By Sarah from Cape Cod, Massachusetts

First, I’ll start with what I like to call my “Fertility Resume,” which includes 12 IUIs, four fresh IVFs, one freeze/thaw, one laparoscopic myomectomy, two chemical pregnancies, thousand of shots, and millions of sperm. As I sit here and get excited about my 10-year wedding anniversary, I think back and wonder if there was anything missing. The one thing that keeps coming to the top of my list is a child, a baby of our own, a new face in our quiet household. I knew from the first week that I met my husband, Rob, that we would have to go through some sort of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), but I never thought that it would turn out like this. You see, my husband has cystic fibrosis, and one of the side effects is not being able to have children. He still makes sperm, they just don’t come out. So, this played a huge role in deciding whether to have surgery to retrieve the sperm or do ART using donor sperm. We decided on using donor sperm, because did not want a child to endure the brutal side effects of CF or be a carrier of the CF gene.

We never knew for sure that there were no sperm, but we took precautions the first six years of our marriage, until we were really ready to have a child. We wanted to be established, have a house, have stable jobs and income. Then, when those things were completed, we decided we were ready. Finally, I thought. This will be easy; this will take no time at all. People get pregnant all the time and this is what my body is supposed to do.

I went to my OBGYN in August of 2007 to get started. She agreed to perform intrauterine inseminations (IUIs) with ovulation predictor kits. During the first IUI, I thought, “I am going to get pregnant right away, sperm and egg, set, ovulation, set.” Boy, was I naive and stupid. A second IUI came and went, and nothing. I thought to myself, maybe I should see a fertility expert to discuss with them all that was going on and get some advice on how to proceed. So, I made an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist in November of 2007. The RE laid out all of the options based on our circumstances and, of course, our insurance policy. But before we could begin, the RE wanted all this testing done. I was OK with it if it meant being one step closer to having a child of my own. So, the workup begins: history, physical exam, ovarian reserve, blood tests, sonohysterogram, hysterosalpingogram (HSG), and of course, the dreaded semen analysis. I walked out of the office with tests to do, appointments to make, stuff to read and, of course, the brown paper baggie carrying the little plastic semen cups with instructions like “Wash your hands, Make sure you use sterile glycerin.” The test was needed to show that there was no sperm so we could use donor sperm for the ART and for insurance coverage. Now all we could do was wait, and wait to see what was next.

I finally got the call that we could begin. However, due to the fact that I was never exposed to sperm naturally to show that I had problems conceiving, they told me that I had to do 12 IUIs. Are you kidding me? I had two under my belt and I thought, “It won’t take 10 more to get pregnant, I will get pregnant easily, right?” IUI number three, four, five, six, seven and eight were done month after month after month, with no break. I took a step back and said, “I need a break, I can’t take anymore of the bad news. My mind, my body, my marriage needed a break.” So, we went on vacation, finally a relaxing time to get away and recuperate. At this time, there were not a lot of people who knew what we were going through. I tend to be very private and did not want to share, not out of any shame, but I just didn’t want to hear what others had to say like, “Just relax, it will happen,” “Just go home and have sex, it will work.” Things like that made me want to vomit in my mouth, so I kept it very quiet.

So here we go, IUI number nine, and I thought, “This won’t work, I don’t like odd numbers.” On day one of the cycle, on October 19, 2008, about a year after my first IUI, I started Clomid and waited for those lovely follicles to grow and grow through the days of yes, my favorite … the vaginal ultrasounds. I didn’t mind the blood draws or the needles, but something being shoved in the one area where my future children would come out was a pure turnoff. I get the call, “Take your trigger shot between 5 and 9 and we will see you in the office on November 2nd for your IUI.” Great, now the two-hour ride home and the next two weeks to wait and wait to see if I was pregnant. I was very pessimistic about the IUIs, as the statistics were not that great. But if Kate Gosselin and the other mother with six kids can get pregnant from an IUI, so can I. I had to wait. Then, on November 17, I went and got my blood tested. Off to work I went. I remember that day so clearly. Later in the afternoon, I was at the cell phone store doing something with my husband, getting a new phone or changing service, I don’t recall, but I do recall that phone call. “Sarah, this is Nurse K from the office, you are pregnant, but your levels are very low and we don’t think that it will be a viable pregnancy. Your levels should be greater than 50, your level is at six. Anything greater than five is positive.”

“What? I am sort of pregnant? I did not know that you could be sort of pregnant. You either are or you are not. What is she talking about? I thought to myself as I was sitting on the couch at the store while my husband was talking to the clerk. I just kept thinking, what did she say? How am I supposed to process this? She then went on to schedule the follow-up blood work to see what was going on. So I went back on November 22 and my levels were at 37. They are going up, this is good, I thought. The nurse assured me not to get excited. “Let’s make you another appointment for blood work,” she said. I went back again on November 24 and the levels had increased to 335. I was starting to get excited. The nurse was telling me to be on the lookout for bowel pressure, severe cramping and fever. “Call me with any questions or if you feel any of those symptoms, you could have an ectopic pregnancy and we have to be very careful. Come back in a couple of days for more blood work.”

I hung up the phone and broke down. My home pregnancy test was positive, and this was supposed to be an exciting time. This is not supposed to happen this way. So, I went back in on November 26 and my levels had gone up to 695. It is doubling. I kept asking the nurse if this was a good thing. She said they see this sometimes, but they did not want to get their hopes up as well. “Come back in another couple of days.” I did, and it dropped to 95.7. So then I knew that it was not viable, and I was officially having a miscarriage or, as they call it, a “chemical pregnancy.” My numbers finally went down to less than five and I got my period. It was very difficult to go through the “not knowing.” I don’t like grey areas, it either is or it is not. It was not; it was so bittersweet. It was bitter that I had a chemical pregnancy, but sweet in the fact that my body did what it was supposed to do.

IUI 10, 11 and 12 went by, but still no pregnancy. I thought, “Why is it so hard to do the one thing that my body was supposed to do?” I hated my body for not doing what it was designed to do. It had to get better.

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“I hated my body for not doing what it was designed to do”