Blogging for Endometriosis Awareness - Infertility

Week of March 19th: Fertility issues (if any) related to Endo

It is said that 70% of woman with Endometriosis will go on to have healthy pregnancies! I hope I eventually fall into that 70%, because it currently sucks ass to be in the 30% range.

Endometriosis has reeked havoc on my Fertility. My husband and I stopped using protection in 2005 after my 2nd early miscarriage. We have not achieved conception on our own since 2004. I have done fertility treatments, I have peed on sticks, I have charted, I have prayed to the Gods, I have made promises with myself, and I have had surgery.

Having surgery was the best thing that happened to me, because that's when they discovered that I really did have Endometriosis, and it was pretty bad. That was in July 2011 and I felt happy knowing that I finally had an answer, but then I got really angry because of the answer. Stage IV they say... any stage sucks if you ask me. After surgery I was told I had about a 6 month window to try and conceive with help of medication and IUI. We waited 1 month after surgery, did our first IUI in September of 2011 and got PREGNANT!!! We were speechless, in shock, and completely over the moon. I suffered my 3rd miscarriage in November 2011 - We were devastated, at first I didn't want to try again.

While waiting to be able to try again my Endo came back with a vengeance. The left side is completely screwed, completely useless and it will need to be removed eventually. The right side looks better and gives us the best shot, although its not in the best condition either. I have tons and tons of adhesion's and scar tissue which cause things to be in the wrong place and stuck together. We can only "try" every other month since my left tube sits in blood filled sac of scar tissue. Nothing is getting in and nothing is getting out, each month that I bleed during my period, I continue to fill up the blood sac :| When I had surgery in July of 2011 she removed that blood sac, but it came back. Errrr.

I sometimes hate my body, I hate what it is not able to do. I have shed many tears and felt tremendous heartache because of Endometriosis, and yet I still want to fight for what I deserve and that is a family of my own. . . I used to want to be pregnant just to know what it felt like... I craved the experience, over the years my thoughts about being pregnant have changed and evolved. Now I want to be pregnant so I can have a baby... so I can bring life into this world and share our life with it. I want to see myself and husband in this tiny little person... I want it bad, and I'm not going to give up just yet. I still have a lot of "try" left inside of me and I know he does too. But if the time comes where we have exhausted all of our funds and abilities then we will walk away, we will throw in the towel and say goodbye to this painful experience. It has changed us both in many ways, and in the end I know that even thought it hurts I will not regret any of it. We will live Child free. We will not adopt, not that I have bad feelings about that... it's just not for us.

I don't want that time to come where we have to walk away, but if it does then I will have to find peace within myself and I will have to make peace with this disease that causes such emotional and physical pain.

My husband and I just did an IUI with Letrozole on March 16th, 2012 - We are currently waiting to see if it worked and then we'll hold our breath and pray that it sticks.

To any of you out there suffering infertility - I'm truly sorry. Nothing I can say or do will ever make it better, so all I can say is I'm sorry that you are going through this and I wish for you the most beautiful strength to keep trucking along. - Hang in there!!