Years 3-4: At the end of the 2006-2007 school year we moved back to good ‘ole Alabama. Not that we were unhappy in GA, but AL teacher insurance offers a lot more toward infertility treatments. And, as Allen says, there’s just something about the air in AL. (He was always so funny. When we would come back home to visit family and we'd cross the AL line he would roll the windows down and just take in the air.) And besides, Alabama will always be home to us. So, we moved to Elba, AL and Allen and I both took jobs at Zion Chapel Schools. Allen taught elementary PE and coached basketball and football and I taught high school math and coached the varsity cheerleaders.
I know that this is a blog about our journey though infertility…but I have to take this minute to share with you how much we LOVE our family at ZC. Allen absolutely adored working with Ms. Skinner, or his “work-wife” as I called her and he also really enjoyed his elementary kids, the ZC elementary teachers, Mrs. Calhoun and his coaching peers. I really enjoyed my teaching peers around my room; Coach Barton, Mrs. Bentley and Coach Bowers and loved my advanced and honors classes and cheerleaders. Allen and I both greatly treasure the 3 years we had with the ZC class of 2011. We both feel like we had a hand in raising them from scrawny, immature freshmen to young men and women ready to take on the world. They will always hold a special place in our hearts. One thing about being a teacher is that aside from your personal life, whether you have kids at home or not, you are a parent Monday-Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. My ZC kids taught me a lot about how I want to mother my own children one day! I love y’all so much!
Back to the topic at hand…over the next 2 years we took LOTS of medication to try to help us have a baby. Oddly enough though, we never took the most popular infertility medicine, Clomid. Our fertility specialist at the time, Dr. Katherine Honea, recommended that we stay away from it with our history of cysts. Along with the medications, we also tried several procedures: cyst drains, PCTs (postcoital test), specimen collections, HSGs (hysterosalpingogram...let's hear you pronounce that!) and IUIs (intrauterine insemination) . Let me "attempt" to give you a quick run down of what each procedure involves.
A cyst drain is just that. It’s when they go in and drain, versus remove, a cyst. I think we had 2 cyst drains during these 2 years.
A PCT is a procedure that is done to help determine how sperm interact with cervical mucus. We only had one of these but it’s a funny story. I’ll share a few of the details with you now…First of all, I always schedule my appointments early in the morning so that Allen can make most of them with me. After all, remember after that initial appointment with Dr. Gaydos in GA I do NOT go to the doctor alone anymore! Two other reasons for scheduling early appointments: 1...If we get to the doctor early enough, we usually only have to take half a day off of school…and believe me, our days we can take are very few and far between…and 2...even after 5 and a half years of this, I still cannot think about anything but having a baby and if I know I have a doctor’s appointment that day, I cannot focus on anything…much less teach rambunctious teenagers! So, back to the PCT. In order to have a PCT you have to have sex. In order to get the first appointment at 7:30 a.m. we had to leave our house in Elba at 6 a.m. In order to leave our house at 6 a.m. we have to start getting ready at 5 a.m. In order to start getting ready at 5 a.m. we have to make love by 4:30 a.m. In order to get my husband in a good enough mood to make love to his "beautiful" wife…he has to get up at 4 a.m. I’m sure you see where this is going! It was a very eventful morning at the Maness house! (I hope you enjoyed picturing that!)
Moving on…a specimen collection is also pretty self explanatory. I wish I could get Allen to share some stories of these adventures with you first hand. I’m sure my version will not come close to the actual thing. Basically, a nurse takes the man to a room, gives them a specimen cup and says good luck. I’ve never actually seen the inside of a “collection room”, as they are labeled but here’s what Allen has shared with me. Some have couches, some don’t. Some have um...interesting entertainment, some don’t. Here’s a true story…after going through several specimen collections, one time we had a nurse ask us if I needed to go back with him to get the specimen. We were so shocked! We didn’t know that was an option! You should have seen our reaction. I’m sure it was priceless. However, we prefer that Allen takes care of the collecting by himself. I’ll leave it at that and move on.
An HSG is an X-ray procedure where the doctor shoots a blue dye through your fallopian tubes and watches to see if it makes it through the tubes and begins to spill in to the uterus. I think we have had 3 of these done. One time it seems like the dye did not go through and they had to do a surgery to repair one of my tubes. Another time, my tubes were not open but after the doctor continued to push the dye it finally opened the tubes and began to spill like it was supposed to. OUCH! And the most recent HSG that I had done in September of 2009 showed that both my tubes were open and everything looked good. Let's hope that's still the case.
And finally, an IUI is a procedure usually done with some sort of medications. The woman takes meds the first couple of weeks of her cycle. Then either a home ovulation predictor kit is done to determine when the woman is ovulating or an HCG shot is given to make the woman ovulate. (We have done both and by the way…the HCG shot is the WORST of all infertility shots. The needle is forever long and the medicine is very thick…and it has to be given IM…that means in the muscle a.k.a MY BUTT!) Next, the man has to do a specimen collection. The collection is sent to the lab and “spun” to get the good sperm. The sperm are then put in to this basting like tube and inserted in to the woman. The woman then lies on the exam table for 30 minutes and prays for a baby. Our insurance pays for 8 of these IUIs. I believe we have had 4-5 of these done. Never any luck but considering that our insurance pays for them…we’ll probably try a couple more before its all over.
