My Infertility Journey, Part One: 2016-2018

In my infertility journey, the details won't fit into one blog post. I will be sharing several posts over the coming months. Today I want to highlight some of the critical events as I experienced primary infertility so that my readers can understand the significant timeline of events and some of the struggles we faced along the way. This post mentions pregnancy and birth, so if you are not ready to read about that, you can skip this post.

Our Love Story

Before I begin my infertility journey, I think it would be helpful to know how I met Harlen and part of our love story. In January 2015, I began attending Brigham Young University - Idaho. The dating culture is unique at BYU-Idaho, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. Many students refer to BYU-Idaho as "BYU-I Do."

On Thursday, February 12th, I decided to attend an event called "Finding Romance & Keeping It." This event was a panel of professors and community members who were open for students to ask dating and relationship advice-related questions. Before the event started, I heard a familiar Spanish hymn sung softly behind me. I'm usually pretty reserved, but I felt brave that day to turn and start talking to whoever was sitting behind me singing. After talking for a few moments, he asked to come to sit by me. We listened to the students asking questions like, "how do I get on a first date?", "How do I get guys to stop proposing to me on the third date?", "How do I stop getting into abusive relationships?" etc. Directly following the closing prayer, Harlen turned to me and said, "Well do you want to go on a date?" I was a little surprised but pleased, so I said yes.

Our first date happened to fall on Valentine's day. We went to a trampoline gym in Idaho Falls, just 30 minutes from Rexburg. The drive gave us significant time to talk and get to know each other. Harlen was a show-off with his flips and flops on the trampoline. It was a great first date, and we texted later that night; and he invited me to go hiking the following Monday with him and his roommates.

"R Mountain," near Rexburg, Idaho

Early Monday morning, we hiked up the Menan Butte, a small mountain near Rexburg, Idaho. The hike gave us time to have deeper conversations, and watching the sunrise together was fun. I felt that we connected that morning, and from then on, we were inseparable except when we had classes. Many locals know the Menan Butte as "R Mountain." We like to think of it as "Our Mountain" because this is where we started to fall in love.

We shortly began talking about marriage, which to me just felt right. Harlen officially proposed on pi-day, March 14th, just one month after our first date, on "R Mountain." We were married less than a month later, on April 11th, in the Boise Idaho Temple. Many people are surprised when they learn we met and were married in less than two months. But we both felt it was right.

April 2015 - Boise Idaho Temple

Time to TTC

Early in 2016, we both felt that we were ready to start our family, despite both of us being in school full-time. I was 23, and Harlen was 25. So I stopped birth control, and we spent every cycle waiting for those lines to appear on the pregnancy test. During the summer of 2016, I had some spotting/bleeding for a day and then nothing for weeks. At the time, I didn't know what was wrong, but I felt something was off, so I made an appointment with an OB-GYN. At this point, infertility was not something I had ever considered.

At my appointment, the Dr. asked many questions about my menstrual cycle. I remember she asked how far apart my cycles were. I felt my cycles before birth control was "regular," about every six weeks. She noted that I had some facial hair growth and thought I might have PCOS.

She sent me to a lab for blood work and called a few days later with the results. She found that I had hypothyroidism, which I don't want to rant on, but I had self-diagnosed before this appointment, and my primary care doctors disagreed. She gave me prescriptions for Levothyroxine and Clomid. There was no other mention of PCOS, which will play a part in a future post.

I felt we had our golden ticket to get pregnant. Oh, how wrong I was. I started my first round of Clomid in October, and I remember feeling very emotional for several weeks. When my period started over Thanksgiving, I had debilitating cramps. Thankfully we were on break, so I didn't have to miss classes.

Our second round of Clomid went the same as the first. Crazy emotions and excruciating cramps over Christmas break. Now that I've had a miscarriage, I have to wonder if I experienced one during this time because of how painful and heavy it was. As I was about to start a new semester, I realized then that I needed to take a break from Clomid. I didn't want to miss school because of painful periods. If I could go back in time, I wish I had talked to my doctor about it because other options were probably available. For those starting your fertility journey, my advice is to speak to your doctor about anything and everything!

We continued to have what I thought was timed intercourse, trying to conceive naturally. However, since my cycles were so far apart, it's uncertain if I was even ovulating during this time. During this time, I remember feeling hopeful and unsure about our ability to have a family. I was also embarrassed about not getting pregnant immediately, so I only told a few close family members. I still remember the sting when people asked if I was pregnant because Harlen and I had been married for a while. Some assumed we were waiting until we graduated, so I let them believe it.

