I want to start by saying that my heart goes out to everyone who has, or is struggling with fertility, however long your journey may be. In hindsight, my journey wasn’t very long but when I was in it, it felt like an eternity.
I always knew I wanted children. I had surgery for endometriosis when I was 18 and it was classed as moderate to severe. I remember my doctor saying that when the time comes I might struggle to have kids. I didn’t think much of it at the time.
Fast forward six years to 2017. I had been selected for the Ice Fernz to compete at the IIHF Women’s World Ice Hockey Championship Div IIB in Spain in March 2018. I was hoping that would be my last tournament before getting pregnant. In my mind it definitely wasn’t the end of international ice hockey for me, just a short break.
In December 2017, my doctor removed my Mirena (IUD). She is a gynaecologist who also works at the fertility clinic. She said if we were unsuccessful after six months to go back and see her.
Setti and I got married in February 2018 prior to the World Championship in Spain. Did we start baby making on our wedding day? Noooo, I passed out and Setti went and partied with our friends at another venue LOL. Anyway, the plan was to start after the tournament in Spain.
I had an app on my phone that told me when I was fertile based on the data I entered into it. I used the Glow Fertility App. I would follow this and each month I would be hopeful that this was our lucky month. Six months came around and we were still unsuccessful in getting pregnant. I contacted my gynaecologist and we made an appointment at the fertility clinic. We had the checks done and Setti was fine – thankfully. My Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) level was on the lower end of normal for my age, bordering on the orange zone. The AMH test is a reasonably easy way to estimate your ovarian reserve. It is performed by a simple blood test. My doctor said we will likely need to undergo IVF to get pregnant. Once we had been trying for 12 months, we could go onto the waiting list for a publicly funded round of treatment. Thankfully we were eligible for public funding because of my endometriosis. The waiting list at the time was 12-18 months. Wow. In my head I was thinking I was so ready now. This was devastating. For anyone that knows me, you would know that I’m quite impatient.
At the time, one round of IVF in New Zealand was approximately NZD $14,000. This didn’t include all of the tests we had already had to find out the reasons why we may be struggling to get pregnant. It is a lot of money, especially when you know the success rate is about 50%, if that. I did some research and found out my health insurance through my work could give us $10,000. It was one of the only health insurance providers to offer this. I looked into it and Setti had to be on the plan for 12 months before we became eligible. I signed him up straight away. This meant we could go for our first round in September 2019. This was still one year away and I didn’t want to wait. Setti was a bit more patient, even though he was pushing 40 🤪.
While we were going through this process we were still trying each month. It’s not easy. There were a lot of tears. I would check the app on my phone many times a day to check when I was next fertile. After the fertile period there is the incredibly awful one-two week wait where you’re praying and hoping with all of your body that this would be it. We would go out and I would be hesitant to have a drink – maybe I was pregnant? The thought is constantly playing on your mind. You try to spot symptoms. This feels different – maybe I’ll just give it a Google. Ahhh Google. My worst enemy but also my best friend. You find forum after forum of people feeling your anxiety and tension. It’s a funny thing – you get scrolling hoping to find something or someone that sums up how you’re feeling and what you’re experiencing. If you do, you hold onto it. You think OK, they experienced this and they got pregnant so maybe this is my month too? Then you’d see the opposite. They didn’t get pregnant this month with that symptom. So then you ignore it and pretend you never read it. You believe what you want to and it’s a dangerous place to be.
I would use ovulation strips each month that look for the level of the luteinizing hormone (LH) in your urine. Much like a pregnancy test, you look at the second line. Although, instead of just looking for a second line, you’re looking at how dark the second line is. You want it to be as dark as the control, if not darker. It’s a bit hit and miss with the interpretation but it’s better than nothing. This next bit is gross, soz. I would also use the appearance of my “vaginal secretions” to help with predicting ovulation. It changes in consistency when you hit peak ovulation. If you’re trying to get pregnant – look it up but don’t click on Google Images 🤢
While all of this was going on, expressions of interest opened for the 2019 New Zealand Ice Fernz. The team would be heading to Romania in early March 2019 to compete at the World Championship. I was very unsure about what to do. Do I put my name forward? What if we get pregnant? I made an effort to be open and honest with the coaching and selection staff so they knew our situation. I ended up making the team and training for the tournament. I thought why wait around for something that may not happen anytime soon… That didn’t stop me thinking about it most minutes of every day.
We were seriously contemplating paying for the first round of IVF in about January 2019. This was prior to the tournament. After many conversations with Setti and my family we decided to wait until after the tournament for IVF. I was so impatient that I wanted to try something different in the meantime. I looked into different drugs you can take to boost ovulation and I asked our gynaecologist about Letrozole. She said it might not be useful for me but said there was no major harm in trying. It is normally used for women who don’t ovulate or have irregular cycles. I didn’t really fall into these categories but I took the drug anyway. If I can remember correctly, one monitored cycle of Letrozole was approximately NZD $300-400.
On days three to seven of my period I took a little pill. A few days prior to ovulation the clinic would do an internal scan to observe the growth of the follicles. We tried it for the first time at the end of 2018. I had two follicles growing well and the doctor said “have intercourse for the next five days”. It’s a bit weird when someone else is telling you to have sex but we followed their instructions and did the deed everyday over the important days. That round didn’t work and it was quite disheartening. I was hoping now that we were doing something new that it would work straight away.
In January 2019 I had five more little Letrozole pills. We decided we may as well pay for one more round and use up the last of the pills. The internal scan came around and I had one follicle growing nicely. Once again – “have intercourse for the next five days”. We followed the doctors orders and tried to enjoy it ha. It is a bit weird when there is a purpose to the deed and it is playing on your mind. I remember having hockey this month and attending two weddings. I was no less anxious than any other month and it was definitely still on my mind everyday. I wanted this so bad. I’ll never forget the words of wisdom from people trying to be nice by saying “try to not stress, it’ll happen.” HOW DO YOU NOT STRESS? I know people are trying to be kind and considerate but I seriously couldn’t figure out how to relax when it is so frustrating and you want it more than anything in this world. I think my best advice to people is to keep busy. The more things I had on, the less time I spent on Google going crazy 🤪
Four days before my period was due I took a pregnancy test at my best friend’s house. I did not feel any different. I was just being impatient me and testing as soon as I possibly could. I watched the pee move along the test and I could see an extremely faint second line. WAS THIS IT?! I couldn’t believe it. I yelled to my friend to come and look. She said, “what does a second line mean?” – my eyes almost rolled out of my head. She insisted I do another test. Once again, a second line, although very faint, it was there.
I phoned Setti and of course he didn’t answer. When I finally got through I repeated the words I had been longing to say, “Babe, I think I’m pregnant.” He paused and I think he teared up. Bless. As you can imagine we were both feeling over the moon. I was excited but also nervous. I wasn’t sure it was real and I wanted to wait for a blood test to confirm it before I got too excited.
Once it was confirmed I remember speaking to the fertility clinic about what comes next. She said we had “graduated” from their clinic and we need to go and find a midwife. I’ve graduated twice before but that was my favourite graduation by a country mile.