Alrighty, so other than the endless amount of blood work and thousands of miles driven and dollars spent on gas…that pretty much concludes years 3 and 4. They were definitely 2 adventurous years; that's for sure!
I know that this is a blog about our journey though infertility…but I have to take this minute to share with you how much we LOVE our family at ZC. Allen absolutely adored working with Ms. Skinner, or his “work-wife” as I called her and he also really enjoyed his elementary kids, the ZC elementary teachers, Mrs. Calhoun and his coaching peers. I really enjoyed my teaching peers around my room; Coach Barton, Mrs. Bentley and Coach Bowers and loved my advanced and honors classes and cheerleaders. Allen and I both greatly treasure the 3 years we had with the ZC class of 2011. We both feel like we had a hand in raising them from scrawny, immature freshmen to young men and women ready to take on the world. They will always hold a special place in our hearts. One thing about being a teacher is that aside from your personal life, whether you have kids at home or not, you are a parent Monday-Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. My ZC kids taught me a lot about how I want to mother my own children one day! I love y’all so much!
Back to the topic at hand…over the next 2 years we took LOTS of medication to try to help us have a baby. Oddly enough though, we never took the most popular infertility medicine, Clomid. Our fertility specialist at the time, Dr. Katherine Honea, recommended that we stay away from it with our history of cysts. Along with the medications, we also tried several procedures: cyst drains, PCTs (postcoital test), specimen collections, HSGs (hysterosalpingogram...let's hear you pronounce that!) and IUIs (intrauterine insemination) . Let me "attempt" to give you a quick run down of what each procedure involves.
A cyst drain is just that. It’s when they go in and drain, versus remove, a cyst. I think we had 2 cyst drains during these 2 years.
A PCT is a procedure that is done to help determine how sperm interact with cervical mucus. We only had one of these but it’s a funny story. I’ll share a few of the details with you now…First of all, I always schedule my appointments early in the morning so that Allen can make most of them with me. After all, remember after that initial appointment with Dr. Gaydos in GA I do NOT go to the doctor alone anymore! Two other reasons for scheduling early appointments: 1...If we get to the doctor early enough, we usually only have to take half a day off of school…and believe me, our days we can take are very few and far between…and 2...even after 5 and a half years of this, I still cannot think about anything but having a baby and if I know I have a doctor’s appointment that day, I cannot focus on anything…much less teach rambunctious teenagers! So, back to the PCT. In order to have a PCT you have to have sex. In order to get the first appointment at 7:30 a.m. we had to leave our house in Elba at 6 a.m. In order to leave our house at 6 a.m. we have to start getting ready at 5 a.m. In order to start getting ready at 5 a.m. we have to make love by 4:30 a.m. In order to get my husband in a good enough mood to make love to his "beautiful" wife…he has to get up at 4 a.m. I’m sure you see where this is going! It was a very eventful morning at the Maness house! (I hope you enjoyed picturing that!)
Moving on…a specimen collection is also pretty self explanatory. I wish I could get Allen to share some stories of these adventures with you first hand. I’m sure my version will not come close to the actual thing. Basically, a nurse takes the man to a room, gives them a specimen cup and says good luck. I’ve never actually seen the inside of a “collection room”, as they are labeled but here’s what Allen has shared with me. Some have couches, some don’t. Some have um...interesting entertainment, some don’t. Here’s a true story…after going through several specimen collections, one time we had a nurse ask us if I needed to go back with him to get the specimen. We were so shocked! We didn’t know that was an option! You should have seen our reaction. I’m sure it was priceless. However, we prefer that Allen takes care of the collecting by himself. I’ll leave it at that and move on.
An HSG is an X-ray procedure where the doctor shoots a blue dye through your fallopian tubes and watches to see if it makes it through the tubes and begins to spill in to the uterus. I think we have had 3 of these done. One time it seems like the dye did not go through and they had to do a surgery to repair one of my tubes. Another time, my tubes were not open but after the doctor continued to push the dye it finally opened the tubes and began to spill like it was supposed to. OUCH! And the most recent HSG that I had done in September of 2009 showed that both my tubes were open and everything looked good. Let's hope that's still the case.
And finally, an IUI is a procedure usually done with some sort of medications. The woman takes meds the first couple of weeks of her cycle. Then either a home ovulation predictor kit is done to determine when the woman is ovulating or an HCG shot is given to make the woman ovulate. (We have done both and by the way…the HCG shot is the WORST of all infertility shots. The needle is forever long and the medicine is very thick…and it has to be given IM…that means in the muscle a.k.a MY BUTT!) Next, the man has to do a specimen collection. The collection is sent to the lab and “spun” to get the good sperm. The sperm are then put in to this basting like tube and inserted in to the woman. The woman then lies on the exam table for 30 minutes and prays for a baby. Our insurance pays for 8 of these IUIs. I believe we have had 4-5 of these done. Never any luck but considering that our insurance pays for them…we’ll probably try a couple more before its all over.
Alrighty, so other than the endless amount of blood work and thousands of miles driven and dollars spent on gas…that pretty much concludes years 3 and 4. They were definitely 2 adventurous years; that's for sure!
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