Sounds complicated, expensive and scary.
First, because it's a mouthful, and could be tricky to spell. Three words or Two words? Is there a dash somewhere there? And also because the pronunciation differs from one person to another. Intra-yoo-te-reen or intra-yoo-te-rayn? Thank God for abbreviations! :) We can just stick with IUI.
So what is it and how does it work? If you are having some fertility issues, or you have a friend or a family member who's been trying for yeeeears to have a baby, maybe this post will help you understand the process. I'm not an expert, so it's still best to consult a specialist. :) I'll just be sharing what Jay and I went through financially, physically, emotionally and mentally, for the last 5 years.
Here we go… Warning: Looooooong post ahead. (But I'll cut this post into 2 parts to hopefully trick your brain that it's not that long).
Just a not-so-quick background, Jay and I have been married for 5 years and we started trying to get pregnant right off the bat. I secretly wished for a honeymoon baby and I must've put a great deal of pressure on Jay at that time. Poor guy. My idea then was: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby (in a baby carriage! I know you want to sing it), with a very short time interval between the last two events. Love and marriage happened at the perfect time. The third one, well, we're getting there. I just thought it would happen really quickly.
Now I'm not the type who tracks her monthly period. I just didn't see the need for it until after a couple of months of trying to conceive (TTC) unsuccessfully. And I started tracking not just my period, but also our BD's (Check this post if you want to know what this is. Haha). When it didn't work by August after doing the deed as often as humanly possible (Beyb and I got married on May 2011), my dad recommended that I consult one of her clients who's an OB-GYN. She just told me to lose weight, eat healthy and to continue with our BD on certain days of the month. All were such a good idea, if your monthly period comes like clockwork. We never went back to her. Jay also didn't like her because she spent a great deal of time promoting organic foods during our first and only consultation. We couldn't say good bye to our late night fast-food runs. Yep, that's the perk of living in close proximity to 5 McDonald's stores which are open 24/7.
Dr. #1 was the first of many OB-GYNs we would visit over the course of 5 years. We are now on our 8th, and hopefully our last. Three of those doctors are Reproductive Endocrinologists or infertility experts. Our first RE was very motherly. She encouraged me to lose weight, and she gave me fertility pills to help me ovulate. She was the one who ordered for a TVS (transvaginal ultrasound) to check my ovaries and that's when I found out I have PCOS. However, she also had a lot of patients that we had to wait a minimum of 2 hours to see her whether we're the first patient in line or not. And consultations with her were very short and a lot of times I have to tell her AGAIN what's wrong with me. Or the other way around. "Oh, those pimples on your chin, that means you have PCOS." Yeah, tell me something I don't know, doc. I felt like a number, just another patient she needs to see. So we parted ways and never looked back.
Our 2nd RE was intimidating and Jay never had the chance to meet her. She's a very methodical, straightforward, no-nonsense doctor. The first time I met her, she gave me a piece of paper with her fertility plan. It included constant medication for 6 months to regulate my period, 3 months of taking clomiphene to help me ovulate (you can't do it for more than 3 consecutive months), and other procedures along the way. She has 4 clinics and I just got tired of following her around. Also, during the time I was seeing her, I had just started with my new job and I couldn't skip work, and she's veeeeery strict with the timing of the check-ups and follicle monitoring. So our relationship just didn't work out. We called it quits after 3 cycles.
Before meeting my 3rd RE, I had an in between doctor. By the way, we also choose doctors who are accredited by our company's HMO provider. My dad had another client who's an OB-Gyn, and she was actually my sister-in-law's OB when she gave birth to her daughter. She's like a family friend, so I was very comfortable with her. However, she focused more on making me lose my weight that she wanted me to try the south beach diet since it worked for her. Don't get me wrong. I've tried countless of times to lose weight, to no avail. And in my head I would always reason out that other overweight women were able to get pregnant, so why lose weight? Hahaha. I have friends who would come up to me and tell me that a relative who's bigger than me, and who also has PCOS was able to get pregnant. So out of frustration, we decided to just stop for the mean time and rest.
TTC is very exhausting. I realized that my threshold for undergoing consecutive fertility treatments is just 3 cycles. After 3 unsuccessful cycles, I'm just not able to go through it emotionally and psychologically.
