My infertility and pregnancies

In my 20's I was blessed with two beauitiful children, a son and a daughter. I always wanted more children, but the time wasnt right as I was a single mom until March 2002. I had no problem getting pregnant, and had been pregnant 5 times. I had a couple m/c, probably due to trauma and then I was pregnant the next cycle and had another early m/c. It was just too soon to be pregnant right after being pregnant. Once I had my 2nd baby, pregnancy 5, I had gained some weight. I then took 4 depo shots in 4 years, just to try it and just in case, as I was single and not dating much. I just wanted to raise my children and finish college. After Depo, my period just never returned. I was averaging 40-50lbs overweight, and that didnt help.

I've been ttc since I got married in March of 2002. My husband likes the natural approach, but after 5 years of trying it his way, science has been allowed to step in. Prior to my correct diagnosis in Dec 2006, I had been annovulatory and diagnosed with hypothalmic ammenorea. I even went 15 months with no AF. I had dh tested and he was around 30 million (doc said that was good) mostly all good swimmers. I tried clomid 6 times, the 1st 3 times no AF until I took provera to get AF. The doctor wanted me to take provera every other two weeks to get AF back on track, but I didnt like the side effects enough to keep doing that. At my next yearly pap, she suggested I try clomid again, but a higher dose. I ovulated 2 times, but no pregnancy. The 3rd time was a bust. I noticed my diet was good for the 1st two, then not so good and I realized that my diet plays a big roll in my fertility. I even once tried a new diet with soy and got AF on my own twice in 2004 (sept & oct). Still no pregnancy.

In Nov 2006 I went to a new doctor, got dh tested again, this time we didnt use the pull out method and his count was better, 39 million. The new doctor said he was on the high end of low, but it was worth a chance ttc at home. He explained hubbies count was good on one chart and ok on another medical chart. By Dec 2006 doc had diagnosed me with PCOS (Polysistic Ovarian Disease).

There are 3 parts to pcos, according to my doctor
1. physical - missed or irregular periods
2. blood work - for this you would have high testosterone/androgens, or possibly glucose issues (fast before your appt if your gonna ask for this test). Some other hormones can be out of whack (I dont think thyroid is one of them for PCOS)
3. cysts - for this you have painful periods and cysts that hurt on your ovaries, they tend to look like a chain of pearls on u/s
My doctor says if you have 2 areas out of the 3 above, you have PCOS. My old OBGYN had no clue.

So now I was to ramp up to 200mg of metformin, increasing by 500mg a week. Then I took provera, got AF and took femara for 5 days early in the cycle. I had u/s monitoring and did NOT respond. When I got my period it was only a spot, but doctor went ahead and moved on to a new cycle. It was March of 2007, next stop fsh injections. I took femara for 5 days, then 2 weeks of injections. Everything was great except the fsh made me bleed heavy, and it was a strange color. That let up, then eventually I had several eggs pop up. The final count was: Left 19.38, 17.50,14.51Right 23.65, 21.52, 16.29, 16.64. I took the trigger shot, and after that I think I OHSS'd b/c I couldnt walk and breathe at the same time. It was pretty bad, but my 7 day progesterone was 90, so I ovulated several eggs, maybe 3 or more. So I waited.

I attempted to test out the hcg, but the test got super dark. Before the 1st beta doctor said I was probably pregnant. I was. He called me personally to tell me my beta was 11,747, holy oat meal. Jumping ahead, I was pregnant, but pregnant in my right tube from the Jan cycle. I poped an egg on provera or at some point, but my basel body temps only show higher temps after provera. My ovaries were twice the normal size and I had to go in to have the sac removed from my tube. Oh and I had terrible m/c pains and had to insist on the u/s that found the sac.

On to my next few cycles. After taking some downtime, I used just femara, with no trigger, oh no, I wasnt going through that again. I ovulated a few times, and a couple of them was from my right side. We did u/s monitoring to confirm. The last cycle I ovualted kinda late so doctor switched me to Tamoxifen so to up the dosage. Tamoxifen is similar to Femara/Letrazole. I ovulated on the left, and the next day felt like a superB****. I had nausia and other pregnancy symptoms, including food adversion. I was pregnant, finally after 5 years of ttc.

