A couple is generally considered infertile after trying to conceive for a year (of unprotected sex) without any success. According to a National Survey of Family Growth, the CDC estimates that 1 in 8 couples (or 12% of married women) have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy.
The last thing you imagine is getting married to the love of your life and not being able to have a family. That had never crossed my mind. Our journey with infertility has been long and very painful. Only going through something similar to know and truly understand. With this blog I hope to help bring more awareness to the issue.
After 8 years I have decided to publicly share this journey with you. Most couples don't feel comfortable sharing these private details of their lives, as I wasn't for many years either, but after so many insensitive and judgmental comments, I realized that a lot of people could benefit from a little more information on the subject. So here I am.
Our fertility journey began shortly after our wedding in 2006. I was just 24 years old and my husband 25 at the time. Within a year of marriage I realized something was wrong. Went to my regular gynecologist and started the process, hoping to conceive with a little help from medicine. The clomid cycles began and so did all the big fat negatives (BFNs) as we call it in the infertility community. After months of treatment and procedures to find out what the issue was, we moved to intrauterine insemination (IUI). When IUI is performed, sperm is placed inside the uterus when the egg is mature to facilitate fertilization. IUI is MUCH cheaper than in vitro fertilization (IVF) but it requires the sperm to reach the egg on its own and it has a much lower success rate. In the USA a cycle of IUI costs approximately $1,000 dollars without insurance coverage, which most health insurances don't offer anyways. IVF costs approximately $15,000 dollars. IUI gives you a 15%-20% chance of success while IVF is much higher. Some clinics will give you a 85% IVF success rate. When IVF is performed, the egg and sperm is fertilized in a laboratory dish and the embryo is then transferred directly into the uterus. Depending on how many obstacles you need to "bypass" IUI sometimes is not enough, which unfortunately was our case. So after 2 failed IUI cycles our doctor suggested IVF. Compared to IUI the process of going through IVF is infinitely more stressful and expensive. It takes 8 weeks, instead of 2 weeks, it's a lot harder on a woman's body because they stimulate your body to produce as many eggs as possible and not just one or two as it is done with IUI. It is just painful to say the least. I will designate a full post just for the 8 week IVF process, this beast deserves this much.
Tip of the day. NEVER tell a woman that maybe she is just not meant to be a mother. I heard that phrase more than any other in my life. Infertility is a medical condition as many others and not a punishment from God.
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