The Beginning...

Ever wonder why you get dealt the hand in life that you do?

In my younger years, I knew I wanted to have children, but it was never a really compelling need. Maybe because I wasn't with someone with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. In my 30s I was in a long term relationship. Initially I thought he was "the one". We were together 7 years, I think. Lived together for several of those years. My mother was not happy with this relationship. Although a fitness professional, he was a hyprocrite as he did more than just dabble in street drugs. Yes I was exposed, but thankfully I had more sense than he and did not participate. Now I'm not saying I'm a saint, (I have inhaled), but when it comes to shit like Crack, it definitely wasn't something I was going to put into my body. Suffice it to say, he was not a saint and I wouldn't wish him on my worst enemy. Eventually I came to the realization (much to my family's relief) that this relationship was bad for me and I needed to move on. He wasn't in the same place. It was a messy breakup. And because he wasn't in the same place, he couldn't understand why I wanted this. Being the nice person that I am, I tried to be nice about it. I still saw him at the gym and felt that I shouldn't have to change my life to get rid of him. Because of that, I got sucked back into a pseudo-relationship with him and at 35 years of age found myself pregnant.

Now what do I do? Of course, telling my mother was not easy but she was surprisingly supportive. She knew how much I wanted to keep the baby. But how could I have this child when I wanted nothing to do with the father? There was just no way I could do that, and so I went ahead and terminated the pregnancy. I still think about that day, wondering what that child would be like. What would he/she have looked like? Did I make the right choice? I know it was the right decision. Having a relationship with the father of that child was not an option. I wouldn't have been able to deprive that child of a relationship with the father, regardless of how bad a father he would have been. You may be thinking "how can you say that"? I can say that because I saw how he was with his other five children with his ex-wives. Yes, I said 5 kids and ex-wives. He was an absentee father, disappointed them on a regular basis, and didn't pay child support. Did I make a good choice? I think so.

Fast forward to 2002. V. and I got engaged in September 2002. I had wanted us to try to have kids before that, but V. didn't want to yet. However, now we started to try more seriously. In May, 2003 I was "late" for the first time during all of our trying. I took a HPT and it was inconclusive. Was that a line? Neither of us was sure. We decided to wait a couple more days and try again. However, that day I started bleeding. It was different. Because of those differences I knew I had been pregnant and miscarried. I was devastated. I didn't realize just how badly I wanted this until then. I made an appointment with my doctor and explained what happened. She confirmed that I probably had been pregnant and did miscarry. She wanted me to get a Day 3 FSH test. I didn't know what this test meant or what else it was used for. I went in on Day 3 of my next cycle and then waited for a call from the doctor's office. No call. So I call the doctor's office and spoke to her nurse who tells me "everything looks good". It wasn't until we went back a year later, in May 2o04, because we were no further along that we found out that this test is also the same one that is used to determine if a woman is pre-menopausal. The nurse hadn't bother to find out why I was sent for this test and assumed, incorrectly, that based on my age, the test was for menopause not whether I was still able to have kids. Because of her error, we lost a year - valuable time when you're trying to conceive.

Two months before we were set to get married, we were referred to a doctor who specialized in fertility. And so it begins...