Month after month, these two weeks (which consistently felt like the longest two weeks in known history) would come and month after month be followed, crushingly, by my detested menstrual cycle, the pain and cramps seeming to taunt my failure to do what other women seemed to be able to do so easily. I was noticing pregnant women everywhere; I was feeling anger and resentment towards women when I saw them shouting and swearing at their children, and becoming increasingly aware of the injustice that women who shouted at their children were able to conceive while I, it seemed, could not. More than anything else though, I wanted, just once, to see a second line appear on a pregnancy test. Unfortunately for my husband and I we continued trying and doing everything in our power to conceive for another year. I must admit that trying to conceive completely took over our lives and everything was planned around my ovulation and menstrual cycles. Well-meaning advice such as “it will happen if you stop thinking about it” was given by friends completely unaware of just how impossible it would be to “stop thinking about it” when it was the only thing on my mind. Upon returning to our doctor to let him know we had still been unable to conceive he repeated my blood tests to ensure I was still ovulating as expected and also referred my husband for semen analysis. The results showed that, while my husband’s sperm quality and motility were lower than average, it should not be impossible for us to conceive. After discussing these results with us, our doctor arranged for us to be referred to the fertility consultant at our local hospital. The appointment took some weeks to come through but the consultant was very understanding and ordered more tests, mostly for me, which took place over the following months. One test, the HSG, was incredibly painful and revealed one of my fallopian tubes to be partially blocked. Again, while this may contribute to it being difficult for us to conceive, we were told it was not bad enough to stop us conceiving completely. The end result of the visits to the consultant were that I would try taking Clomid for six months and inform him of the outcome, whereupon we would agree next steps. My feelings at this time were more positive than they had been previously; I felt like someone was finally taking action and that something good would happen for us. I couldn’t wait to start on the Clomid and was feeling even more boosted by reading about success stories online. I remember at that point feeling almost 100% sure it would work for us. In the next part of my story I will share my own experiences with Clomid, the upset that followed it not working for us, my eventual referral for IVF, and the emotional rollercoaster I went through at the time.
Did you miss part 1? Click HERE to read it.
