A Little Background

I think I owe you some background on our situation.  We had been trying to get pregnant for one year when we first saw an infertility specialist just before Christmas.  My cycles weren’t perfectly regular, but nothing dramatic, and everything looked fine on my hubby’s side.  Could it be the stress of my job and crazy hours (probably not when there are six, no joke, pregnant residents in the class ahead of me)?  There were no obvious causes so we were signed up for every test in the book.  

We started with blood work for hormone levels and ultrasounds to monitor whether I was ovulating.  My hormones were normal and five ultrasounds later (did you know you can get an ultrasound on New Year’s Day Sunday?), I had clearly ovulated.  A week later, my progesterone level was a little low so I started progesterone therapy.  The pregnancy test was negative again that month (sigh) so we went on to more invasive testing.  To top it all off, I somehow managed all of this testing while working 30 hour shifts every third night in the surgical ICU.  The staff at the fertility center got used to seeing me show up half asleep, in scrubs, post-call.  

Next was a hysterosalpingogram which is where they shoot dye through your cervix into your uterus to see if it comes out the fallopian tubes while they look with x-ray.  Really comfortable…  This test lets the doc look at the shape of the uterine cavity and see whether the tubes are open.  My tubes were open on both sides but they noticed an irregularity in the walls of my uterus.  “It could be polyps or fibroids,” the doctor said.  “Don’t worry but let’s schedule a saline sonogram to confirm.”  A few days later, another uncomfortable test.  This time they filled my uterus with saline to be able to see the irregularity inside.  “Endometrial polyps,” said my doctor.  “We can do a hysteroscopy to take a look and D&C to get rid of them and then hopefully you’ll get pregnant!”  

I vaguely remembered a history of endometrial cancer in one or two older women in my family.  I mentioned this to the doctor.  She told me that 99% of polyps in women my age were benign and not to worry about it.  So I didn’t.  I had vacation coming up so I scheduled the surgery for the first week of my vacation.  

Throughout this whole process, we had not told anyone, family or friends, that we were trying to start a family.  We wanted to keep it to ourselves and enjoy what we thought would be an exciting time as a couple.  And it turns out that a crazy career is a great excuse if anyone asked.   Now we were preparing to tell them the whole story…