Background Story

My name is Heather! I grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina. I went to Northside High school and played volleyball and was on Color Guard for 2 years there, captain my senior year! I also sang in the school's concert choir and show choir as well as 2 musicals!

I have 2 younger sisters, Haley (20) and Hunter (10)! Haley is in college as a graphic design major and Hunter is finishing out the 5Th grade and plays softball and volleyball and loves to sing and dance! I met my husband, Thomas (23), in Sunday school the April of my freshman year in high school! I couldn't stand him until July of that year! While at church camp we both fell, he got a concussion and i knocked my front two teeth out! When i sat up and realized my teeth were gone i started laughing and said "I was ugly before this and now i don't even have front teeth!!" Thomas sat down next to me and put his arm around me and told me that he thought i was beautiful before this and that he still thought i was beautiful right now! I was hooked! We dated for 2 years before he joined the air force in 2003! After seeing him at his Basic Graduation i knew i wanted to marry him! We dated for another year and a half, long distance, while he was in school in Florida and Mississippi. He proposed on New Year's Day 2005 in his parent's garden! We planned on getting married June 2006 but after going through some rough times with the distance we decided (in October) to move the wedding up to December 3rd of that year!! It was a crazy 2 months planning and preparing for our wedding but we pulled it off in a beautiful candle lit ceremony at the church we met in, followed by a quick reception in the fellowship hall! We were surrounded by the family and friends that had seen us grow up and in love with each other through he years! We drove to Miami the next morning and took a 5 day cruise to Jamaica and the grand camine islands! We moved into a small apartment in Fayetteville, NC the next January! Thomas is stationed at Pope AFB, only 2 hours west of our hometown! On Easter morning 2006 i had a very early miscarriage in the middle of the church service! We hadn't planned on getting pregnant but in one night without protection it happened. After the loss i was determined to get pregnant again! I bought a few books to educate myself and make the process happen even faster and also a few books on natural birth! I figured i would be pregnant with in the next few months so it wouldn't hurt to start preparing for the birth! By October of that year i was still not pregnant and Thomas left for his first deployment to Afghanistan! That same week i moved into a 3 bedroom house on base! The 3 month break was exactly what i needed! I decorated and spent time with my family and friends and I was sure that we would be pregnant shortly after he returned home to start filling up that big house! Around May/June after a year of trying i decided it was time to see the doctor! I had graduated from the trying to conceive (TTC) books to Infertility books and research and i knew that i wanted to get checked out and tested. I was ready for answers and a plan! We were scheduled to see the Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) at the local army hospital on base (Womack) in August! The Friday before our appointment we were told that our Doctor was deploying and that we would have to wait until his return (spring/summer 2008) to be seen! I was horrified! Thomas is due to deploy in that time frame so i knew we were tacking a few more months to the end of that too! I called the nurse (Amber) to see if we could just have the basic tests ran on us through the nurses and she said yes! Thomas had his Semen Analysis (SA) done and it came back "Sub fertile" meaning he isn't Infertile, but his counts were low. The total count was 17 million sperm and only 30% motility! Meaning that out of the 17 million sperm, only 30% were alive and moving! I had an Hysterosalpingogram (HSG) done and found that my tubes were clear and open and my uterus was fine, just tilted to the right about 45 degrees! The doctor told me it looked great, no reason for concern! I also did a "Clomid Challenge". Clomid is a fertility drug that causes an influx of the number and quality of eggs produced. I had blood work (B/W) done on Cycle Day (CD) 3, I took 100mg a day for 5 days, CD5-10 and had B/W done on CD10 --CD10 was also the day i had my HSG done!-- The nurse told me that i didn't produce any follicles on the drug, not good! "Clomid is not the drug for you, Mrs. W!" She said that with Thomas' numbers and the fact that i didn't respond to the clomid that our next step would be to start IUI's with injectable medication! IUI: Intra-Uterine Insemination... they take his sperm, seperate all the good ones from the dead ones (that's called Sperm Washing) and put the washed sperm directly into my uterus with a catheter! None of this can be done with out a doctor of course! So now we wait until fall of next year to be able to start testing with the RE! When Thomas gets back from his second deployment (a 6 month tour) he will need another SA and i will need to start the tests to see which injectables i will need to be on! The good news is that Womack is a study school for army doctors, they are teaching doctors how to do Infertility (IF) procedures so there are all kinds of grants floating around! IUI will only cost us $135 per cycle, including drugs:)

Right now we are planning on TTC "naturally"= good old fashioned sex timed with the help of Ovulation Predictor Kits (OPKs) until he deploys! We only have a few more shots at it! But i am comforted with the fact that after the 6 month break i will be sitting face to face with a doctor that can give me some answers and a plan! and that is all i have been wanting for a long time now! This is our 19th month of TTC! With our doctor gone and my husband leaving soon it doesn't look like this is going to be a blog focused on procedures or drugs just yet! I just need some place to get it all out and maybe find some support along the way!