 |
| Daniel 9/13 Chelsey 4/12 |
I had only been on my cycle for about two years when it just stopped all of a sudden when I started my seventh grade year. My mom took me to a few doctors; they ran tests and couldn't find anything wrong with me. They just said "we don't know why you stopped" "just enjoy this time, it will probably come back in a couple years". So I spent about the next six years being free of any female monthly problems. When I started college I went to the OU medical center to have things checked out once again. They couldn't explain why I still hadn't started and said I had a 60% chance of having children. I was put on a certain type of birth control. Soon after that my cycle started and I was on my cycle for 7 days and then off for 10 days (which was very exhausting). A year later I went to my doctor in town and was put on regular birth control (thank god I had a normal cycle after that) and he said he didn't see why I wouldn't be able to conceive since I was having my cycle. After that, getting pregnant wasn't so much of a concern anymore. Of course it was always in the back of my mind...
Daniel and I had always talked about wanting to wait till I was finished with school to have children. Months leading up to the wedding we talked more and more about wanting to start trying to conceive...just in case it took longer or we had trouble. So after we were finally Mr. and Mrs. I went to my doctor to have things checked out once again so that we could start trying. Three months of being off birth control and trying to have a baby didn't get us anywhere. So I went back to my doctor he gave me some pills and told me to take the pill so many days before we tried again. We did this for a month and still no luck. So we went back and he said that we could try the pill again for another month or there was a test we could run to check stuff out but it was expensive to do. I told him that I knew my body and that I knew the pill would not make a difference and I wanted to do the test that day. So they took some blood from me and sent it off. He said they should know in a couple days. I remember being at work when I got the call...my blood work had come back and said that my hormone levels were not normal and indicated that I was in pre-menopause. He wanted to test me again because he thought the test was wrong. So I went back the following week and we did it again. A couple days later....same results. At this point I was so devastated. Having children was something I had always dreamed about...I've had names picked out since I can remember! My doctor and nurse assured me that there was this great, wonderful, amazing specialist, Dr. K in OKC that has helped many couples like us. So we made the first available appointment with him. I asked my mother in law to go with us the day of the appointment in case there were questions to be asked or something we didn't understand. It seemed like we were at his office ALL day long. Dr. K asked about my medical history, did a pap, a vaginal video, and a couple more things and then sent us to his office and asked us to wait for him. I had never been sent to a doctor’s actual "office" so it was a bit intimidating. Daniel's mom waited in the office with us. When he came in he confirmed that I was in menopause (this is when the tears came and didn't stop until we got home), I had probably been in menopause since seventh grade when my cycles stopped, there was nothing I did nor was there anything I could have done to prevent my situation, he gave us statistics of women my age in menopause, said I would need to be on medication for the menopause and that yes getting pregnant was still possible for me. Although getting pregnant was still an option for me, I had NO eggs and would never produce anymore. This meant that they would find me donor eggs, test my hubby, do more extensive tests on me to make sure my body could carry a child, and of course it would take lots of $$. Basically we would be doing IVF but they would have to find a donor and it would cost a little more $$ for that. He said that the process was about 21k, that didn't include doctor visits, medicine, ultra sounds, and a few other things. He tried reassuring us of the situation, this wasn't our only option (meaning adoption was an option) and gave us more information. We scheduled some follow up appointments with him so that they could do blood work and give me my medications for the menopause. As we left the office I remember standing in the parking garage hugging Daniel and crying. Dr. K said that when we were ready to proceed we would come back for tests, take a class to get more information on the process and breakdown of the $$. We were very comfortable with Dr. K and felt like this was the route we wanted to take.Daniel and I talked and talked about so many different situations...yes adoption was an option and one that we were totally open to, how would we afford to pay for IVF because insurance does not cover any of it and it must all be paid before they place the eggs inside of you, what if we had more than one child, how could we afford having more than one child with such an expensive procedure and then trying to buy a house instead of living in our one bedroom house with all the medical bills, how would it affect us- me basically carrying someone else's child, and many more questions. I was scheduled to be finished with school about a year from then and we decided that we would wait to start any type of process until I finished school (as many of you know, almost two years later and I'm still in school).
At this point (End of Spring 2010) we were ok with our decision. Now, that doesn't mean that the next year wasn't hard because it was a roller coaster of emotions, questions, "what if's", etc... and a decision that led us back to Dr. K sooner then we had planned...
