Monday, March 9th, 2020
Today, I began the process of becoming pregnant.
Don’t get too excited though – it is a looooong process!
This past Monday, I scheduled an appointment with my current family doctor to discuss getting pregnant. This is considered the first step in many of the pregnancy and fertility books I’ve been reading. According to such books, I had expected my doctor to pepper me with questions about our timelines, my health, and my family’s health. I was a little anxious for the appointment as I knew my BMI was still way to high (I’ll talk more about this below), but I was prepared to answer my doctors questions about how I planned on managing that.
I came into the appointment with a notebook and pen, like any good student. The nurse took my blood pressure (which was excellent) and my weight (which was not so excellent). I told her that if she wanted, I could give her my exact weight upon waking this morning. I had noticed that it went up 3 pounds after eating breakfast and lunch. She didn’t bite.
The nurse confirmed the reason for my visit and went back to reception while I waited for my doctor. It was a terse few minutes, anticipation for this first step in the fertility process building. When she finally entered the room, she asked me the purpose of my visit as she pulled up my file on the computer.
I came clean. “My wife and I are hoping to get pregnant within the next year, so we’d like to get started on the process.”
My doctor was a little dumbfounded. She’s an alright family doctor, but has a specialization in dermatology, not in ob/gyn. I could see her trying to recall information about family planning for a same-sex couple for a few seconds.
“I also brought a filled out referral to the fertility clinic we’d like to use,” I suggested.
She looked relieved, and asked to see it. I pulled it out of my bag and she read it over. “It looks like you filled it out correctly,” she said. There was a spot at the bottom for a reason for referral that she had to fill in. “Is it okay if I write in here that you’re a same-sex couple?” she asked.
After I agreed, she wrote it in and had another look at the form. She asked me about my wife’s doctor, and then recognized the name I provided. “It doesn’t look like there’s a space for me to sign. So you should be able to just fax this into them.”
I shifted in my seat, a bit uncomfortable at having to disagree with my doctor. “Well, on their website they said they’d prefer if my doctor faxed it in,” I stated. My doctor thought on this a moment, and after a short time agreed to have her nurse/secretary fax it in.
After all that was said and done, I got ready for the lecture about my weight and questions about my health. I uncapped my pen and got ready to write. They didn’t come. Instead, my doctor asked if there was anything else – her code for closing the appointment.
“Well, I guess I was just wondering what else I could do to prepare my body – tests we should run, or something?” I asked, hoping to lead her to the supposed standard questions all my fertility books had mentioned would come up at this initial meeting.
“You are in good health, so I have no concerns,” my doctor replied. She brought up the medications she had given me a few months ago, but I let her know that the issues had since resolved, so I wasn’t taking them. She seemed pleased with that answer and it looked like she was ready to end the appointment.
“My last blood test, I had low iron,” I said.
“Right. Well we can do an updated blood test. We’ll do iron, B12, blood sugar, and regular CBC.” She pulled up the blood test requisition form and began checking boxes. “And I guess thyroid would be a good thing to check, too.”
She grabbed the printed out form, pencilled in the test for thyroid levels, and handed it to me.
“Is there anything else I can do?” I asked.
“No. You’re in good health, so we’ll just see how those levels come back from the blood test.”
“Okay,” I said.
After all of 5 minutes, the appointment was over!
Some of you might be wondering why I chose this week as the beginning of my fertility journey, which I’ll explain now.
I had called to make the appointment with my doctor shortly after my 27th birthday. My new age might have had some sway in my decision making, but the biggest factor was due to an unfortunate accident that occured the birthday itself.
My wife and I were on our way to my “surprise” birthday party. My sister had ruined the surprise unexpectedly a few weeks prior, so I knew what we were doing (axe throwing) and a general idea of who would be there (mainly my mom’s side of the family and our friend Nicole).
We were at a red light, two cars down from the beginning of the lane, waiting for the green to go. Suddenly, a car drove into our rear bumper. We rolled into the car in front of us, the momentum carrying us forward despite Rachel slamming on the breaks.
Rachel and I were in shock. We waited for the light to turn green, then followed the car in front of us to the closest parking lot – ironically, the same lot for my doctor’s office!
Rachel and I sustained minor whiplash, assessed directly after the accident at Urgent Care. The birthday party was obviously cancelled, and we each took some time off work. Rachel’s pain subsided within the first week, while I’m still dealing with neck and back pain a few weeks later. Our car was written off as a total loss, as it would have cost more to repair it than the car itself was worth.
We went car shopping after learning the extent of the damages and how much insurance would give us. Given our plans to start a family soon, we decided to get an SUV that would have space for kids, our dog Forrest, and ample trunk space for all the adventures we wanted to take. We’re still waiting on paperwork but should get the car in the next few days.
The accident made me realize how precious my time was, and that I’d never be sure how long I have to wait around and have kids. At the same time, getting the new car was a big item on our to-do list before bringing home a baby. It created the perfect storm for me to be inspired to start our baby-making journey.
