When it rains

4/24 – Phone consult with Dr. Saleh – This time the call lasted 11 minutes. Also just a side note, I took my blood test on 4/16 and they had the results 4/18. Did anyone calls me? NO! I called them 4/22 and didn’t get a phone call back from the nurse until 4/23. She confirmed I do have NK cells but I had the same reaction as last time, a little bit of a response to Intralipids but not enough to treat it with. But IVIg worked perfect…. Talk about jaw dropping, stomach in knots type of feeling. How in the world would we even begin to think of paying for IVIg treatment? From the research I have done it’s about $2,000 a pop. And I would need at least 5… if not more. And this nurse I spoke with she must have just a BLAH personality because every single time I speak with her it’s like she is annoyed or something. She is certainly not the type of person who needs to be speaking with me, or any other woman who is going through infertility. It is already a stressful time. AHHH!!! Anyways, then she asked when I wanted to talk to the dr. I said well right now would be great… well of course not. I would have to wait to speak with the actual doctor until the next day. As I waited for this phone call from the Doctor, I gathered up our questions. We had a list of things that we had thought about while waiting for these lab results. Will IVIg work? Will I have to do this treatment for future pregnancies? What are the risk factors involved in this treatment? PGD? How to improve number of eggs? Transfer 3 embryos? And a few others..  But just like last phone consult this one didn’t go as planned so asking these questions didn’t even happen.

He apologized for how frustrating this has been for us. He explained how he hoped my blood would have reacted to intralipid, he knows I in fact have an immune issue, and how I need to strongly consider using donor eggs/donor embryos or just adopt. Also asked if he had my medical history…um yea I sent you like over 400 pages worth of stuff. He said he didn’t have it anymore. WTF!!! I’m confused on how we went from if you poor quality eggs/embryos but if you have NK cells we can treat it and it will explain why you can’t keep a pregnancy, to we will use ivig but it’s expensive, to now I think it would be more cost efficient for you to ‘seek other options’.  I was already stressing over how we were going to able to afford IVIg treatments, and now it’s not even an option anymore with him. I am completely lost. But I am not the only one out there who has this much trouble.

My beautiful other half Sawyer is my rock. I swear if it wasn’t for her I don’t know what I would do. She always finds the positive in every single negative situation. She found a doctor who is a Reproductive Immunologist. Exactly who I need to see, takes on tough cases like mine and normally finds even more underlying problems, and from everything we have found it only takes 1 cycle with her and BAM your pregnant… a lot of times you don’t even have to undergo IUI, IVF, FET… but since I am in a same sex relationship trying at home is a lot hard. Especially when it comes to order sperm vials online and thawing them out. I’m not a scientist; I don’t know what I’m doing. Haha I would much rather pay the extra money and have a Doctor do it all. Dr. Kwak-Kim is out of Chicago, and from what we have read it takes a while to get an apt. and then when you do go for your apt it lasts 2-3 hours;  VERY intense and detailed. Just from reading blogs about others she takes 23 vials of blood, her equipment is top of the line; you’re doing an ultrasound for literally an hour. So, now we have to call the office and find out what all we need to do to get an appointment.

           Is it natural to want to give up when things continue to get worse and worse? How do other people find the strength to move forward and keep strong? At this point I honestly feel like I don’t know which way is up and which way is down. I don’t know whether to proceed with my dreams of becoming a mom, or just leave them in the past. I keep telling myself I am done; done with Doctors, done with medication, done with heartache, done with it all. But is that really the truth? Maybe I am just trying to trick my brain or something, trying to find that strength and power to make myself stand up again.

A lot of people ask me ‘why don’t you just adopt’ or ‘why doesn’t Sawyer just carry’… Yea you don’t think I haven’t thought about those things? Doesn’t it seem like your just giving up if you don’t fight through? I just want to respond and say “Do you even know how hard it is to adopt? Why don’t you adopt?”  “Why don’t you put yourself in my shoes and experience what I am going through and then you can answer those questions yourself.” What they don’t understand is what it feels like to have infertility. It absolutely sucks!!!! When people say these things its more hurtful than helpful :(

On another note, it is National Infertility Awareness week and I found out that Oklahoma has an “F” rating for infertility support. Very disappointed, not only do I live in a state that doesn’t allow my lifestyle, it also has no support for infertility.