My infertility story

Warning: If you don't like to talk about periods, you should probably stop here. 

I was still a teenager when I realized that hey, my body doesn't work the way it is supposed to.  I was having my periods, but they were so intermittent that I only had my period two or three times a year.  I was put on birth control at the age of 16 to regulate my cycle.  It didn't work.

Eventually, my cycle came about every 60 days.  It was, as one of my doctors said, "a regular irregular cycle."  It was of little concern to me until I was married in September of 2011.  When my husband and I decided to start trying to have babies, I knew it wouldn't be easy.  We pulled the goalie, as one might say, and after a year of peeing on sticks (both ovulation and pregnancy) we had yet to see my belly grow.  

I finally decided to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist (an RE) in beginning of 2013.  I was diagnosed with PCOS, or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.  I still get sick to my stomach thinking about what my ovaries look like - spotted like Easter eggs, nothing like they should.  My hormones are a mess - ovulation tests do not pick up when I actually ovulate (we have yet to determine IF I ovulate on my own).  For example: if an ovulation test detects the luteinizing hormone and estrogen when they spike, it gives two pink lines, the word "positive", or a plus sign (depending on the test used).  But my hormones are always spiked, so my ovulation tests were always coming back positive.  Ultrasounds determined that I wasn't actually ovulating, even when those little plastic sticks said I was.  My RE told me to run over those sticks with my car. We decided to try Clomid to help my body ovulate.  After four failed Clomid cycles (none of which resulted in ovulation), we jumped straight into IVF.

I know some people will judge us for not trying injections with IUI.  We were told with IUI, we had a 30% chance of conceiving each cycle.  But, our reproductive clinic has a 60% success rate with IVF cycles in my age range.  To us, it seemed like the logical choice after years of trying to conceive.  I was emotionally drained and physically exhausted.  We wanted to jump on whatever would give us our best chances now.  

In August of 2013, we had our first IVF cycle, and it was a success.  My ovaries produced 24 eggs, 19 of which were mature, 15 of which fertilized.  Ten of them continued to mature, and we transferred two of these little guys into my uterus on August 24, 2013:

Why two, do you ask?  I was at high risk for OHSS, or ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.  This could have landed me in a hospital or made us freeze our embryos so that we could implant them after my body calmed down.  Because of this, we had to change my trigger shot at the last minute to Lupron instead of Ovidrel. Lupron's half life is much shorter than Ovidrel, which would lessen my risk for OHSS.  However, these trigger shots are supposed to also aid in embryo implantation.  Switching to Lupron meant that are chances of getting pregnant decreased as much as 50-60%.  Tim and I were not scared to have twins; in fact, we embraced it.  Plus, we had ten little embryos waiting to be housed in my uterus.  We chose to implant two.  

And that is where Conner and Benjamin's story starts.  Our two boys are our world, even though they are no longer here on this earth.  

Baby boys - your story has just begun.  I promise to tell it to the world.