I wish I didn't have to...

I wish I didn't have to write this blog.

I actually never imagined I would, neither could I have imagined to be staring at Infertility's ugly face one day.

Yet here I am, and here's my story...

I am 43, living in Paris, France. I am the fortunate and very happy mother of two amazing teenagers, born from a previous marriage. Left widowed when my kids were young, I met the love of my life, an amazing man who loves my children as if they were his own, and to make this love official, he adopted them. My husband having no biological kids, the natural next step was to try for a baby, a fruit of our love, a most desired addition to our very happy family.

We started trying to conceive in April 2013, and having never had any fertility issues whatsoever, I was absolutely convinced we would soon be blessed with a positive pregnancy test. And we were! In May of the same year, right after the first month of trying, we found out we were expecting.

Having had some surgery on my cervix several years before, I was offered a preventative vaginal cerclage at 12 weeks. That's when we run all types of tests to make sure our baby was healthy for I was 39 and the risks would have been higher than for someone younger.

Tests came back perfect, the stitch was in, and the hell was about to get loose, but little did I know...

After 3 weeks of complete bedrest due to contractions post TVC, my cervix was getting shorter and shorter. In spite of several visits to the ER, bleeding because the stitch tore through my cervix, my water broke one night, and we lost our baby boy at 15 weeks.

I will spare you the details of our heartbreak, though even if some of you cannot relate, you definitely can imagine what it felt like.

As devastated as I was, I knew the time was not on my side, and if I wanted to have a living baby, I had to move fast. I also knew a TVC would never be in the cards again, so I would have to find another solution. This solution presented itself under the name of Transabdominal Cerclage, currently known as TAC, and it was placed by Dr George Davis, in the USA in the spring of 2014.

Free to try again, relieved by the pressure of cervical incompetence, we started TTC as soon as we were cleared, in July.

One month, two months, three months.....nothing. I bought my first ovulation tests, used them and again...one month, two months....nothing... Fear crept up my spine and I started googling, and reading....and I found out about this AMH test that would tell you how many eggs you had left. I got it tested without expecting it to come back very close to 0.

My world fell apart. I lost 4 pounds from crying over that week-end. I wish someone told me the real truth about AMH back then, and how it was far from being the be all and end all....but there was no one back then.

So I suffered more or less in silence and went to see my obgyn who put me on Clomid and trigger. Fail.

During 2 full years I have seen two REs, consulted  another one over the phone, had 6 IUIs with full IVF protocol, 6 IVFs with 12 embryos transferred in total, 4 cycles on Femara and trigger, numerous timed intercourse monitorized cycles. All fail.

During these two years of hope, disappointment, pain, heartache, frustration and hope again I had the chance and privilege of virtually meeting amazing women, brave and fierce, who would not give up on their right of being informed and their right of having a word to say in the way fertility professionals choose to treat them.

My blog springs from my desire to help women get educated on issues like DOR, POF, Low AMH, High FSH, and all the fertility problems that they bring with them.

I am no doctor, I do not give medical advice. I am just pointing into directions that have been useful to me, that helped me understand exactly where I stand and where I should be headed.

If anything, this blog is meant to empower you, to help you understand what doctors do not always have the time to explain to you, and to make you understand you have the right to choose what is best and more appropriate for yourself.

The way I wished someone did explain it to me. And the way someone eventually did, later on, when I found the Facebook groups I eventually ended up administrating.

You are more than welcome here and I hope you will feel at home!