I apologize for being a bit of a drama queen yesterday. I've had time to calm down now and, honestly, I'm feeling better already.
Last night, I re-read (and re-read again) the article that reported a 44% chance of pregnancy for women with Stage 1 or 2 endometriosis in the first year after surgery. When I first saw that, it sounded really depressing but then I thought about it some more and I realized that I'm focusing on the wrong things. Those women - that 44% - were also the same women that fell into the 15% of women that did not get pregnant after 12 months of TTC. So that means that surgery DID make a difference for almost half of the women in that group! Or maybe it was just time that made the difference, who knows. Either way - I've had surgery and I have time. Maybe I WILL be in that 44%.
The article also says that most women were pregnant within 6 months after the surgery (Dr. M recommend we try for 3-6 months) and that "surgery and a prompt attempt at natural conception with sufficient time (at least six months) is advisable". That's nice to hear. It's not that I don't trust Dr. M, I just like to some facts or second opinions to back up what he is telling me.
I think the main reason that I was panicking yesterday is that I spent the past 3-4 months trying to come to terms with the fact that we would probably not be able to conceive without help. I had been trying to convince myself that it wasn't going to happen easily for me. When I heard that we were supposed to just keep trying on our own, I was still convinced that the odds were very much not in our favor. I felt like we were right back where we started. Now that I've had time to think, I know that's not true. We're not doing nothing. Surgery wasn't nothing. It's okay to be hopeful again. We do have a chance. Maybe not as good as a "normal" couple, but a still an okay chance.
Right now (and I say right now because I'll probably think of something else in twenty minutes) I'm thinking that this is a good thing. Seth and I might be moving in December. That's only four months from now. It would be great if I was pregnant by then, but if we're not it's not the end of the world. Maybe it will be good for us to just take it easy, keep charting and doing what we're doing, and then see what happens in December. We don't know where we'll be or what we'll be doing. Maybe it's better for both of our mental and emotional states to just sit back and hope for the best. If nothing happens, we'll have a better idea of what we can and want to do.
DH actually convinced me to re-start my 12-month infertility countdown once we figured out what the problem was and started fixing it. We decided the first 12 months didn't even count, because we were operating with no hope at all of conception and didn't even know it. Maybe this would be a good idea for you and Seth? It definitely helped me calm down some to think of it as just starting over with a clean slate that put me on par with other "normal" women.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you're feeling a little better about all of this. The hardest part, I'm finding, it continually changing my mindset. You start TTC and think it will happen naturally (and quickly, at least I did). Then you reevaluate and start to shift your mindset to realize maybe it won't happen that way and you need a little extra help. To reach that point and be spun back around to continue to try naturally would be tough. Like you said, you DID do something, something pretty big by having the surgery. I sincerely hope that it did the trick and you will see those two lines pop up in the very near future! Always rooting for you!!! <3
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