While I had hoped to be at a more ideal weight before starting out on the fertility adventure, I decided to go ahead anyway. In all honesty, the week before my birthday had been a big challenge for my diet. I have 4 families and our friend group to celebrate with, so there were a lot of birthday parties leading up to my actual birthday – and all that cake and good food was having an impact on my weight. I was bloated from the sugar and diary, and unmotivated to go to the gym or eat healthy for about a week before my birthday. I had fallen right off the wagon and into a delicious slice of lemon birthday cake.
In fact, some part of me was excited to go see my doctor and have her bring up my weight. I was going to ask for a referral to a registered dietitian in the hopes that more people forcing me to lose weight would have an effect.
However, I am still hopeful that now that my referral has been sent off to the fertility clinic, I’ll have more motivation to lose weight.
March 10th, 2020
Speaking of my referral to the fertility clinic – they have already called me!
As my wife Rachel and I filled out the referral form, we looked through the dozen or so specialists available through the clinic on ratemymd.com and by browsing reviews of each clinic under the Mount Sinai Fertility umbrella. After a few days of research, we narrowed down our choices for fertility specialists to Dr. Chan and Dr. Jones. They each had excellent reviews.
Mount Sinai Fertility (MSF) called us back within 24 hours of the referral being sent to them, which is truly an amazing turnaround in the medical world. (As someone married to a nurse, who is also currently working in a hospital, I feel I can really testify to this!) They wanted to confirm our contact details as listed on the form, and review the two specialists we had chosen.
Unfortunately, Dr. Chan is currently on maternity leave, and so she will not be available to help us on our own path to a baby. Dr. Jones was seeing patients, but booking “into May”. We let them know we were okay with that, and were told that Dr. Jones’s secretary will be in contact with us directly to book appointments.
After telling Rachel about the phone call, we realized we weren’t sure if booking “into May” meant we would get a phone call in May to schedule an appointment for later in the year, or would have an appointment in May. We haven’t heard yet.
As we are both still young and don’t know of any fertility issues we’d face, we’re okay with either scenario.
There’s also some other news I should disclose:
I finally got a new job, and we are moving!
This is a really exciting development for us as I’ve been looking for a new position for a long time. As well, I will be working in the same city as the fertility clinic, making it so much easier to go through the process of fertility treatments.
We are going to be moving in stages to a city outside Toronto (where rent is crazy expensive). I’ll go first at the end of this month, as they wanted me to start in my new position right away. Rachel will follow when she gets a job in the area – hopefully only a few weeks apart, as she’s already been sending out applications. However, it could take longer. It’s impossible to predict.
How does this news change the fertility journey?
Its clear to me already that this path won’t be a straight line between us and a wee bab. There have been plenty of curves and forks, and I’m sure there will be more to come.
Right now, we’re at a crossroads in the path. The position I’ve acquired ends in October 2021 – I’m covering a maternity leave myself. While there was some speculation that the position could be extended, there’s no guarantee what will happen.
In these crossroads situations, I always try to create the different scenarios to help myself decide what to do.
Scenario 1 involves hearing back from the clinic in May, and then 2-3 months of testing and waiting until our first round of IUI. That would mean getting pregnant around August at the earliest, and going on parental leave with a baby in my arms around May 2021. My contract would expire 5 months later, so unless it was extended, I’d be job hunting while home with our baby. Not having a job to go back to, with a young one to take care of, is a stressful situation. As well, I’m not sure how a contract expiring before the end of my parental leave would influence the way I’m compensated while on leave. The other danger here is that any chances of becoming permanent at my new employer is dashed by leaving too quickly. And although it shouldn’t be an issue with an understanding and empathetic employer, I might run the risk of ruining my professional reputation by choosing to get pregnant while in a contract position. This might make it harder to get a new job in the future.
Scenario 2 involves waiting. We could still do the testing this summer with the fertility clinic to make sure there are no issues with either of us, but then hold off on actual IUI until I have a more permanent job. While it makes sense to choose this path because it’s bound to be less stressful, at the same time it goes against the idea of “you never know how much time you have” that inspired us to start this journey in the first place. As well, it could take another couple of years (in the worst case scenario) for a permanent job to fall in my hands. I only have 3 years until I turn 30 – at which point, I had always planned on having two kids already. Although I should still have the ability to get pregnant from 28-30, when you pay per try with IUI, any decrease in your chances (which come with age) can mean an increase in cost. On the other hand, I had always hoped that I’d have a nicer home and a bit more in my bank account before having kids – waiting could mean having more time to set that situation up.
Both situations have their merits and their fallbacks. Luckily, in both scenarios we can go ahead with the testing to eliminate fertility issues without committing to an immediate round of IUI. Perhaps by my first appointment sometime in or after May, the job situation will be more clear.
That’s it for my update. I’ll keep you posted on what comes next!
Until next time,
Beccas Blog 