After we moved to Canyon Lake I found a fertility doctor in San Antonio. I'm not sure if it was because we had 3 miscarriages (that's apparently the magic number to officially start to worry) or what, but this doctor's office seemed much more interested in doing tests to actually try and determine what was going on.
With out going in to all the dirty details, Jeff and I went through several tests to try and determine what (if any) issues we had. There were little things here and there for both Jeff and I, but the major diagnosis that came out of all that was determining that I have a unicornuate uterus. Which basically means only half of my uterus fully developed, the other half never developed & the 2 parts are separate. I have both ovaries & Fallopian tubes, but one side isn't attached to all the other important stuff. So even though I ovulate normally, only the side developed would ever have a chance of being fertilized, plus my uterus is half the size of a normal uterus.
This was all good to know. It explained the reason it took a little longer for us to get pregnant, but it didn't explain the reason for the miscarriages.
Time passed, we tried IUI once without success. I started my PhD program at Texas State, and in the late spring of 2009 we decided to try a cycle of IVF.
It took a few months of prepping, apparently you can't just decide to do IVF one day & have it done the next day. Part of my prep was removing a polip in my uterus. Finally in August we did the procedure & 2 weeks later found out that it was successful, we were pregnant for the fourth time.
Part of the IVF process includes lots of lovely hormone shots and patches and driving all the way to the doctors office at least once a week. You don't actually keep seeing the fertility doctor through your entire pregnancy. By the beginning of the second trimester they wing you off the hormones & you only go to your OBGYN.
Since we had moved back and we were mainly using the fertility doctor I hadn't found an OBGYN to take over for the fertility doctors. As we were transitioning to a new doctor and they were weening me off the hormones and I was about to start my second trimester we miscarried again.
I had actually decided to take a break from school the week before this happened. School, plus teaching, plus driving in to San Antonio was taking its toll. If I had know what would happen the following week I'm not sure what I would have done.
I began November 2009 not pregnant, I had quit school and there was no longer teaching at the University (the teaching position was only for PhD students). From this point until the end of the following May 2010 was a pretty dark time in my life.
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