Well, that extra two percent wasn’t on our side this month. That means Mark will be back to visit the Barnyard Babes again in about two weeks. Truthfully, I think I’ve reached my lowest, darkest days yet. I feel hopeless. I feel like this will never work. The doctors told us that doing IUI without fertility medications would only increase our chances of getting pregnant by another two percent per month, leaving us with a whopping four-percent possibility of getting pregnant this time around. Mark and I felt strongly about not turning to fertility medication right away because of the increased risks of ovarian cancer, which is why we chose to do IUI without medication at first. <\/p>\n
Frankly, I don’t know what to do anymore. Do we do another month of IUI without fertility drugs? And another month after that? Do we turn to drugs this month? The clock is ticking, and I feel panicked, totally unsure about what route to choose.<\/p>\n
My mother has begged me not to use Clomid, because she’s afraid of what it will do to me, years from now. She’s afraid I’ll get ovarian cancer in another 10 years if I take Clomid now. God knows, I want to be around for as much of Ava’s life as possible, and I don’t want to risk my own life in pursuit of another baby. But so many of my friends have used Clomid, with some success. It’s tempting–but terrifying.<\/p>\n
Our fertility doctor encouraged us to use Letrozole instead. That’s not even FDA approved for use as a fertility drug, but it’s been applied that way for the past 10 years or so. Doctors originally used it to treat women for breast cancer and then discovered that those women were getting pregnant because of it. Unfortunately, there are studies indicating that this drug can cause increased birth defects–particularly cardiac abnormalities–in fetuses. Despite those studies, my doctor (a woman) said this is the drug she’d recommend I use because it has a shorter life in the system and fewer side effects. She said this is what she would use herself, if she were in the same position. Which she’s decidedly not. Since she’s pregnant and all. (Ah, life’s lovely little kicks in the gut: It’s so nice when your fertility doctor is pregnant, and you’re not.)<\/p>\n
I want to follow her advice. I want to believe that this drug could be my salvation. I can’t help thinking, though, about all the terrible, frightening medications that doctors and pharmaceutical companies have prescribed and promoted throughout the years that have ended up actually causing horrific health problems–and even death.<\/p>\n
I watched Ava sleeping last night. She is perfect. A perfect miracle. I had NO idea just what a miracle it was that we ever conceived her until we started having these problems. I am so grateful for her, every minute of every day of my life. I remember what it was like when she and I were one person, joined together in a beautiful state of grace. Now I think I’m crazy to believe that drugs–and all this impersonal technology–will ever help me achieve that kind of spiritual transcendence again. It is truly a dark day for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, that extra two percent wasn’t on our side this month. That means Mark will be back to visit the Barnyard Babes again in about two weeks. Truthfully, I think I’ve reached my lowest, darkest days yet. I feel hopeless. I feel like this will never work. The doctors told us that doing IUI without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9oLlO-jn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicheplayer.net\/avablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}