From the beginning...

What's crappier than being infertile? Being infertile during Christmas.

Growing up, I never thought of myself as the motherly type. In fact, looking back, I was pretty cavelier about the whole idea of parenting. I just assumed everything would happen exactly as I wanted, whenever I wanted it to. If I could go back in time and slap myself I would.

A bit of background: My husband B and I met in college. Aside from being tall, dark and handsome, B was kind, patient and completely supportive of my dreams to become a writer in New York City. Like most couples in their early 20s, we were blindly in love. So much so, that he moved to NYC with me immediately after our college graduation. He longed to be an architect, I wanted to be a writer. We began climbing the corporate ladder and got married in 2004. Three months after we were married I went to the doctor for what I thought was a UTI. To my horror, my gyn ordered an MRI which showed a tumor the size of a grapefruit on my left ovary. The good news: The growth was benign (I underwent a laparatomy which took 8 weeks to fully recover from)--the the hip-to-hip scar I sport is a sizable souvenir). The bad news: It practically destroyed my left ovary. While this experience left me tramatized and scared that I'd never be able to conceive I still wasn't ready to become a mother (and didn't feel I had enough strength to face possible infertility). I put my head down and really dove into my career. Things continued on like this for years.... until 2010 when B and I finally decided to start a family.

After a year of normal ovulation but strange spotting (my once regular period began to be prefaced by 7-8 days of light brown spotting) and no luck (and using the clear blue easy fertility monitor), I scheduled an appointment with a prominent RE in the city. After an endless round of tests we got our diagnosis: Low morphology for him (2%) and low AMH (0.4) and blocked left tube for me. As I had secretely suspected, the surgery had seriously compromised my left ovary. Getting the diagnosis of diminished ovarian reserve was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. I fell into a black depression while B refused to belief what we'd been told. He was crestfallen. So much so, that it took him 6 months to come to terms with our infertility.

We went back for a second opinion this past November. Our new RE, Dr. Nice, is optimistic (even going so far to believe he doesn't think I'm actually formally yet in DOR) and now for the first time, so are we.

The latest: I just finished my first IUI with injects (Gonal F pen) and am currently in the 2WW. I'm set to start my period the day after Christmas ( I know, sucky timing!).

Since I've always loved to write, I decided to start a blog to help me cope. Infertility is such a hard road and my heart and support goes out to each and every person who's ever had to deal with it. Here's to all of us making it to the other side.....