Things progressed perfectly, as always. I changed doctors once and the new doctor had me go off the metformin. On Dec 12, 2007, not long after fooling around, sleeping, taking a bath then getting ready to go meet my friend for lunch I started bleeding. I was scared but knew it could be nothing. I lost 3 huge clots and the L&D said to bring them with. Now how do you bring clots to the hospital? Well I grabbed the cheapest huge spoon I could find, got the clots out of the can and put them in a bag, then threw away the spoon.

Got to l&d and they tried to send me to the ER b/c I was like 14wks. I had to explain l&d said to come here, then they let me in. Geeze! The hooked me up to the heart monitor and the baby was just fine. After that, I had an u/s, they let hubbie watch, but not me, no that was against the rules. Baby was fine. I went home on bedrest and the following tues the doctor released me from bedrest and said go back to life as usual. He even said maybe I could bowl. I disagreed and he had to agree with me no bowling. I didnt lift anything heavy after that, just in case there was an abruption they couldnt see on u/s. He had the talk with me that they dont see them till its too late. So everything progressed, and I had my 18wk u/s and the baby was perfect and a BOY.

At 20 wks, I started to feel icky, I didnt want to eat much of anything, but had to, so I ate heatlhy stuff. I had a strange feeling at 21wks, I felt these strange sweat like drops when I lay in bed and slept. I thought I was leaking fluid. I went back to L&D and I passed one test (the ph test) but failed the ferning test so they admitted me. They gave me an IV for a couple hours, but my doctor showed up and took me off it. He told me the iv/antibiotic thing can cause labor and even if I was leaking he would be sending me home the next day. He wanted to monitor me overnight. I did have more leeking and now failed the ph test. It was 5 am and he hooked me up to the iv and antibiotics and as soon as he did I started having labor pains. He was gone, but I asked for him several times in the morning and he did NOT come back. I wanted to discuss my options of stopping labor.

By early afternoon my water was coming out and they took me to the delivery room, dh showed up and my water broke as he was walking in the door. The doctor showed up after that, after it was too late to do anything. I asked him where he was and he said across the hall in his office seeing patients.

So Im 21 wks, scared to death, asking for NICU to be on standby, and having hard pains every now and then. Hubbie and I were trying to decide if we should risk my life and stop labor after my water broke. Just 2 more weeks and they would have tried to save my son. The doctor checked me and the babies feet were coming out so we had to deliver. The doctor said the words "no NICU" b/c the baby would not live. He said there was no chance.

By the way, this is not true, a baby smaller than my son in Florida the year before my son's birth was revived and is alive today.

The 1st cycle after AF, I used soy and turmeric to ovulate and to my shock I ovualted. I also got pregnant, due dec 15, 2008.

I didnt feel right with the pregnancy b/c I had a + on frer at 8dpo, then at 9dp my beta was 0. At 14dpo my beta was 7. It doubled just fine, but all the doctors had very little hope. One of my doctors said I wasnt even pregnant at first. This pregnancy was ectopic. It turned out the 1st surgeon took out part of my tube in April of 2007, and sealed the rest of the tube shut, but this baby got pulled into the damaged tube.

On the subject of tubes, I understand the maybe the egg came from the right ovary and got in the right half tube, but how did the sperm get there. It would have had to do the dew and climb. I got pictures of the ovaried and tubes and the ovaries are far from the tube ending or fingers that pull the egg in. I've read they think sperm and eggs are just attracted to each other. There is no fluid around the ovary, just empty space. The surgeon who did the new surgery later said I could have had the egg in the left tube and then it popped back out into the right tube after the sperm got to it. So I had my surgery, April 2008, decided I dont like April anymore, and asked the doctor to remove the remaining part tube. The surgery went great. I recovered much faster than the 1st ectopic.

So I was left with no baby and lots of fertility issues. I began ttc again, but the old meds just arent working so much for me. I've had a lot of annovulatory cycles, and am graduating to more injections. I took clomid and didnt ovulate until I went on provera at day 28. It was confirmed on u/s and bloodwork that I was in fact ovulating, so we stopped provera.

I moved on to injections with femara, and have done that for 3 cycles. This cycle Im annovulatory again, so Im waiting to see if I pop and egg or I will go on provera and my next cycle will be early Feb. We will up the dosage and monitor on u/s.