Fertility Story Part 5

I’ve struggled with chronic illness now for about 6 years. It comes with much grief, just as RPL did.

Many of my diseases affected fertility. We had purposely waited until our son was over a year old to actively try for another baby. I knew how consuming a fertility journey could be & I didn’t want to miss out on our firstborn’s baby years by being consumed with trying for another child. But after much prayer & consideration, my husband & I decided to try for a sibling for him. I honestly & truly believed the trial of miscarriages was behind us. Never did I imagine the second go around would be worse than the first.

It’s hard to capture all of what we went through with a few paragraphs in an Instagram post; but this season of life was incredibly difficult. At that 18 month postpartum visit I was told the effects of MTHFR get worse as you age, so that was probably contributing to my fatigue. There were no further treatments available beyond what we were already doing. I was still anemic from giving birth. We felt the bouts of pain were most likely from endometriosis, so we decided our first step (after iron supplementation) should be endo removal surgery.

Surgery came & went. Thankfully, it was successful (although endo is chronic & will regrow), but my inflammation was extreme & I still experienced bouts of severe pain. My like-clockwork cycles started becoming erratic once I quit nursing & the hot flashes, hair loss, & nausea were frustrating to say the least.

The continued pain, which at times became debilitating, led to a CT scan. I was diagnosed with degenerative disk disease (DDD) at 26 years old. Basically, the rubbery, cushiony material between my vertebrae was deteriorating. This leaves bone on bone & causes excruciating pain when it rubs the wrong way. It puts strain on certain muscles trying to support what my spine can’t anymore. I was told it wasn’t yet severe, but I’d likely need spinal surgery in my late 30’s as the disease progressed up my spine.

To make a very, very long story short, more symptoms led to more tests which led to more diagnoses. This included: a heart block, pre-diabetes, & what I found the most discouraging – premature menopause.