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We went back to the highly regarded urologist to see what was going on. They wanted to do some tests to see if the sperm were okay. After checking out a sample that my husband had given, the doctor looked at his file, and then said, "Well, there are no sperm in the sample. I see that we don't have any frozen samples. I wonder why we didn't freeze any?" This was the beginning of the "I wish I knew what questions to ask" part of the infertility journey. You trust these professionals and have no clue what to ask. I assumed we had a sample to check, but we didn't, and now the reversal had closed up. I was devastated and cried all the way back to work. The doctor offered to do the reversal again, for a reduced fee, but I knew that the hospital wouldn't give us a break. I distinctly remember watching all the Rolls Royce cars going in and out of the parking garage....it was that kind of hospital.
I did ask the doctor if, rather than doing the reversal, couldn't he just take a needle and withdraw some sperm? No, I was told. Those sperm would be too immature. Fast-forward a few years and that's exactly what they did. I swear he stole my idea.
At that point we sat back to consider our options. I was only 29 and thought that donor sperm inseminations seemed like the logical next step. My husband didn't. He wouldn't budge on that point, so we were in limbo for quite a few years. Meanwhile, every sister and friend of childbearing age were popping out children right and left. I tired of being the wonderful, childless aunt.
Several years later I convinced my husband to attend a seminar about infertility and 'new advances.' The room was filled with hundreds of people, and several got up to ask questions after the presentation. I will never forget thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'd never go to THAT extent," after listening to a woman ask why her ten IVF cycles hadn't worked. Ten. Really? You could go through that many and still not have a baby? I obviously didn't know much about the topic at all. I also remember watching a show that followed several couples struggling with infertility. When one couple shared that they had spent close to $100,000 on treatments without success, I again thought that would never be us and again I was very wrong.
I knew that with the current technology at the time, our only option was to use donor sperm. Then we attended another seminar a few years later. We heard about TESE and ICSI and realized that maybe we could have a baby using IVF after all. I was 37 when we went to the doctor for a consultation. I really liked him a lot, and he seemed confident that we could overcome the sperm issue. Why in the world didn't he tell me to do a cycle now, rather than a few years later? Again, I really didn't think it was that big of a deal to wait a couple of years. I was in a job where being pregnant would take me off the street and put me in an office, I liked what I was doing, and I thought I had all the time in the world.
We eventually did the requisite testing prior to my first IVF cycle. I found out later that they missed doing one key test. We had five embryos to transfer that first cycle. Even though I had recently turned 40 (and missed being able to take advantage of the 'Outcome Based' package plan of paying for three cycles), I was confident that I'd be pregnant soon. My first beta was 8.13. They said that anything under 10 was negative, but to continue on the progesterone shots for another two weeks and then come back again. Still the same. They never said it, but my next clinic said it was a chemical pregnancy, one that probably failed to implant.