Internships in Utah

Harlen and I started our internships in Provo, Utah, in May 2017. We moved into BYU Married Housing. As we lived in an area filled with young married couples, pregnant bellies and babies were everywhere. Our first Sunday at church happened to be Mother's Day. As they passed out roses, I felt sick in my stomach and thought that I didn't deserve one because I wasn't a mom.

Shortly after moving in, our new bishop met with us, and I don't think he meant to be hurtful, but after finding out we had been married a while, he told us what a joy it was to have children. I didn't have the heart to tell him how desperately we wanted them.

At church, they asked us to serve in the nursery. At first, I was excited to be around the little ones because I thought it might satiate my baby hungriness. However, as the months passed, it became pretty painful, and I didn't want to attend church. I called in sick a couple of Sundays because I couldn't handle it emotionally.

The longer it took us to get pregnant, the more desperate my prayers with God became. I struggled to understand why my righteous desires were not coming when I expected them to come. I spent my drives to and from work arguing with God for a baby.

Towards the end of my internship, I decided that I was ready to try Clomid again. I met with a nurse practitioner who took my history of infertility, prescribed Clomid as before, and had me come in for a day-21 progesterone test to see if Clomid was causing ovulation. She suggested Harlen do a seamen analysis just in case we had male factor infertility, for which I got some resistance. She also told me about OPKs (Ovulation Predictor Kits). I was pretty naive because I didn't know these existed. I did two rounds of Clomid, which didn't seem to have as many side effects as before. The day-21 progesterone showed that I ovulated in the second round of Clomid but not the first. Neither round resulted in a positive LH surge (luteinizing hormone indicates ovulation) from my OPKs nor a positive pregnancy test.

During this time, I got a full-time position where I had done my internship, so I got new insurance, which required me to get yet another OB-GYN. She continued with the same protocol of Clomid with a day-21 progesterone test. This time I got a positive LH surge on January 5th, 2018. However, when she called, she said the day 21-test showed that I didn't ovulate. When I asked about my OPK, she didn't think it was accurate. Since this was my third consecutive round of Clomid (5th total), she said she would up my dosage of Clomid for my next cycle.

I want to add that shortly after I got a full-time position, we moved to Draper, Utah, which placed us in a family ward. Given our previous experience, when we met our new bishop, I felt I should be upfront about our fertility struggles. He was highly supportive as he told us about their infertility journey. My bishop was probably my first encounter with anyone I knew who had openly talked about infertility. I am so grateful for him sharing his story with us, which brought some hope.

As the nurse practitioner recommended, my new OB-GYN recommended that Harlen get a Seamen Analysis, for which I convinced Harlen to let me schedule him an appointment. His appointment was scheduled for the week after I returned from my trip to Texas.

Trip to Texas

I expected my next cycle to come just before a trip I was taking to Texas to visit my sister. Because this was my third round of Clomid, and my doctor said I didn't ovulate, I didn't think much of it when I didn't get a cycle. Halfway through the trip, I woke up one morning feeling nauseous. I thought it was just due to traveling. My sister, who was pregnant, said, "maybe you are pregnant." I probably gave her the stink eye and said, "not likely." I had gotten up hope so many times before that I didn't even want to consider it.

The night before I left to come home, we had pizza, my favorite food. As my niece and nephews opened the pizza boxes, I was disgusted. I again thought it was just due to traveling.

On my flight home, I took the cup of ice water from the flight attendant and savored the ice. I thought it strange because I don't typically like ice in my beverages. I could smell the sandwich a guy ate three rows in front of me as if it was right next to me. I also had an intense craving for a vanilla frosty and orange juice. At this point, I connected the dots and started to get up my hopes.

As Harlen picked me up from the airport, I told him I wanted a vanilla frosty, so he took me to Wendys on our way home. I could hardly sleep that night because I knew that I wanted to take a pregnancy test in the morning. I can still remember the anticipation as I waited for the results of my pregnancy test. When the test was positive, I could not believe it.

I remember jumping on the bed, shaking Harlen awake to tell him the exciting news. The next day, I called my OB-GYN, who scheduled a dating scan since we didn't know how far along I was. Based on the dating scan, I suspect that during that last round of Clomid, I did ovulate just after the day-21 progesterone test. I also canceled Harlen's semen analysis appointment since we didn't need it.

Our daughter Hazel Rae was born on September 11th via emergency c-section. She is now three-and-a-half years old and is the best part of our lives.

I wish all my pregnancies had happy endings like this, but I will share more details about my ectopic pregnancy, secondary infertility, and missed miscarriage in future posts.