Infertility, Part 2

When I left off in Part 1, Charles and I just just failed our third round of IUI and were paying out of pocket for a clinic that I just didn’t like. Charles was working for Disney at the time and fortunately, his company offered fertility benefits. So, at the new year (2021), we added myself to his insurance.

The plan at the first clinic was always to do 3 IUIs, and if they weren’t successful, we would move to IVF. After my period came following the 3rd IUI in ~Jan 2021, I called up the clinic (which was actually a call center based in Jacksonville, FL…) and asked to be scheduled for a re-consultation for IVF. The soonest they could get me in was March 2021! For just a consult! So, I asked to do another round of IUI in the meantime while I was waiting for that appointment.

This was the worst IUI experience yet. I must’ve waited about an hour and half past my appointment and was the last person in the clinic when they brought me back. They performed the procedure, but something went wrong because I was in writhing pain almost immediately after the procedure. It was so bad that I had to cancel work. I knew that this wasn’t normal because I had had 3 IUI’s prior, but the call center said “people just have different levels of pain tolerance.” I was fuming and in misery! Unsurprisingly at this point, the IUI failed.

Kindbody

At this point, it was February 2021 and we knew IVF was the next step and that I had “unexplained” infertility. But we also knew that we didn’t feel comfortable going through IVF with this clinic. Charles’ friend at Disney told him that his wife was helping open up a fertility clinic at Disney, Kindbody, but it wouldn’t be until summertime. We decided that it was worthwhile to hold off IVF and see what this new clinic had to offer. So we waited and on July 29th, I was their first patient.

I went in for the first visit, which was such a positive experience, and was told that I did need IVF and that I would need to repeat most of the tests since it had been a year since my first set of testing. So, I went in for my blood work, which showed the same results, as well as a saline ultrasound. The saline US is a type of ultrasound that uses water to evaluate the shape of the uterus. The ultrasound showed that I had a small polyp that would need to be removed prior to starting with IVF.

Surgery

In August 2021, I met with a surgeon who said I had 2 options. First, he could simply remove the polyp with a minor procedure and call it a day or second, we could go in for a laparoscopy and make sure that everything looks good instead. Since I hated the “unexplained” infertility answer, we opted for the laparoscopy. This is a surgery where the surgeon makes two small incisions and goes in with a camera to take a look at everything.

The surgery went well and at recovery, he told me and Charles that he did find evidence of endometriosis and a small polyp and he removed both. I was hopeful that he was wrong, but alas, the biopsy reports did indeed show endometriosis. Well, at least I was no longer “unexplained.”

Endometriosis

Unfortunately, endometriosis wasn’t what we wanted to hear. Endometriosis is a medical condition where uterine tissue grows outside of the uterus. It’s mainly characterized by chronic pain and infertility. Up to 50% of women with endometriosis will have infertility. I am in that 50%. This diagnosis did help give us the answer as to why I wasn’t able to get pregnant. It also helped explain the intermittent severe pain that I had had since college. But it was still a tough pill to swallow. Our doctor at Kindbody let us know that with endometriosis, IVF was our best shot at getting pregnant. But, the IVF clinic at Kindbody wouldn’t open until November 2021. So, it was back to the waiting game…

That’s where I’ll end Part 2, but our story continues!

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