Unexplained Secondary Infertility
Deciding to Share
Justin and I recently opened up about our battle with unexplained secondary infertility that I had been keeping quiet and under the radar. The few people I did tell it didn’t go over that well and honestly I felt guilty that I have a healthy baby and some people have trouble conceiving their first. I wasn’t sure I wanted to share about it in a larger community, but something kept making me feel drawn to do it.
In the IVF communities I’m in on Facebook it seems like a lot of women choose not to share and the journey is very lonely. For me, I already live away from family and close friends so I chose to take to the internet to discuss what I was finding and y’all I was SHOCKED!
It is crazy to me how many women are privately dealing with IVF. Even after I announced it they didn’t publicly share they had their sweet babies through IVF because they were not comfortable sharing with everyone, but they did choose to share with me via DM or private message and that means the world to me.
What is unexplained secondary infertility?
The very broad and basic definition is a woman who has not been able to establish a pregnancy after 12 months of having unprotected intercourse, but who has previously been pregnant. From what I was reading, RESOLVE (resolve.org) states that secondary infertility accounts for 30 percent of infertility cases. That’s a lot.
What are the possible causes?
There are several causes when it comes to unexplained secondary infertility including:
Hormone Changes
Age
Fallopian Tube Blockages
Sperm issues (motility, quality, etc.)
Ovulation Problems
Egg Reserve
There are so many things it could be. In my experience, I went through multiple rounds of testing to determine what might be causing our issue and nothing could explain exactly what the issue was even after over 3 years of trying. The experience for myself, and most couples I can imagine, is that the first pregnancy came very quickly. However, try two has proved much harder. So over three years later it is a bit shocking to still not have conceived our second.
The experts say women under 35 should consult a doctor after a year of unprotected sex, after 6 months for 35 to 40 years of age, and after 3 months if older than 40. The reason for this is your egg reserve drastically changes based on your age. For us we started the process after a year and a half or so and it has taken us what feels like forever with doctor changes and everything to finally be going through IVF.
Inconclusive tests
When you start this process there are tests among tests among yet more TESTS. I had to go through multiple blood draws and with the changes of doctors I had both a saline sonogram and HSG test. I believe the HSG test was to make sure my tubes were open and the Saline Sonogram had to do with checking for cysts (still not 100% sure on why we needed this test, but I digress and that is a different story). In addition, Justin had multiple semen tests to check his side of things. And after all that, no one can explain why we can’t get pregnant LOL!
Treatment Options
We had several different options for how to proceed. They were unmedicated intrauterine insemination (IUI) (we did one of these with our OBGYN unsuccessfully), medicated IUI, something to clean out my tubes, and IVF. This is such a personal decision and one you should not take lightly. However, I will tell you my thoughts and why we did what we did, please know this in noway is the RIGHT decision for anyone other than for Justin and myself.
My rationale to skip the other treatments and go straight to IVF was to first rule out the cleaning of the tubes and unmedicated IUI. The unmedicated IUI was eliminated because they are basically putting my husbands junk up there and I think after 3+ years at least a few of those guys would have made it there and nothing has happened. HAHAHAH
The cleaning of the tubes just seemed like a waste of money or even just a time waster because there wasn’t anything on my personal records to suggest that my tubes would need to be cleared. So after all that we were left with the option of medicated IUI or IVF.
Both the medicated IUI and IVF were going to come with taking rounds of drugs to stimulate my ovaries so they produce more eggs to give us a better chance of getting pregnant. Now if you know me you know I’m really weird about taking drugs for anything unless I HAVE to (and before I get hate mail I do vaccinate so I realize how stupid this sounds to both parties, but hey I’m just over here doing me). For example, I don’t take anything for a headache unless I HAVE to because it is just unbearable. I have always been that way, but you know what? When I need those drugs they work REALLY well lol.
Okay back to IVF and IUIs. So for me I decided if I was going to have to take the drugs either way I wanted to have the highest chance of success and that was IVF for us. We are fortunate to have decent insurance to cover a chunk of the costs, but I also didn’t want to pay for multiple IUIs and take the drugs to just see if that would potentially work.
Plus, y’all, that medicated IUI cycle has a higher risk of multiples than IVF sooooo. Just saying! My husband was about to fall out of his chair listening to the doctor explain it all. For me I wouldn’t mind twins, but dear lord you women that have had triplets + Holy Moly!
IVF Meds + Trunk Club LOL
Proceeding with IVF
So once we made the decision to do IVF the process happened so fast because I had just started my period that day of the second consult and everything since then has just kind of been a rush.
While everyone has a VERY different protocol from their doctor based on their particular charts, experience, needs, etc. mine was to start birth control for a week. Then I had a few days off from that, went into the doctor for another blood draw and ultrasound for a baseline, and now I’m on four days of Follistim injections with the pen.
I’m still a weenie (shocking to some that know me), but I haven’t been able to do the injection myself. Justin does it and I just close my eyes. Personally, two shots in and I haven’t really felt the prick at all. The only way I know he got the needle in is by hearing the clicks of the pen as he injects the medicine. So don’t fret if that is you. I just can’t stare at the needle and I have no clue, but I’ve always been that way. Which is funny because when you are pregnant, or even during this process, you have SO MANY BLOOD DRAWS. SO MANY.
Now we wait until the next step of this crazy process which will be a visit to the doctor for another blood draw and ultrasound to see how things are progressing and if my meds need to be changed up. So far I haven’t noticed any body changes, I know a lot of women get bloated, but on day 3 I’m still feeling and looking normal. I’ll keep you posted! Thanks for following along this crazy journey with Justin and myself and we are SO HOPEFUL for Baby Cejka #2!
