Why I'm in Hiding...

Yes, I'm in hiding...

Well, my first post as Incognito IVF'er.

Please note that for all intents and purposes, names, initials, places, dates, and any other descriptors have been changed.

I guess I should make mention as to why I'm in hiding - after all, who is really going to read this? Well, you never know I guess, and I don't want any family member to be stalking blogs and come across mine and say - "Hey! That sounds a LOT like A & B! WOWZERS."

So you can probably deduce, we haven't told any family or friends about our little (*scoff*) baby-making predicament. We just continue to be badgered by nosy people who like to (albeit, indirectly) talk about our sex lives.

I'm hoping that some amount of anonymity will allow me to be a little more candid in my posts; after all, I am using this as a diary, and above anything - an outlet. I can't be in therapy all the time - we have to save for IVF. (Which at this point feels like millions instead of thousands of dollars). Bummer.

So - let's call me "A" and my hubby "B" (initials arbitrarily picked, mostly because they're the first two in the alphabet, and, for goodness sakes, the lady should always come first! lol)

B & I have been trying to conceive (TTC) for over 3 years now; after about the year and a half mark, after a missed miscarriage we had a few tests run and it was discovered that B has male factor infertility. His semen analysis (SA) showed that pretty much everything was really low (counts, morphology, motility). It was devastating news, but at least we had a reason then as to why we hadn't conceived yet. Kind of a bittersweet moment to know that we'd been doing everything right, it's just that the numbers weren't in our favor.

So, we continued to try on our own for the next year or so, with no luck. At that point we decided that it was time to seek the help of a fertility clinic and of a reproductive endocrinologist (RE). So, in August/September of this year (2010) we met with our specialist and started to get the ball rolling with different tests and exams which will be needed for a baseline for our future IVF cycle.

My husband had more SA's (a couple over the course of the last few months), we both had bloodwork done (me more so than him), I had to have a hysterosalpingiogram (NASTY), had a hysteroscopy after that (not nearly as bad) and I've had a whole lotta ultrasounds.

At first we discussed the possibility of Clomid IUIs (intrauterine inseminations) which may have been a viable option since we *did* get pregnant once on our own. But, we and our RE decided that our best odds would be with IVF and considering B's SA numbers were so low, a successful IUI would be a longshot.

So now, we're just waiting on more appointments to determine what types of drugs I'll use during my cycle and more ultrasounds to see how my ovaries are doing and what my AFCs (antral follicle count) are over several cycles to get a good baseline of my ovarian reserve. Then, it's just a matter of working out our (mine and B's) schedule (he works out of town a lot, his company flying him all over hell's half acre) and then hoping that our schedule will correspond with our clinic's schedule.

Man! I can talk. lol.

In the grand scheme of things: hopefully we'll be cycling by April. This is my goal. As long as nothing goes wrong at our appointments coming up, and as long as hubby doesn't have to be away too much in the spring.

My fingers are crossed.

So - welcome to my blog. I'll probably be talking about babies and ART only half of the time; the rest of the time I'll probably be ranting about unimportant things like a crazy woman. But, you are now all my therapists - heaven help ya.