After resting for almost a year, Jay and I decided to go work on our baby project more eagerly. And that's when we met RE #3. You can see the other details about my experience with her in this post, and at the same time read about what happened in my cycle before our IUI.
But rest your eyes first, stretch your legs, go get some water, and I'll be back with part 2 of this post. :)
First, because it's a mouthful, and could be tricky to spell. Three words or Two words? Is there a dash somewhere there? And also because the pronunciation differs from one person to another. Intra-yoo-te-reen or intra-yoo-te-rayn? Thank God for abbreviations! :) We can just stick with IUI.
So what is it and how does it work? If you are having some fertility issues, or you have a friend or a family member who's been trying for yeeeears to have a baby, maybe this post will help you understand the process. I'm not an expert, so it's still best to consult a specialist. :) I'll just be sharing what Jay and I went through financially, physically, emotionally and mentally, for the last 5 years.
Here we go… Warning: Looooooong post ahead. (But I'll cut this post into 2 parts to hopefully trick your brain that it's not that long).
Just a not-so-quick background, Jay and I have been married for 5 years and we started trying to get pregnant right off the bat. I secretly wished for a honeymoon baby and I must've put a great deal of pressure on Jay at that time. Poor guy. My idea then was: First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby (in a baby carriage! I know you want to sing it), with a very short time interval between the last two events. Love and marriage happened at the perfect time. The third one, well, we're getting there. I just thought it would happen really quickly.
Now I'm not the type who tracks her monthly period. I just didn't see the need for it until after a couple of months of trying to conceive (TTC) unsuccessfully. And I started tracking not just my period, but also our BD's (Check this post if you want to know what this is. Haha). When it didn't work by August after doing the deed as often as humanly possible (Beyb and I got married on May 2011), my dad recommended that I consult one of her clients who's an OB-GYN. She just told me to lose weight, eat healthy and to continue with our BD on certain days of the month. All were such a good idea, if your monthly period comes like clockwork. We never went back to her. Jay also didn't like her because she spent a great deal of time promoting organic foods during our first and only consultation. We couldn't say good bye to our late night fast-food runs. Yep, that's the perk of living in close proximity to 5 McDonald's stores which are open 24/7.
Dr. #1 was the first of many OB-GYNs we would visit over the course of 5 years. We are now on our 8th, and hopefully our last. Three of those doctors are Reproductive Endocrinologists or infertility experts. Our first RE was very motherly. She encouraged me to lose weight, and she gave me fertility pills to help me ovulate. She was the one who ordered for a TVS (transvaginal ultrasound) to check my ovaries and that's when I found out I have PCOS. However, she also had a lot of patients that we had to wait a minimum of 2 hours to see her whether we're the first patient in line or not. And consultations with her were very short and a lot of times I have to tell her AGAIN what's wrong with me. Or the other way around. "Oh, those pimples on your chin, that means you have PCOS." Yeah, tell me something I don't know, doc. I felt like a number, just another patient she needs to see. So we parted ways and never looked back.
Our 2nd RE was intimidating and Jay never had the chance to meet her. She's a very methodical, straightforward, no-nonsense doctor. The first time I met her, she gave me a piece of paper with her fertility plan. It included constant medication for 6 months to regulate my period, 3 months of taking clomiphene to help me ovulate (you can't do it for more than 3 consecutive months), and other procedures along the way. She has 4 clinics and I just got tired of following her around. Also, during the time I was seeing her, I had just started with my new job and I couldn't skip work, and she's veeeeery strict with the timing of the check-ups and follicle monitoring. So our relationship just didn't work out. We called it quits after 3 cycles.
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| RE #2's Fertility Game Plan. See how thorough she is? |
TTC is very exhausting. I realized that my threshold for undergoing consecutive fertility treatments is just 3 cycles. After 3 unsuccessful cycles, I'm just not able to go through it emotionally and psychologically.
After resting for almost a year, Jay and I decided to go work on our baby project more eagerly. And that's when we met RE #3. You can see the other details about my experience with her in this post, and at the same time read about what happened in my cycle before our IUI.
But rest your eyes first, stretch your legs, go get some water, and I'll be back with part 2 of this post. :)
I really appreciate your post. IVF suffering couples can get the treatment from the test tube baby centre in Punjab which have a high success rate.
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