Growing up, I loved babies and kids. In fact, my mom almost lost me in the mall when I was two years old because I followed a baby into a store. I started working as a Mother's Helper when I was 10 and was babysitting by the time I was 11. I taught lessons and coached swim teams; I nannied for a couple years. I got my teaching degree. More than anything, I looked forward to becoming a wife and a mother.
When I was 27 I had a large ovarian cyst that, even with medication, wouldn't go away. As I was about to take an out-of-county nine month teaching assignment, my doctor and I thought it best that I go ahead and have a laparoscopy to remove it. Before the surgery, I asked my surgeon to check my fallopian tubes (I had no reason to suspect a problem - except maybe intuition?) while she was "in there." Post surgery I received the news that my ovarian cyst was removed (non-cancerous... yea!) and that my ovary was saved. Unfortunately, the surgeon discovered I had pretty bad endometriosis (endo). Luckily, she was able to remove most of it. I was also told that while the "dye test" showed my right tube was open, my left tube appeared to be completely blocked (no dye passed through at all). I was terribly disappointed when in my post-op appointment I asked what my chances for getting pregnant were and was told - if the endo came back - probably only about 20%.
Fast forward a few years. I met a wonderful man who would become the husband of whom I'd always dreamed. We began having unprotected "relations" (though we were not yet actively trying to get pregnant) in January 2012. In July 2012 we conceived. My period was almost a week late before I FINALLY got a positive pregnancy test (I knew I was pregnant and was so frustrated at the BFNs I kept getting). Although my husband (I'll call him "J") and I were thrilled, I was also scared there was a problem (intuition again?), especially when I retested two days after getting a positive and saw that the test line had not gotten any darker. My OB wouldn't see me until I was 6 weeks pregnant, so I begged my PCP to order an HCG quantitative. I received the results - 35 - just before I started spotting. I called my OB again and begged them to do something, anything. The next day - two days after my original HCG quant - they retested me. My HCG was 42 (it should have doubled in 48 hours). What followed was a horrible two months of my HCG rising and falling, multiple ultrasounds that never showed anything (except - maybe - proof that I ovulated from my right side), a diagnosed "suspected" ectopic pregnancy, a shot of Methotrexate (MTX), and a long wait for the pregnancy to be officially over. It was awful.
While more than anything J and I just wanted to try again, because of the MTX we had to wait three months. In November 2012 we began actively trying to conceive.
*With my next post (A Little Background - Part 2) I will pick up our story starting in November 2012.
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