About Me

Hi, my name is Julie and I'm infertile.

My husband and I spent 12 of our 15 years (so far) of marriage trying to have children.

I was 34 when we began our journey, believing we had plenty of time.

It took about five years to get diagnosed. I diagnosed myself early on, but could not get a "specialist" to confirm I have PCOS because as they all said I "do not have male pattern facial hair." DUH! It's a SYNDROME, I have a lot of the other symptoms.

Once I was diagnosed, I began seeing an RE who specializes in PCOS. Yippie! I was immediately put on Metformin ER 2000mg, ramped up slowly.

We tried months and months and MONTHS of Clomid. Years maybe.

We saw several "specialists."

I had an HSG.

We took out a second mortgage on our house.

We never take vacations.

We missed out on visiting our niece and nephew in England, and seeing them grow up.

We planned for three IUIs but in the middle of the second one we were notified that we owed 1,000s of additional dollars for the ultrasounds, also not covered by insurance. So we had to stop at two IUIs. Both unsuccessful.

Follistim.

I had 2 miscarriages and a cornual pregnancy along the way.

A cornual pregnancy means I ovulated out of one side and the embryo traveled across the top of my uterus and implanted at the opening of the other tube. Gravity isn't even on my side! They were afraid the embryo would continue to grow down the tube which could be life-threatening so we had to decide if we wanted to abort the pregnancy. A decision we NEVER thought we'd have to make. Fortunately mother nature decided for us and the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Though I still had to have a shot of methotrexate to be sure no growth continued. Our RE said I'd made medical history, a cornual pregnancy is extremely rare, he took photos. He is a teacher at a university.

Leave it to me to make history.

Low ovarian reserve.

We realized we could no longer hope for a viable pregnancy and set our sights on adoption. We grieved the loss of having children who would look like us. We realized we may not have the honor of naming our children. I mourned the loss of ever carrying a child or giving birth. We realized we may never witness our child's first words or first steps, as we may adopt an older child.

We got home study approved and began what would be a three-year search. We started out, like most people, wanting a newborn baby. By the end our our adoption journey, we'd changed our request to 0-3 children ages 0-6, and we were willing to accept many physical, medical and mental impairments.

I met many birth mothers. I met other people who were hoping to adopt. A few friends who remained on the fringe revealed to me that they were adopted. Hearing their stories opened our hearts to open adoption.

The closest we came to adoption was being chosen as one of three families to adopt a sibling group of three. A 6-year-old boy, and 4-year-old boy/girl twins. Their foster mom bit the girl and drew blood so they'd been immediately removed from her care. But she fought it and they were returned to her after going to court.

In February of 2010, we were giving the greatest, most unexpected blessing ever. Someone I'd met on an infertility forum several years before offered us embryos,. They had completed building their family. It was with open hearts we gladly accepted the embryos into our lives.

I cashed in my IRA to pay for our future FETs.

Lupron.

Since I was 45, I got checked out by my RE before we received the embryos. We got the ok!

The legal paper work took about 4-5 month to complete. We were surprised by this.

In August 2010 I lost twins.

In November 2010 I lost triplets and ended up with an awful pair of cysts.

We again turned to adoption, but were told by our social worker that we no longer qualified due to our massive amounts of infertility debt and the fact that we no longer had any savings, in the form of IRAs or otherwise.

We've sacrificed everything, EVERYTHING. Yet, we are still childless and brokenhearted.

I have always been a child magnet, and a dog magnet. We never imagined in a million years that we'd end up childless. It has been very difficult to face. In fact I am seeing two therapists at the moment. This is a very difficult situation to cope with on your own. In addition I have recently been diagnosed with PTSD which they estimate I have been suffering from for 24 years, nearly half my life. It has been made worse by the stress of infertility. I do hope to recover from PTSD some day.

I have felt the isolation of infertility. I have felt it's shame. I have asked "why me" hundreds of times.

I want to do what I can to help others not end up in my shoes. Learn from me.

Infertility treatment needs to be covered by insurance.

Adoption and foster care reform are greatly needed.

I will continue to do what I can to support and help others. It's a lonely road. Nearly all of our friends have abandoned us during our 12-year journey, but because of infertility I have also made some amazing new friends.

Infertility does define me, it is partly responsible for the person I am today.

I am broken hearted by the amount of people who have found me and my Infertility Awareness page, but I'm so glad you are not going through this alone. And I am SO happy to see that so many of you have children and wish to continue to help raise infertility awareness. I have seen infertility amnesia over and over again.

I hope this page brings you comfort and support when no one else understands you. I hope to touch at least one person a day with a carefully chosen quote or news or a blog post. I hope to be a constant reminder that you are not alone.

With all my heart,
love,
Julie