The thought that I might have trouble getting pregnant was always in the back of my mind. After all, my mom had trouble getting pregnant with me and it took her four years. After that, she was able to have my sister and brother with no trouble. But, her doctor had diagnosed her with endometriosis and none of my doctors had ever found symptoms of that in me. So, part of me felt confident that I wouldn't have problems at all. I dreamed of a little black eyed baby with dark, straight hair who looked like the best of Gary and I. We were so ready to have children. After all, Gary and I are the first born of both of our families and we would be the first to bring grandchildren into the family. There wasn't too much pressure from our families, but we both knew having grandchildren would bring joy to our parents.
My feelings that something may be wrong began when I started having a lot of anxiety and dizzy spells. I had never fainted, but I knew something might be wrong. To this day, I really don't know what it might have been. After dinner at a friend's house one night, I went shopping with my friend while Gary stayed and hung out with her husband. I had eaten a regular meal, but when we got to the store and were walking around, I got so dizzy I couldn't stand up and I fell on the floor. That was the scariest time of my life. People kept asking if I had eaten and if I was diabetic. I said I wasn't diabetic and I had eaten plenty. After this spell, I went to the doctor and had some blood work done. The doctor could not find out why I was dizzy and having dizzy spells. I figured it was stress and went on with my life. I kept having dizzy spells though even when I was at work. It really frightened me the first time I had to pull over on the side of the road while driving home one day from work.
I began to realize how much stress I really was under with trying to get pregnant and working full time. Don't get me wrong- I feel I was a teacher for ten years for a reason. I taught in lower income schools in Mississippi for 5 years which were some of the most challenging years of my life, but I know I made a difference in those kids. I then taught in Georgia for 5 years in a completely different setting and socioeconomic class and those years were also challenging and rewarding for different reasons. I met so many people working that made my life more full and I still feel very blessed to have met these people - many are still in my life as very close friends. But, as rewarding as teaching was for me, it took a toll on me. I left work each day realizing that my shoulders and jaw had been tight all day and I realized that I could finally breath when I left work. I was so busy and had so much to deal with at work that I couldn't focus on my personal life and what was happening with our infertility. It is very difficult to spend your life with children all day and putting so much effort into their life when you don't have any children of your own. It came to the point that Gary and I decided that I had to stop working and focus on our family. We had already gone through several treatments at that point, but nothing too invasive.
1. Clomid - this drove me crazy, I felt like my skin was crawling, had hot flashes and nearly bit Gary's head off all of the time no matter what he did
2. HSG (hysterosalpingogram) to make sure my fallopian tubes were open and functioning
I began to wonder what NORMAL meant. If all of my tests were "normal" and my fallopian tubes were open and normal, why couldn't we get pregnant? Did we need to go forward? If so, what would we go forward to?
Gary and I really began considering me staying home to focus on our family, but we really needed to save some money first so it was one more year of teaching at least. I was unhappy about this, but I wanted to pay off some debt first.
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