The Infertility Chronicles.

At the risk of over-sharing, and after a long day of feverishly navigating the infertility clinic labyrinth, I'm diving into this topic feet first.

It's no secret that we have been struggling with infertility since we had Coco, who will be seven in a few months.  After so many years of this overtaking one's life, I'm in a good place.  I know that like, with so many other things, we are on a path.  I don't feel like our family is finished, but whether that means more children of our own, or adoption somewhere down the road...it all happens on Someone else's schedule, and I'm just along for the ride.  So many of you sweetly and lovingly want to ask "how's it going?"...so this may be a good way to relay the process.

Here is where we stand.   We have charted, counted, had blood work and, eh hem, other lab work, been massaged and acupunctured, been ultra sounded and hystropingogrammed...and all systems are a go.  They call this "unexplained infertility," meaning we could totally just wind up pregnant one day, or not.

Last week we had an appointment with our infertility doctor.  We came up with a detailed plan for this month.  As this is our first time going through treatment, I took notes and asked as many questions as I could think of.  She called in a script to my pharmacy, and then the rest of the plan revolved around very specific days in my cycle.

Quickly, before the plan even took action, it started unraveling.  The doctors office called in more scripts than I was told about.  When I called to question them about it, the nurse suddenly "changed" the well detailed plan that we spent 2 hours working up with the doctor last week.  In the end, the nurse was the only person I ended up trusting, and the new plan seemed great.  Then my script came in the mail and according to my notes, it was the wrong dosage.  In between all of these phone calls I also had to navigate the insurance system and make sure everything was covered (or not, but affordable).

At the end of the day, I think we have everything squared away.  I work in the health care system.  I know that I am my only advocate.  If I hadn't caught a dozen different mistakes on my own today, and advocated for their correction...there is a 0% chance that we would have gotten pregnant this month - after involved and expensive treatment.  All I can think is, "what do people do who put all of their trust in their physician?...or who are scared to ask to many questions?  who are rushed through appointments and didn't take notes?"  Thus is the modern day medical system.  This is why we use midwives.  This is why we tried everything natural that we could first.   But, to no avail, so here we go folks!

I'll check back in as this process unfolds.  In the next few days, I will begin to take meds that will make me feel "extremely menopausal."  Have fun with that one Joe!!  ;) 

xoxo, e.