I have so many emotions going on lately. Maybe it is all of the adoption paperwork and information in the last week. Maybe it is a child’s birthday party over the last weekend. Maybe it is the fertility appointment and results I had this week. Maybe it is the fact that I will be 36 years old in a few days. Or maybe it is just good old female hormones. Let’s face it – its ALL of the above.
Let’s go back to early June. I had another appointment with fertility … AFTER my gynecologist appointment. Yes ladies, you can be jealous now … I had three strangers all up in my business in a matter of about 2 hours, not including the forceps during the exam. I didn’t even get a meal out of it. No dirty talk. Nothing. Just, “scoot your butt. More. A little more. Okay, relax your knees. Now, please relax while I shove this cold, long, pinching instrument in your vagina.” Okay so the last sentence was a lie. At least it was not spoken verbally. The cherry topping – her assistant was a young, handsome male. Great – how about the other three doctors I saw when I was walking into the room. Why don’t we invite them to join. Open a bottle of champagne while you are at it and let’s have a toast to the continuing death of my modesty. Okay, that is a lie too. My modesty disappeared many years, hands, and forceps ago. Cheers!
Onto the fertility appointment. A new consult since we took a break with the fertility assistance for so long. Thankfully, I am so used to having to share my sex life, body, and feelings with them. So this is no surprise. There was a surprise however, saved right for the end. “Thanks for coming in. Oh, by the way, we now get to decide if you will be inseminated or not. I know you came in advising you and your spouse are looking to do another insemination, but we will let you know if we are able to do that.” Really? You get to decide what happens to MY body? Especially after you have done two prior inseminations with no complaints.
For any of you who are getting started with any assistance in fertility, beware. The first thing I learned – you lose your modesty fast and get used to others fidgeting around in your personal life and personal body. The second thing I learned going through everything – it may be your body, but you only have minimal control over it. Everybody else actually gets to be in charge of what happens at the end of the day. You can control what you wear, what substances you put into your body. But other people will decide if you are healthy enough to try for pregnancy. Other people will decide if you can be inseminated or fertilized for IVF. This extends to outside your body as well, such as adoption.
Adoption. This brings me to my next emotional infuriation this week. “There is so many kids that need love in this world”, they tell you. “Just adopt, it will be so much less frustration and pain than the continued fertility attempts”, they tell you. You know what they didn’t tell you? That you had better rob a bank first. Because it will cost a lot. Yes, I know, it is less expensive of a route if you foster first. But again, as mentioned in a prior blog, my husband and I have made the decision not to foster first. That is our choice to make regardless of how anyone feels about it. However, that also means we have no inexpensive options. They also did not tell you that it is a very time consuming and frustrating process.
Since you would have a child placed with you, it is understandable that they want to ensure it would be going to a loving home, in which that child (or those children) will be loved and cared for as they should be. That is completely understandable. However, it is frustrating when you look at the other side of it – that if your dwindling ovaries were actually your age and working properly, you would not even need to pay this much, or take these classes, or do any of this God awful paperwork. You would not need to be monitored and have an inspection to have someone else tell you how good or bad your home is. If your ovaries / fallopian tubes / etc. have not betrayed you, you can just become pregnant and decide for yourself if your life is good enough to bring a child into.
I am not going to get to specific, but let’s put it this way; we make decent money, have a nice home, have a good running and safe vehicle, have amazing dogs, a wonderful relationship. I just have shitty female organs. Why does this have to be such a process? Especially when John and Jane Doe are hooked on substances such as drugs / alcohol and they get to decide to have a baby (or at least keep it when they get pregnant)? Or the people that beat the hell out of their kids, starve them, deprive them and just plain don’t love them. What about those people that murder their kids or sell them for something. I read an article the other day – a lady sold her seven year old to pay off a $2500 drug debt. But by all means, she does not need to take classes on how to be a parent or do a crap ton of paperwork. She clearly would not be willing to spend thousands of dollars for that child. Hell, the government pays her to have kids. The more kids – the more money. That is just a few examples. There are many more, but you get the point.
The paperwork for adopting through the state, well there is a lot of it. As I type this, my husband is online purchasing safety devices to put up in the house. We already had the fire extinguisher. Now need the locks for cabinets, the safety ladders to keep in all bedrooms upstairs should there be a fire. All the essentials. Don’t get me wrong, it is good to have those. But just another thing that you don’t need to have in order to get pregnant.
Hmmm… If I don’t move on, I could go on forever with this. Lets get back to the overall picture – why is this such a difficult week for me?
I already told you about the hot date with multiple people earlier in June. Well I had the follow up on Monday this week. Although I am not surprised, my numbers dropped again. They want to see it at a 9. Mine is a 6 currently. Previously a 6.9. The even worse number for me – my AMH level. This is the anti-mullerian hormone, which is produced only in small ovarian follicles and measures the size of the growing follicles in women. In English – this measures your remaining egg supply. Below is a chart that identifies the range of this hormone.
| Interpretation (women under age 35) | AMH Blood Level |
| High (often PCOS) | Over 4.0 ng/ml |
| Normal | 1.5 – 4.0 ng/ml |
| Low Normal Range | 1.0 – 1.5 ng/ml |
| Low | 0.5 – 1.0 ng/ml |
| Very Low | Less than 0.5 ng/ml |
As you can imagine, mine is only decreasing. To give you an idea, when I measured this in 4/1/2016 – it was a 0.45. In October of 2016 – it was already down to a 0.35. Jump to 6/29/2018, you know, approximately a week and a half ago – it is a 0.15. As in very low. Or, in English – even my eggs have given up on me.
To add to the low numbers, age is a factor (amongst other things, but we are focusing on age alone right now because (a) we don’t have all night, nor would you want to continue reading through all of that right now and (b) my birthday is coming up and that means I will be 36 years old. As it is, it is said that when you turn 35, your egg reserve decreases dramatically and your ability to get pregnant increases in difficulty. That is for normal 35-year-old women. For me, um hello 25! My eggs apparently started abandoning ship and my egg supply decreased before my car insurance premium decreased. I have always been someone who has not been big on my own birthdays, but at this stage in life, I have a new distaste for age that I didn’t know could exist. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to be alive and celebrate another year. I am very blessed despite all of this in my blog, however, it is a fight to feel joyous about my birthday.
I mention a kid’s birthday above. However, that honestly was not hard for me. Babies, that is hard on me. Very hard. But kid’s birthdays, especially a family member and one I am close with, it is a lot easier for me than one might think. Don’t get me wrong, I do still have my moments and difficulties. But overall, its usually okay. The hard part was actually the second party the same day when I went to another family member’s house. One of their friends was there with their new 6-week-old baby. That is what is hard on me. Wanting something so bad, and watching others with what you want – that is what is hard. No tears this time. Yay, me! But that is likely because we got to the party late and when we got there, they were just leaving. Phew! Saved by the bell.
Well that is all for now. I won’t continue to bother you with my woes of the week. Thanks for reading this far. I am not trying to be a downer. Just really having a rough week this week and this is my release.
Until next time. ❤
Our Infertility Journey 