2023 Update

I noticed that it has been over 4 years since I have shared an update and figured it was time. Sorry for leaving you hanging for so long! :)

The time between March 2019 and today, there wasn’t anything

to update you on because of life events and where we were living. It was a good break for us to focus on surviving the last four years between living in a tough location, Jeremy leaving the military, going through months of training for a new job, moving to the Texas Panhandle and losing our precious dogs, Paisley And Sooie . However, my priority once arriving in the in our new city was to get my basic (annual) medical appointments set. I was trying not to jump straight back in to our fertility journey because it caused so much stress and anxiety in my life. I left Omaha with Dr. McFadden starting to feel the tiniest bit of hope but the orders to Minot AFB in North Dakota made that come to a screeching halt and I dealt with a lot of anger and fear that time was being wasted.

Fast forward to getting settled in our new home and starting to call around to make all the appointments… dental, ophthalmologist, OB/GYN, etc. The appointment that has always caused me to feel immense dread is the OB/GYN appointments. I always walk in completely guarded, with walls built completely around my heart. So many doctors have given up on me. If you remember in a previous post, I was told to “give up and adopt” two years into this journey and this caused me to feel defeated and angry at doctors. I walked into appointments with no trust. I did research for months looking into what doctor to make an appointment with. I read review after review of every doctor within an hour and a half drive of my home. This is when I found Dr. Baker. I knew I was not ready to discuss fertility in my first appointment. However, this is where the tide turned. Dr. Baker asked about pregnancies and if I wanted children. I responded with my normal, “Yes, I want them but we have been trying X amount of years”. What I didn’t expect was for her to put down her clipboard and face me. She had more compassion in her eyes than any doctor the last 9 years. As we continued to talk, I started crying in her office (pant-less and clinging to one of those thin paper sheets) telling her about my history with doctors and what my diagnosis was. After she listened to me she told me she wanted to put in a referral. She described a man that is within her practice as “the smartest man she has ever met”. She told me that he is well researched and has written in many medical journals. I decided, with hesitancy, that I wanted the referral and then I waited for the call from this doctor.

About two weeks later, I get the call I have been waiting for.

I won’t bore you with the phone call details but the call ended with his nurse who has also walked this journey and an appointment at the end of October. The nurse told me that she was hopeful there would be a cancellation that I could slide into. Heres the catch… if you are over 35, you are moved to the top of the list, ahead of anyone younger. I have never been happier to be 37.

Luckily, my first appointment was moved to Aug 7th due to a cancellation. I wish I could describe the anxiety that led up to this appointment. I have had the paperwork filled out and ready for over a month at this point.

This was yet another appointment Jeremy have to miss because of his Air Force Reserve time. Jeremy and I discussed at length how excited we were to be able to finally be together for my appointments and tests and then to have the military take that from us was a blow but we held onto the fact that we were moving forward and there would be minimal appointments I would have to do alone anymore.

My first appointment went AMAZING. Dr. Kauffman was extremely thorough going through all previous tests and appointments. We went through my records, page by page, doctor by doctor. He explained that there were several things missed due to “standard of practice”and "research" that should have been done. We discussed the waste of time the military clinic provided to me and discredited everything and explained it all based on research and probability. He removed a diagnosis that they gave me within the first 5 min of my appointment. Once we finished going over paperwork, he sent me directly to the lab to test progesterone (the test that tells you if you have ovulated) and AMH (anti-mullerian hormone). I have done the progesterone test more than I can count but I had never heard of AMH. An AMH test measures levels of anti-mullerian hormone, which corresponds to a person’s egg count. These results would depend on what steps we would take next. If my levels were low, we would jump straight to IVF because of the limited amount of eggs I had remaining. If they were normal or high, we would discuss IUI as long as other tests were okay. The next step was for me to schedule a Saline Infusion Sonohysterography but that depended on the specific day of my cycle. I was given the direct phone number to his nurse and instructed the day I needed to call. Dr. Kauffman wanted the SIS done based off of results from my surgery in Omaha (you can go back to see the at post from Aug 2018). He wanted to go take a 3D look to make sure what was done in that surgery was done well and the polyps removed during my uterine ablation.

I was able to schedule my SIS last week. Jeremy made a last minute drive home to be at the appointment with me. This seems like such a minor thing. However, I had done more of these appointments alone than I have with the support of my husband. He measured my uterus length, height, width, endo thickness, cervix length and extensive images of both ovaries. The results of all the images were great. He saw no issues that would prevent us from moving forward with our plan. Unfortunately, this test was extremely painful and caused me to be in pain for a couple days. There are people out there that were blessed with it being painless and no down time needed... I am not one of those people. We have another test scheduled this week and will wait for results from those to be able to sit down to discuss exactly what Dr. Kauffman wants to do. If there are more tests, we will schedule those.

Thank you for always supporting us. Whether it's through prayers or good vibes, for respecting my boundaries and not crossing them and for loving us. Hopefully the updates will be more frequent and will continue to have good results.

𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞, 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐉𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐲, 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬, 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬, 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡.

I have said this before, and I will continue to say... I ask that there be boundaries in place for us. Let our medical team make suggestions and a plan for us. I know it always comes from a place of kindness and support but constantly being told what to do is very stressful and, frankly, not helpful. It makes those of us walking this road feel like failures when we are far from failures.

I also ask that you allow us to share as we want. I know that posting publicly opens the door for criticism and everyone thinking they can cross those boundaries, however, I want to be able to share with all of my people who are spread all over the world.