Secondary Infertility

When you have one child you don’t think having another would be that difficult. Once again, I was wrong.

Around Pickle’s first birthday, we decided to go ahead and start trying to get pregnant again. We stopped contraceptives and decided to let this time be less stressful than the first time. My cycles had mostly stabled out, to where I was at least having one every month.. I had found a great tracking system, an app called Fertility Friend, that tracks your cycles to determine the best time for intercourse in order to conceive. 

In the beginning, I really just used it to remember my periods. That way I knew if there was an issue I could refer to it as needed. We weren’t exactly in a hurry to get pregnant this time, as we were enjoying watching our son grow and being a family of 3. Yet, we knew we were still missing someone in our lives.

Nearly a year went by and we had not gotten pregnant. I had sent a message into my doctor (the one I had during Pickle’s pregnancy and delivery) and let her know what was going on. She told us to keep trying a little longer and if nothing happened after 6 months we would come in and get checked out. At this point is when I started getting obsessive again. Tracking cycles and reading all of the things the internet had to offer about getting pregnant fast. 

My cycles started to get a little wonky and I started gaining weight quickly. Around August/September 2015, I decided to go ahead and make an appointment to see what was going on.

The first thing that my doctor did was do an entire blood panel of tests on me; while fasting (can’t eat or drink for 12 hours before the blood draw). Within a few days the results came back that I had insulin resistance. 

In a way it was relief to know what was going on so that we could attack it and get me to a place where I could get pregnant naturally. She decided to put me on metformin. I had to take it three times a day. They told me to do that for 6 months and if we weren’t pregnant we would go another route. 

Luckily, I am an avid researcher; it is sort of my thing. I researched the heck out of insulin resistance and found out that some simple diet changes would greatly impact my health and chances of getting pregnant again. So we started slowly changing the way we ate (more than we had done before) and I started to lose weight.

After the first of the year came and went, I was still frustrated that we were not pregnant yet. I kept having the feeling that there was more going on and we needed to find out what it was. So I put a message in to my doctor and she agreed to do another blood draw to check for ovulation. Those results came back that I was indeed not even ovulating. 

The doctor decided to prescribe me Femara, in order for me to ovulate. She told me to take it on the specific days and then come in for a blood draw to see if I ovulated or not.

The first month was a fail, so she upped my dose. The second month came back positive, she told me to go ahead and keep taking that until we become pregnant. Every month I would also have to come in for a blood draw to make sure I did ovulate. Femara is not cheap and the blood draws were slightly exhausting, but you do what you have to do to make it happen. 

By the end of March, I was still getting the feeling that something else was wrong. We had not gotten pregnant, on the ovulation meds yet, and I was concerned that maybe my c-section caused some internal issues. I messaged my doctor and she said she recommends getting my husband tested first as it is cheaper than testing me. So we went ahead and did that. His results came back completely fine. Once again, I knew the issue was me.

I had requested that we do an ultrasound, or something, to make sure my uterus and everything was still fine. She decided that we would do a procedure called a hysterosalpingogram where they insert a catheter into your uterus and insert dye into your uterus; while watching on an x-ray machine, to make sure there are no blockages or anything causing issues. 

We agreed to do the procedure, which took place in the middle of April. The results came back as nothing was wrong! While that was good news I was still disappointed because I wanted to be pregnant a year prior, the waiting really is difficult and emotionally draining. 

After that procedure, I started trying to come to terms with us having only one biological child. However, that did not stop me from tracking my cycle and taking tests. I had been buying these cheap test strips off amazon; it comes with 40 ovulation sticks and 10 pregnancy test sticks (they look like pool test strips).

On the morning of April 30th, I woke up early (for no reason) and decided to take a pregnancy test for the heck of it. At first it was blank and then all of a sudden a tiny faint line appeared. I swear it was like history was repeating itself! I started wigging out. 

I came to my bed and woke up my husband for him to take a second look. He said he saw it too and for me to calm down. I started crying and jumping around in the bathroom while he was hugging me. I told him he had to go right this minute and get me another test (first response) because it is more sensitive and the line should appear a lot better on that one. 

I kept my pee in the designated cup and he went and got the test. He got home and ripped that test open and took it right away and THERE IT WAS! HURRAY!
Based on my period we determined the due date to be January 10th.

I knew I wanted this pregnancy and birth to be different than the last one and that is where our story continues.
Stay tuned  🙂

-Jenn