Our Infertilty Timeline

October 2005: Meet J (on my 24th birthday!) through a mutual friend. Start dating pretty much immediately.

August 2007: Move in together

November 14, 2008: We're ENGAGED!

May 2009: Close on our first house.

September 5, 2009: Wedding Day - best day of our lives!

Fall/Winter 2009: Start discussing having kids. I'm ready now. J wants to wait until next fall. We compromise on starting next summer.

March 2010: Have my annual well women exam with my PCP. Tell her we are thinking about TTC later this year. She says we should have no problems at all and I should go off of BC 1-2 months before we want to start.

April/May 2010: Buy Taking Charge of your Fertility and read it cover to cover.

End of May 2010: Take my last BC pill! (after being on it for 11 years)

End of June 2010: 32 days later, AF arrives. Horray! My cycles have regulated quickly - I'll definitely be pregnant by the end of the summer!

July 2010: Officially TTC - not charting and basically just BD'ing when we feel like it. AF comes 31 days later.

August 2010: Decide to buy a BBT thermometer to I can start tracking my cycles. Show a very strong ovulation spike on CD22 and 11 days later, AF arrives. That's fine, I didn't expect it to happen on the first cycle. I'm just happy my cycles are normal and I O'd!

September 2010: 2nd month charting. Add digital OPK's. Get my first smiley face on CD21 and O 2 days later. AF arrives 11 days later.

October 2010 - December 2010: Continue charting and get a clear thermal shift each month. Have tons of fertile CM and perfect timing. AF keeps arriving, right on schedule. Start with a regular exercise routine to take my mind off of TTC.

January 2011: Decide to get "serious" about TTC in the new year and add green tea, POM juice,  pineapple core and walnuts to this cycle. O on CD 20 and AF arrives 10 days later.

February 2011: 6 months of TTC. Start to get a little worried. Since I'm O'ing regularly each month, start thinking maybe J has a low count. Again, perfect O and great timing. AF arrives at CD32.

March 2011: 7 months of TTC. Have another yearly well women check up with my PCP. I bring my charts and she shows concern. She tells me that J should probably have a S/A to rule that out. If his numbers come back normal, she would recommend seeing a fertility specialist.

April 11, 2011: J has a S/A through his PCP and the results all come back normal for volume, motility and morphology. I email my PCP and she gives me a referral to see a RE. Have another textbook cycle and AF comes yet again.

May 2011: 9 months of TTC, perfect timing and temp spike at CD17. 10 day LP. Make appointment with RE. Also vacation in OBX and the trip coincides with my fertile phase. Maybe we'll make a vacation baby! Start training for a 10K race.

May 17, 2011: AF arrives in cycle 9 - no vacation baby and we keep that RE appointment.

May 20, 2011: RE appointment. Bring my 9 months of complete charts and J's S/A results. Appointment is less than positive - doctor laughs at us for being there at only 10 months of TTC. He tells me I over-exercise and I'm OCD and I should stop charting. He tells me I ovulate late and probably am producing an old egg.

However, he orders a complete work-up for both of us and I have a CD3 ultrasound and B/W at that appointment. Have 7-9 small follicles in each ovary. Doctor recommends that we get all our testing done this cycle and we can try Clomid next cycle to move ovulation up. We also meet with the financial services department and she throws around figures for IUI and IVF that are several months salary for both of us. Leave the appointment in tears.

May 23, 2011: Start acupuncture for fertility. Fall in love. Start going to weekly appointments.

May 27, 2011: Have my HSG test and everything is completely clear. Technician tells me that there's a 40% higher chance of pregnancy in the 3 months following the test. Great, so I'll be pregnant by July! Continue to chart to confirm O, using the digital OPK's and still getting clear shifts.

June 5, 2011: The day of my 10K race and also the day I O this cycle. Maybe I'll have a race baby? After the race, I decide I'm done with running and exercise for a while.

June 8, 2011: J has a repeat S/A done. My acupuncturist puts me on a fertility diet of no dairy, no cold or raw foods and more red meat.

Mid June 2011: J and I start having a serious talk about infertility and what we want to do. Decide that I hate the RE and I'm determined to get pregnant naturally through acupuncture, diet, etc.

June 18, 2011: AF arrives with a 12 day LP - my longest one in a while. I attribute this to my acupuncture, so at least I have a little bit of a silver lining. Cycle 10, done.

June 19, 2011: At J's request, I take a cycle off from charting for Cycle 11. He thinks it's making me crazy, but I tell him it's making me sane. He's tired of hearing the thermometer beep at 6am and tired of my obsession with TTC. My acu agrees with taking a cycle off so I officially retire my BBT.

June 20, 2011: The RE's office calls to tell me all our testing came back completely normal, so we are officially diagnosed with "unexplained infertility". The nurse is talking a million miles an hour and tells me that at this point, they recommend an IUI for next cycle with injectables. Are you serious, you're going to tell me this over the phone after I haven't talked to you in a month? What happened to starting with Clomid?

She then asks if I have taken an injectables class yet? Umm no. Well I can watch some videos on Youtube and she will call in the prescription for Clomid and Gonal-X and I may be able to start them this cycle. Doesn't the doctor want to see me and go over our results in person? No, that's not necessary. I ask if they have checked into my insurance to see if it covers any of this and she transfer me immediately to the financial services department. She tells me that they don't work with any insurance companies, so it's all OOP for the IUI and monitoring, roughly $3,000 a cycle. I tell her no thank you and that we're not ready to move forward yet. I ask her if I can get a copy of all of our test results, since she won't give me any of them over the phone.

July 1, 2011: Get a phone call from a pharmacy regarding my insurance information for filling my prescription for Clomid and Gonal-X. I ask what the hell she's talking about. I tell her we're not moving forward at this point and she can forget that prescription. Hang up the phone and burst into tears at work.

July 4, 2011: We decide to have sex EOD for this entire cycle, since I have no idea when I'm O'ing. We go away for the holiday weekend.

July 5, 2011: Acu appointment. Talk to her about our chances of conceiving naturally. She says it can still happen, but we may also want to consider IUI. FML.

July 10, 2011: J and I continue to discuss finances and how we can afford any sort of fertility treatments. We have savings, but it was more for after the baby was born - not getting me pregnant. J suggests we start talking to someone about our infertility. I can't think about anything but TTC at this point.

To Be Continued...