You're sticking what in there?! (aka: infertility testing)

Joe and I went to our first infertility consultation with Dr. B, armed with all of my ovulation charts for the past 8ish months, questions, and lots of nerves. Well, lots of nerves on my part anyway -- my practical husband said there's nothing to be nervous about! Let's just see what the doctor says. There's probably nothing wrong! My intuition told me otherwise, but I am trying to be better about listening to the practical.

So we sat down and met with him. He always puts me at ease, which is so nice. We explained how long we've been trying and showed him my charts (to which he said: beautiful!). He advised that we go through a cycle's worth of various infertility tests to see if anything was identifiable, then gave us a packet of information on testing and infertility as well as a "welcome to our practice" folder with all kinds of stuff in it. (The coolest thing, I think, is the peer support program, where you are matched up with someone who's gone through all of this before. I love social support.)

Leaving that appointment, the strangest thing for me was when I got up to the front desk to check out. I handed my folder to the check-out person, and she looked at someone else and said, "oh, she's an infertility patient now." It was like being punched in the stomach. I've gone to this practice for so long for regular gynecologic care, and I knew in the back of my mind that we were possibly dealing with infertility, but hearing it out loud was like a slap in the face. I was really surprised at my reaction to hearing it.

A timeline of infertility testing events:

• April, 2010: baseline bloodwork (estrogen, FSH, progesterone, etc.); semen analysis for Joe (probably his favorite event ever - ha! But that's not my story to tell); and an HSG. HSG performed by another doctor in the practice. Not as painful as I'd heard it could be, but certainly not my favorite test, I have to tell you -- but I can't imagine that it is anyone's favorite. The doctor that performed it was also not my favorite, but I had no choice if I wanted it done in April. He did the test, and said at the end "looks like you have a unicornuate uterus." Um, what? What the hell is that? Then proceeded, fairly nonchalantly, to tell me that the biggest problem was possible pre-term labor and that my doctor might want to do additional tests. Going into the test, I was afraid I'd had blocked fallopian tubes or something -- not a UU. Though, of course, how would I have been anxious about that? I didn't even know it existed.
  
• April, 2010, post-HSG: major freak-out. Called Joe on the way home and cried. Got home, immediately sat down, and googled unicornuate uterus. Reviewed some of the published stuff on it. MAJOR freak out. It was the worst possible thing I could do, but I am trained as a researcher (in public health, no less), and just couldn't not look into it. All of the outcomes were frightening, especially since maternal and child health fights constantly against so many of them, especially pre-term labor. Continued to be seriously stressed about it until our meeting with the doctor. Joe and I were able to find some humor in the situation, and started calling it my "banana uterus" (and laughed every time).
  
• May 21, 2010 (my 30th birthday!): second consultation with Dr. B. After some confusion with the HSG report, wherein I had to tell him that the other doctor saw a UU, he told us that everything else looks normal (yay!) and that I'd have to have additional testing to determine if I had a UU or something else. He was pretty convinced it was not a UU. What a way to spend my 30th birthday, right?
• June, 2010: had a saline infusion sonogram. Found a fibroid, couldn't definitively confirm the UU (doctor still not convinced it was there), and recommended lap/hyst surgery. Another freak-out on my part, of course -- I've never had surgery before! And what else could be wrong?
  
• July 6, 2010: surgery day! No complications. When I was in recovery, my poor husband came in looking so scared. When I asked him what the doctor found, he was so hesitant to tell me. I must have seriously scared him with the previous freak-outs. He eventually told me that the fibroid was successfully removed, but that I did have a UU. I think he was expecting fireworks, but at that point I think I knew what the deal was and I had prepared myself. The good news -- as I saw on the video of my surgery (!), I have both ovaries (though the left one doesn't connect to my uterus), and given the bloodwork results, at least one of them is working. I also learned later that I do have both kidneys. Woohoo!
  

I think through all of the testing and surgery, not knowing, and imagining all of the horrible outcomes, was the worst. It's hard enough to have difficulty getting pregnant, which is so incredibly frustrating in and of itself, but even worse to know that once I do get pregnant, the risk of something bad happening is a lot higher because of my banana uterus. Sometimes I just want to call the whole thing off and adopt or go the surrogacy route, just to avoid the heartbreak that possibly losing a baby would entail. But we haven't scratched the surface of treatment possibilities yet, so we're going that route! Fingers crossed for some good news in the near future.