Infertility

In my last post, I discussed that while on the road Artur and I would still be dealing with real life issues. And while I didn't outright mention it, my thoughts were only on the fertility conerns we'd been having. And since Artur has already brought it up, I might as well include my thoughts on the subject.

Once we were married, we had decided that we would allow nature to take its course and become pregnant naturally when it happened. We weren't "trying" but we certainly weren't preventing a pregnancy. About a month into our marriage, newly relocated to Seattle, I thought that it had happened. I tested my theory, and a home pregnancy test confirmed it. When I told Artur, I was crying. I thought having a baby at that point would prevent us from establishing our marriage, and our life together, in the manner of our chosing, I thought we would end up moving back to Illinois, Artur working for his father, neither of us happy, both of us stressed. At this point now, I can't imagine feeling that way about a pregnancy. (By the way, Seattle was a false alarm...)

Just over a year into our marriage, I was at a routine doctor's appointment. Part of the usual questioning, I was asked about birth control. Being honest, I relayed that we weren't using anything. The discussion naturally evolved to the fact that we hadn't protected againts pregnancy for over a year, yet we had not become pregnant. My doctor mentioned that if we wanted to have a family, we should consider setting an appointment with a fertility specialist. Thus began our obsession with whether or not we could have a family of our own, I charted my periods, attempted to figure out my ovulation days, and took pregnancy tests if I thought my period might be late. Eventually, Artur got his semen tested and we discussed setting an appointment for me with a specialist.

At first, when I didn't know what was going on , I truly believed that I would leave the decision up to nature. If it didn't happen, well then that meant that Artur and I weren't meant to have kids. And I truly believed that - I didn't see myself going to extremes, and possibly "against nature", to form a family. Artur would be my family. It wasn't an easy idea to swallow, over the course of the last 6 months I have spent more than my fair share of crying. All of a sudden it seemed as though every woman I cam across was pregnant. Every tv show and movie revolved around family life. I couldn't bear to sit in church, surrounded by mothers and fathers and their multitudes of kids. Poor Artur, I was crying all the time. But I hit my limit. I worked through it. I felt as though I'd reached a point where I could live with the idea of not having kids. And then I got pregnant.

I had had a suspicion that I was pregnant about a week before I tested. After months and months of stressing about it and taking pregnancy tests at the slightest hint, I didn't want to rush it and get overexcited. So, I patiently waited until I was certain that I was late. When I hit that day, I took the test. And it was the boldest, fastest positive I could imagine. I calmly walked out of the bathroom, having said nothing about yet to Artur, and showed him the test. He looked so excited, I thought we was going to cry. We were both so happy!
It wasn't long before that happiness faded. I had taken several more tests to confirm, and they each cam back bolder than the last. I contacted the doctor to set up a pregnancy test, and scheduled an appointment for a week later. Little did I know I would be in there sooner than that.

By the end of the week I was bleeding and knew it wasn't right. I got in with the doctor and confirmed my pregnancy, and was able to schedule an emergency ultrasound for a few days out. The ultrasound showed a mass in my tube that was of some concern to my doctor, and she wanted me to come back in a week for another ultrasound. I came back, only to be told the mass had grown, was definitely an ectopic pregnancy, and I needed to go to the hospital for emergency surgery. I was crushed. I couldn't stop crying.

It took me slightly less than a week to recover physically from the surgery. In that week, my emotions were all over the place. I had a lot of time to think about what had happened, what the doctor says our future options are, and what is a priority to Artur and I. And while previously I never thought I would consider the option, I am now excited about the day that I can have In Vitro Fertilization and grow my family with my husband. Who knows when we will have saved up enough money for make this option a reality, but we are both committed to that end.