Our Story

Our story starts in Madrid in a Spanish class. Long story short, we fall in love, get married and move to the States in 2010. Once here we decide it is time to start thinking about a family. At first I am hesitant but we start trying anyway, I already had been stalling him for two years. 

First months I am almost trying to avoid sex during fertile days, but the months passed and I started noticing families and pregnant women everywhere. Suddenly the thought of having a family doesn’t seem so crazy. Maybe I have to explain that I had a pretty rough childhood and a very traumatic relationship with my father. I am really scared of having a family and story repeating itself. Now I think having a family will actually help me to overcome this fears and traumas. 

After a year of serious trying and nothing happening I kind of start thinking that something might be wrong.  First I thought it was my hubby, he is 10 years older than me and we just thought we could have some sperm quality issues.  He gets tested and he is fine, actually he is great. So it is finally my turn and I go to my yearly gynecological appointment with a few more questions than usual. At this point I am thinking it is probably a hormonal thing and a few pills will make everything well.  Hormones were fine, pelvic ultrasound was normal and my gynecologist advises me to go talk to a RE. 

 

Doctor Shapiro at the Portsmouth Hospital is the first doctor I see and he says we must do few more tests before he can say anything. That’s when I get to do the HSG (Hysterosalpingography). The HSG is performed by 2 students, supervised by Doctor Shapiro and 2 or 3 more people in the examining room. Most of you know that you know the results of HSG at the same time they are performing, you can see in a little black and white screen how the dye they insert starts going everywhere and it is supposed to spill at the end of two very thin tubes. The doctor say it doesn’t look good, since one of my tubes don’t get filled and the second one looks like a sausage and then he concludes saying I might need surgery and we would talk more the next week at our following appointment and left to attend something else. 

I left feeling completely destroyed, I couldn’t even talk to my husband waiting in the corridor because I was already crying, falling apart. Looking back I ask myself how could a doctor say that you might need surgery like this? Like it was nothing.  For the next week I learn everything you should know about HSG and possible results since I didn’t even know what was wrong, he did not mention it. Later I was able to get the report of this test:

I request my next appointment with a different doctor. Dr. Rollene that also works at the same department sees me and explains everything to me with all detail she could. She really changed how I saw things and renewed my faith in the process. I decide to get the Laparoscopy. She explains that my tubes might be too damaged and would be better to just remove it and go on with IVF. I basically make her promise that they won’t remove anything unless completely necessary.

I woke up from the surgery in shock. I start looking for the scars in my stomach and when I see the marks around my belly bottom I start asking to see my husband hysterically. He comes with a big smile in his face and wipes my tears saying “calm down, they did not remove anything, you are fine”. It took me a while to assimilate what he was saying but when I got it I was ready to jump out of the hospital bed and kiss my doctor. The doctors that performed the surgery come back to the room they explained that I have Endometriosis stage II but the good news is that my tubes are open and clear. 

After the surgery I had mixed feeling. I was very happy that I still have my fallopian tubes and that I shouldn't give up trying to have a baby naturally. At the same time I was wondering if there were in fact the need to open me up. They did not fix the "chocolate cyst" and scar tissue found in my left side you can see in the picture. Dr. Rollene said it would hurt more than help. She said it was really small and in the picture is zoomed. My husband was furious that they made me go through it and I think he felt guilt because he supported my decision to do the Laparoscopy. At least now we know how it looks inside and it is not as bad as we first thought.

My doctor’s decision then was to try Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) with clomid.We did four rounds of IUI. I respond great to the clomid but still they all fail. I did not even get one mere positive, which makes us think that probably as they first suspected egg and sperm are not meeting because of the damage in the tubes.

The surgery and IUI happened during 2011. I was really depressed in December when I go to my last visit and it is again the 5 minutes appointment with the busy Doctor Shapiro that wraps up saying “I really don’t know what is wrong with you”. I don’t want to demoralize this doctor, but in my personal experience he is the worst doctor I have had in my whole life. He is the responsible for all the stress I had during the year 2011, from my first visit in January to my last in December. I understand the doctor don't always know everything, but still, at my last visit I felt as lost as I was when I first booked an appointment in January.

I decided I didn’t want to go there anymore. My husband kind of disagreed with me, he really just wanted to proceed with IVF and try to get pregnant as soon as possible. I had lost my faith in this doctor and I wasn’t in the mood to start doing it all again in a different clinic. For this reason, I start this blog and start making changes in my lifestyle and trying alternative methods to increase fertility and lessen the effects of endometriosis.

I have faith one day I will get there and if I don’t at least I am trying to spread the word about this condition and ways to lessen its effects.