ICLW May 2010

Welcome to my blog, whether you are here for the first time for ICLW or have visited before.

I am S, married to MM. We have been TTC our first child since April 2008 and have been married since November 2008. It is the first marriage for both of us. We started TTC before we were married because we knew TTC could take a little longer when you're over 35. Little did we know HOW much longer.

We have two golden retrievers we love, Sebastian and Hunter, both adopted from a local golden retriever rescue organization. (I wrote a lengthy post about them here, including photos, last summer, in case any fellow dog-loving readers are interested.) When we aren't busy with work or fertility treatments, we love going to movies and travel. I love to read, and MM loves college basketball and football and major league baseball.

All of our testing has been normal, so we are "unexplained." Our RE has opined that we are "subfertile" rather than "infertile" and that the cause of our inability to conceive is likely poor egg quality related to my age (39). (MM would want me to tell you that his sperm are awesome, numerous and can get the job done. ;-) )

In 25 months of TTC, we have only seen one BFP last August, which turned out to be a chemical pregnancy. Ironically, our only-ever BFP was the result of a break cycle during which my stress levels were sky-high.

Like many women, I started out small with charting and OPKs, moving on to acupuncture and herbs when I hadn't conceived after 8-9 months. I naively thought I would have no difficulty conceiving naturally. HAHAHA

We started using medical intervention to try to get pregnant in April 2009 and have taken several breaks, long and short, along the way. (Our complete TTC history is in the sidebar if you're interested.) We just completed our third IUI (second one with injectables) on 5/8, and I will be testing tomorrow morning.

In terms of future plans, MM and I have agreed to use injectable gonadotropins, either with IUIs or timed intercourse, until I turn 40 next March. If I am not pregnant by then, we may consider doing donor egg IVF. We do not intend to pursue IVF with my eggs, for the reasons I wrote about here, and have also agreed that adoption is not for us. . . . so we may also end up living childless.

I have found this blog to be a wonderful place to write about my feelings related to the unwelcome and difficult experience of infertility.