Addressing
a topic I raised in my last blog post: what's up next for doing my part toward
my miracle? I mentioned that I would
share more about my "coming soon" interventions that I discussed with
my OBGYN at an appointment earlier this month, so here goes. As many of you know, thus far Steve and I
have very much preferred to follow the most natural fertility interventions that
we could. I've done acupuncture, seen several
natural health practitioners, and taken several supplements on a regular basis
(technically some of these have been prescription meds to get the dosage I
needed, but they were all still based on natural compounds). All of this was done, and continues to be
done, in an effort to get my body in balance so that my fertility would
increase. And since I was able to get
pregnant once doing only natural interventions, we have been hopeful that those
interventions would work again.
Unfortunately, we've not yet been successful in getting pregnant again
in the last year and a half. That was
the reason I agreed to start taking Clomid in January of this year and began
discussing more interventions with my OBGYN.
I haven't lost faith that natural interventions are helpful and can work,
but after relying solely on natural interventions for another year without
another pregnancy we are also considering some of the more basic interventions that
modern medicine has to offer in an effort to increase our chances of
having a baby soon.
So far,
the Clomid has been a mixed bag for us.
For those of you unfamiliar with what Clomid (clomephine citrate if you
want to sound fancy) is, it is a fertility drug that is used to stimulate a
stronger ovulation in a woman's body. I
have not had any noteworthy negative side effects since starting on Clomid (yay)
and it seemed to work very well the first couple months I was on it; however,
the next couple months showed a reduced effectiveness in my body's response to
the drug (AKA - my eggs weren't getting all amped up anymore like they were
when they first met this mysterious Clomid creature). So during the month of May we doubled my dose
of Clomid in hopes that my body would respond again. It seems to have helped, although it still didn't
quite give the effect that my body initially responded with. But because I did show improvement, I've
decided to try another month at this higher dose before taking the
interventions to the next level (might as well give it a shot a couple months
in a row...after all, Rome wasn't built in a day, right?). We're also getting Steve tested again just to
be sure that everything is still good in that department. And then next up for me is probably a
laparoscopy with a tubal dye perfusion (and possible ovarian drilling...I have
to do more research on this one) sometime this summer. I'll be sure to share more details with you
when we get there.
After
the interventions mentioned above, my OBGYN has said she would refer us to a
fertility clinic when Steve and I are ready for that step. I guess when we feel the time is right we
will probably see what a fertility clinic has to say. To be honest, right now we're really on the
fence about most options a fertility clinic would be able to offer us. We're still young and not yet in danger of
"running out of time" so to speak, but we are also anxious to become
parents. It's a balancing act and we'll
be trying to figure out what's best for us in the coming months. Tough decisions will require lots of thinking
and lots of praying...asking God to reveal for us what path He wants us to take
to experience the miracle of becoming parents.
We'll see what the road holds ahead.
For now, we're taking it (cue music) "one step at a time, there's
no need to rush...it's like learning to fly or falling in love...it's gonna
happen when it's supposed to happen..." And now I really hope you have that Jordin
Sparks' song running through your head because it has a great message! I'll tell you like I tell my students when
they complain I've gotten a song stuck in their head: must mean I'm doing a
great job at being a music teacher ;).
No comments:
Post a Comment