I was just in the shower thinking of the blog titles that I wanted to post during National Infertility Awareness Week (April 24-30 #NIAW), and I thought…… hold up wait a second…….let me put a little IVF in it BOOM. LOL just blame the injections!!!
So why am I waiting until April 24th to start posting about IVF? I post practically every day about IVF, so I didn’t understand why I would be waiting and stockpiling my blog titles to make awareness. The whole reason I started sharing my IVF/Infertility journey was to help, inspire, encourage and unite other women that were going through the same thing I was going through but with a little fashion and beauty twist. Remember all the DVF retail therapies I did after my failed transfers?
I have put all my anger, frustration and sadness into this #StartAsking video. I wanted to create a video that meant something to me and hopefully, would help other women to Start Asking questions when you are given vague answers or downright wrong answers to your pressing time sensitive questions. You know from my journey being told donor eggs when my Florida RE would not test my embryos after six months of asking was just plain lazy and careless.
What I think makes me so fired up and passionate about Resolve’s #StartAsking campaign this year is that it hits home with me. I was asking questions right out of the gate with my first IVF failure in January 2015 but was given road blocks with each and every question. I researched and asked questions, I researched some more and asked about certain blood tests that should have been ordered and then had to order them myself. I think back on 2015 and think WOW!! What would have happened if I didn’t Start Asking? This is what I wouldn’t have known:
- That I make normal embryos (2 PGS tested embryos from two consecutive cycles)
- That I was Vitamin D deficient. A blood test that I had to order myself.
- That I didn’t have an abnormal uterus as one-second opinion, RE stated.
- That I should be freezing my embryos and doing a frozen transfer instead of fresh.
- That my success rates for my age and freezing were higher in Colorado.
It’s random posts like these that make everything I have gone through worth it.
The post above makes me remember last summer when before I was allowed to cycle for IVF #4 in Colorado I had to get a mammogram. This was something I didn’t know to ASK! and what a huge issue this could have ended up being. If you girls followed my vlog, you saw that my Florida RE NEVER recommended or told me to get a mammogram before cycling at his clinic. I was thirty-eight at the time, this would have been the ideal time to have a baseline before pumping my body full of synthetic hormones. I did four rounds of injectable hormones with him and he NEVER once said to me that it would be responsible to schedule a mammogram. So you can imagine when the mammogram came back abnormal the fear, anxiety, anger and frustration that I had which could have been avoided. You can see the process of my stereotactic breast biopsy here.
I can’t blame myself for not asking or knowing that this was something I should have been asking for, I never saw in all my research anyone talking about IVF and mammograms. I wish that I had seen another IVF sister post a video or blog about it so I would have been on alert. The reason I probably never saw a video or blog post is because the majority of reproductive endocrinologists are not telling us to get a mammogram before we go through IVF. I know this because I have asked on IVF boards that have members of over ten thousand. I have asked all my close girlfriends that are going through fertility treatments in multiple states, and I have been on a Podcast where the host’s Mother had breast cancer, and the host was never advised to get a mammogram before IVF, UNBELIEVABLE. It’s a real issue, so I hope if you are reading this blog you drop everything and START ASKING for a mammogram.
I filmed a behind the scenes video on why I did the #StartAsking video; this blog post pretty much sums it up but if you want to see it in video form you have it below. Girls, I don’t have to tell you being diagnosed with infertility is a war zone. For some it works out with the first cycle for some like myself, it’s a real battlefield. Keep looking and moving forward because God has a plan for each and every one of our lives. And that my beautiful IVF sisters is something that you can put all your faith, hope, and trust in.