Half a Marriage

Welcome! If you're here for the first time, thank you for visiting. This post explains the reasoning behind my blog's name. I'm afraid I don't have a concise summary of our infertility timeline, but this post should give you a few details on our background.

This Saturday we will celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary. We've spent over half of those years trying to conceive (TTC). Half of our married life has been measured not in days weeks or years, but in cycles and two week waits. Each month is split into 3 parts: the depression, cramps, and loss that comes with another period/another failed cycle, then a marathon of trying, and lastly the dreaded two week wait. 

We started TTC before Husbandido had found a job. It was scary, but we had both felt little nudges indicating that it was time. The strongest push we both felt was after my grandfather died; it's hard to describe exactly what we thought or felt at that time, but we returned home secure in our decision to start trying. After about 6 months, I started getting concerned; we had been charting Sympto-Thermal since shortly after we married, so we knew to properly time intercourse for conception. I was also 34; 35 was looming, with its dreaded decrease in fertility and diagnosis of "Advanced Maternal Age." I was fortunate that my GP was willing to refer us to a reproductive endocrinologist (RE) after only 6 months. Part of her rationale was knowing how long it would take us to get in for an initial appointment, which was about 3 months. I was confident that the RE would find the source of our problems (likely my thyroid), and we would be set in no time. I was shocked when we were labeled "unexplained." During our year and a half working with the RE, we had one nonviable pregnancy (which I wrote about here). When she indicated that our best option was to move on to injectables (at $5,000 a cycle), we knew it was time to switch to Creighton.

The few months between when we started learning Creighton and our first NaPro (Natural Procreative Technology) doctor's appointment were wonderful; we could step off that roller coaster for a little while. NaPro has begun to give us answers, but with those answers have come renewed hopes and the greater heartbreak that accompanies it. This is my first cycle back on Clomid (I was on it for 9 cycles with the RE), but it's getting harder to hope. But if you don't hope, you don't try, and really what is the point of spending all this money on medicine if you don't try? NaPro still takes sex to make conception happen. 

Some days (many days) it feels like infertility has eaten my marriage. It often feels like infertility is one of the things we talk about over and over and over... I know IF has made our marriage stronger, and made us more comfortable with each other's physical bodies, but it has also taken many of our hopes and dreams.