sunday, March 8! First beta 89.6, second (1 week later),014. Baby girl due in November 09!
November 11 09: Katherine Grace arrived via c-section at 3:55pm, weighing 5lbs, 13oz!
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Two Years and Counting 
I think we go to the same doctor. Let me know if you want to talk. We will be having a natural cycle IUI in April/May after 3 months of medicine for my DH. You can emaile me at theinfertilejourney@yahoo.com if you don’t want to comment on my blog at http://www.theinfertilejourney.blogspot.com.
Comment by S February 11, 2008 @ 4:14 pmMay I suggest trying body talk. Its energy work thats is based on the bodies innate ability to heal itself and know what is wrong. I have been trying to get pregnant for 6+ years and after 3 visits my practitioner told me I would conceive that month. I am absolutely sure I was pregnant for abit(have dd with another partner) but it didn’t stick and I got my period (practitioner confirmed this). She tells me this month we will conceive (provided we have sex the right days) and it will carry to term. My DH has low sperm count also so I will consider this a total miracle. My ovaries weren’t working properly along with a bunch of other things being out of wack. It is a very strange therapy but it has totally renewed my hope. I have tried acupuncture, chlomid, IUI’s and 1 unsuccessful IVF. Don’t have the money to cycle again and just turned 40 so trying anything at this point. Try googling it, one website with practitioners and info is http://www.bodytalksystems.com . Good luck with our journey. God bless.
Comment by Barb November 16, 2008 @ 11:02 pm