Recently I was thinking about some of the things I've learned over our years of trying to conceive. Perhaps this train of thought came from yet another conversation I had with my health insurance company over a IVF consult bill I have to resubmit (from Sept '04!), and how funny it was to be chatting with the billing lady at our old clinic yet again (who I'm sure shuddered when she heard my voice on the other end of the line — we know each other well, I'm afraid). Part of me feels that time in my life was just yesterday; I am still shocked when I realize it is in fact receding. Some days, it feels like it was all years ago (some of it was, in fact). In any case, these are a few things I was thinking about, things I'm glad I did, things I wished I had done differently. Of course hindsight is always 20/20, or however the saying goes...
- First off, I am glad early on my general practitioner recommended the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility, by Toni Weschler. From that, I learned a whole lot of stuff I wished I had back in bio/health/sex ed classes earlier in my life. The things I learned about reading your body's signs and signals throughout your cycle, what exactly is happening at different phases in your cycle, and how to identify problems would have been incredibly valuable even when I was not trying to get pregnant. In fact, had I read the book earlier, I would have already known how screwy my system was and might have gotten on track a lot sooner.
- I wish I had not wasted so much time (close to a year) seeing a gynocologist my GP had recommended before moving on to a RE (reproductive endocrinologist) at a good fertility clinic. I know the "standard" for trying before seeking treatment for fertility issues is 12 months (at least if you are youngish) but I think that's crap, especially if you clearly have some unidentified issues (like freakishly long cycles, or months of failure while timing and charting carefully).
- I wish, while under said gynocologist's care, I had not been put on Clomid for months on end without much monitoring (12 months total!), bumping up the dosage three times despite no evaluation of how my ovaries were responding. The Clomid eventually started giving me miserable side effects (not to mention the fact that it was costing an arm and a leg) and I eventually traded it in for herbs and acupuncture (which did exactly the same, for me, sans side effects). I think it would have been much better to only do 3 or so cycles of Clomid before combining them with IUI's, under the more monitored care of an RE.
- In fact, I kind of wish I had started with herbs and acupuncture to begin with, as soon as we started trying or even before, when I knew my cycles were wonky and might later be a problem. At the time I think I believed there were meds or procedures that could fix it all. I didn't know as much about the holistic view of health, and how the body's systems are so interdependent.
- Once we had done the 4 or so IUI's that were recommended by the RE, we moved on to IVF. I am glad we went to a big clinic with strong stats, even though it didn't work for us.
- In terms of IVF, I think we should have seriously considered the shared risk plans when we started (financing for 3 or so cycles at once, that covers everything and then returns some money back to you if the treatments do not work). At the time we were pretty sure it would work for us on the first try. Ha ha. Now I know that is usually not the case, and that it often takes a couple to many tries to have a successful outcome through IVF.
- I am really glad that I found some of the online communities dealing with infertility, including IVFConnections, and infertility blogs. Through those, I was able to read about and meet people who were dealing with (or had successfully moved on from) both similar, and very different things than I was. I learned a lot about the processes, the procedures and different options available, and because of that, I was never really surprised along the way; I knew what I was getting myself into. I was also able to put my struggles into perspective; my trials with getting pregnant are nowhere near what so many others have gone through.
- I am glad, too, that while I was in the midst of ttc and IVF I was concurrently learning more about adoption, through blogs and in real life (I happened to get to know quite a few adoptive families at the school I was teaching at then). For me, that knowledge made the concept of adoption much more comfortable, and made the decision to move forward with it rather early on (compared to some folks anyway) much easier.
