It’s been 1,580 days since my husband and I decided to start a family. 751 days since our first fertility appointment. And today is the one year anniversary of our third IUI.
The IUI that our fertility specialist said wouldn’t work. In fact, she recommended it be our last. The odds of a successful pregnancy were just too low. And based on our two previous IUIs, the odds kept getting smaller and smaller.
(For those of you who aren’t familiar, an IUI is where they take your husband’s sperm and turkey baster it up into your lady regions after you’ve been hopped up on drugs and hormones to force you to ovulate. Super sexy, super comfy, all around good time. Oh, and you prepay for those bad boys.)
We had written the check. We were at the office. And the doctor had my husband’s sperm in a tube (TMI?). So eff it, let’s do this.
After we left the office, I cried. I went to work. Cried. Drove home. Cried. Made dinner. Cried some more. I’m pretty sure I cried myself to sleep that night.
Our doctor said not to worry, we would just move on to IVF. Well, we had decided early on in our fertility journey that IVF wasn’t for us, so this was our last chance at a biological family.
The next week we mourned the unborn Zei children that would never be. Sounds dramatic, but 1000% necessary. We had pictured our little babies before we got married. Hell, we decided on our baby names before we even got engaged. We had to accept the fact that little Luke and little Emily would not exist, and move on.
And move on we did.
We had already started the adoption process (just in case). So we hopped in the car and drove to our two day intensive adoption education classes. It was overwhelming, emotional and so. completely. invigorating. We met some amazing couples, we learned what it means to adopt and all the challenges and life changing aspects of it. We were on board and so enthused about it. We could not wait to head down this path.
Then we came home and I realized my period never came. It couldn’t be. Probably just the progesterone suppositories (overshare?) wearing off slower than normal. Maybe I’ll take a pregnancy test. Just to see.
Well, I got two giant. big. fat. positives. I don’t remember how many negative pregnancy tests we got in the last 1,580 days, but those don’t matter when you get a positive. And I got two.
For those of you who follow me on Instagram and Snapchat you know the outcome of this story. We have a three month old angel baby. Sent to us from the magician in the sky who somehow managed to get my ovaries to function and one single, little, perfect spermie to swim all the way up stream.
Shit, I’m tearing up just thinking about how totally insane and wonderful and magical it even is.
“That’s awesome, now you have a baby. I bet you’re glad that’s over.” Yeah, we heard various versions of this and felt a collective sigh from friends and family. But we still have a journey ahead of us (and I’m not talking about when she decides she hates us because we won’t let her take the car past curfew).
Infertility is still a thing. Sure, a lot of couples have fertility troubles with the first baby and then can have the rest by just blinking at each other. I don’t know the exact statistic, but there are a LOT of couples with a successful IUI that have to go back to IUI again and again.
All I know is that we are lucky. We have an angel baby that gives me life. And while she was extremely difficult to get, she was worth the thousands of dollars, the meds that made me cuckoo for cocoa puffs, the shots in the ass (needles, get your mind out of the gutter) and the gallons of tears.
Whether we get pregnant easily with the next or go back to the Clomid/Pregnyl/IUI magic cocktail, I don’t care. We have this delicious little monkey. That’s more than some people can even dream of.
1 in 8 couples experiences infertility. That’s a lot of fucking people who go through this. We are 1 of those 8. It was awful. It was horrible. It was a grey, sad, dark, thunderstorm of a time, but now we have the most amazing little creature.
I will never forget the 4 years of trying to start a family. The horrible tests (don’t Google Sono HSG). The meds and procedures that are NOT covered by our insurance (but abortion is, that’s for another post). The epic sadness that hung over our lives for 1,580 days.
But without all that horrible shit we wouldn’t have this:
