Fertility Schmertility

I’m in this odd place of being treated by a fertility specialist without being infertile.  Necessarily.  I mean, I might be.  Or Jerrad might be.  We really don’t know.

If you look at my about page or my various social media bios it sure looks like we’ve been actively trying for a long time with no baby, or even a fetus or embryo to show for it.  But we haven’t really been trying.

Confused yet?

We got married in November 2007 and spent at least the first year actively trying to not get me pregnant.  Which, incidentally is how I’ve conducted my entire sexual life.  I’ve never been in a situation with a previous partner where we thought it would be good for me to get knocked up, so we made sure it didn’t happen.  Which is why I’m always astounded that when I proudly respond “No” to the “Have you ever had an accidental pregnancy?” question I get a frown and a note in my chart instead of a high-five.  Pardon me for using birth control consistently and effectively.

When Jerrad and I decided we were ready to start a family, I scheduled an ob/gyn appointment that I had been putting off for years after being surgically treated for cervical cancer.

Because after being treated for cancer, putting off yearly check-ups is a really intelligent choice.  I got lucky in that I had the aggressive fast strain that almost always goes away entirely after one surgery, and every pap smear since has been normal.  I repeat… I got lucky.  Not following up with a doctor was so irresponsible of me.  I can’t say it enough.

Anyway.  At that appointment in the fall of 2008 my ob/gyn found lots of gunk in my uterus that started off a thoroughly blogged year of tests, D&C’s, and waiting to get into see a surgeon who could remove the fibroid garden in my uterus.  Throughout this time we were having plenty of unprotected sex, including several months of me taking my bbt, charting, peeing on ovulation predictor kits, and seducing my husband with announcements of my impending ovulation.

It was all for naught, because when we finally got to surgery time and could see the inside of my uterus (well, not me, I was asleep), it was obvious a pregnancy would never have happened.  The fibroids were taking up more than the available space in my uterus.  Seriously, once I figure out the scanner, I’m totally going to show you guys.

Since I do happen to be slightly over the age of 35, at my initial surgery consult, Dr. Specialist talked with us about the subject of fertility in general and where we would stood with treatment.  While I’m certainly not grateful to have had the fibroids, I am extremely grateful that it has given us a sort-of back door access to the knowledge and services of a specialist without the “trying for a year” most couples have to go through to even get a referral.

Like I said earlier, no one has said “infertile” to me, but I do know I have some challenges.  Almost a quarter of my cervix was removed during my previous surgery.  My mom and both of her sisters have lost pregnancies.  More than one.  Fibroids and polyps almost always grow back, so now the clock is ticking too.

But even so… another reason I think we’re luckier than some couples?  Infertility is never going to just come up out of the blue and bite us in the ass.  We’re prepared for it.  We’ve been talking about the possibility that I can’t produce an heir to the throne since before we got married.  He still chose to marry me knowing that my parts might not work.  That has to give us some sort of coping advantage.

During these discussions we talked about what we would do if I wasn’t getting pregnant.   I know some couples are fine with never having children or actively choose not to.  But, that’s not us.  We can’t think of anything more important than being parents.

We also talked about how we each felt about fertility treatment and adoption.  Fortunately, as in most things, we found we were much closer to agreement then disagreement on where our “lines” were.

This is where I hesitate to be specific, because I would never want anyone to feel like I was passing judgment on their choices.  I’m not… by any means.  I can only talk about what feels like the right thing for us, and what doesn’t feel like the right thing for us.

None of this has anything to do with the rules or dogma of my religion, but it does have to do with my spiritual beliefs about family and love and the birth of the soul and all this other deep shit I haven’t decided if I want to talk about here.

So, where we stand is this: if I can’t get pregnant from making love with my husband, we’re going to adopt.  We’re willing to do lots of things to help that along – surgeries, tests, maybe even some drugs to encourage ovulation.

That’s one reason why we’re going to go ahead and do a sperm analysis.  If there’s a problem, then we’ll know and it will help us make decisions about adoption more quickly.

It’s not just for the blog material.