Hoping for a Miracle

Over the course of the past few days there has been one word that seems to have been ingrained upon my mind, and that word is "hope". At this point, I feel as though hope is about all I can do. I hope that I will find peace in my heart, I hope that I will have strength and courage to endure, I hope that I can fight all the odds that seem to be against me, but most of all, I hope for a miracle.

As I have been looking online for what little information is available on this rare abnormality, I came across a website dedicated to stories of women who suffer from this same condition. Although each of their stories is slightly different from my own, there is still one commonality, "hope". I read through each story of success as tears streamed down my face. In my moment of despair and doubt, the Lord knew that I needed some hope to hold onto and he provided just that.

Yesterday those same feelings of despair snuck back into my heart and I knew I needed something to lift my spirit. There on my nightstand laid the General Conference Report in the Ensign magazine published by our church. I went to the topic index and browsed over each subject. The topic of hope seemed to jump off the page in big bold letters. It referenced a talk given by Elder Uchtdorf entitled, "The Infinite Power of Hope". I sat down in my chair, pulled out a highlighter and read the beautiful talk he had given on the subject of hope. He states, "hope has the power to fill our lives with happiness. Its absence-when this desire of our heart is delayed-can make the heart sick". He later talks about how "the adversary uses despair to bind hearts and minds in suffocating darkness".

Throughout the 5 years Dave and I have been trying to get pregnant, I have felt as though I have kept a positive outlook in my situation. Not to say that there were not hard days, but I felt as though I battled each one triumphantly. Last Thursday, all of that positivity was suddenly drained away and I was left with feelings of doubt, frustration, anger, pain, and heartache. In my naive understanding, the outcome that I was given wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I went to the doctor for answers, and with those answers I expected solutions. I could have never imagined that my infertility would be something that was incurable and unfixable. It was hard for me to fathom that I had overcome my medical challenges as a child and that I would be faced with even more in adulthood.

As I have tried to drive such thoughts and feelings from my mind and heart, I am reminded of Elder Uchtdorfs words from his talk, "There may be times when we must make a courageous decision to hope even when everything around us contradicts this hope… never give in, never surrender, never allow despair to overcome your spirit.". He defines hope as the following, "Hope… is like the beam of sunlight rising up and above the horizon of our present circumstances. It pierces the darkness with a brilliant dawn. It encourages and inspires us to place our trust in the loving care of an eternal Heavenly Father, who has prepared a way for those who seek for eternal truth in a world of relativism, confusion, and of fear".

"Hope is believing and expecting that our prayers will be answered" (Elder Uchtdorf). In the days ahead, it is my prayer that my hope will overcome my despair. And as I continue down my road to motherhood, I will be hoping and praying for a miracle.

Part 2 of My Story

(If you haven't read Part 1, please click here)

Now that I have finished school, the reality that I am not a mother has set in harder than it had previously. When we moved to Arkansas I decided that I was ready to pursue more options and try and find solutions. This past year has been exceptionally hard as I have been faced with more UTI's than in the past and my body hasn't responded the same to the antibiotics as it has before.

Little Rock has a wonderful university medical center that I felt very good about and so I began the process of getting answers. I gathered and requested all of my medical records from the past 13 years of my life so that I would be able to give the doctors a better understanding of my situation. I set up a family care doctor so that I could get referrals to see the doctors at UAMS. At this point, I was finally able to make my appointments. When I did so, I could have never anticipated the wait that would follow. I made appointments with 2 doctors, a urologists and an OB/GYN. The earliest that I would be able to get into either doctor would be over 2 months. A week before my first appointment with the OB/GYN I received a letter in the mail informing me that they had pushed back my appointment for another month and a half. I was so frustrated after waiting so long to find out that I would have to wait even longer. Not to mention the fact that I had been bleeding for over 3 months and I was unsure why. As I explained this situation to the nurse who rescheduled my appointment, she simply said, "well, you have your appointment with the urologist in a few days, see what he says about it". Then to make matters worse, I received a call the day before my urologist appointment to inform me that they would need to move my appointment back one more month. And so the waiting process began again...

When the urologist appointment finally arrived they meant business. It was a long wait to get in to the doctor, but once I was in, he wasted no time in running test, after test, after test to try and get to the root of the problem and to get a clear understanding of my anatomy. He then confirmed, as my childhood urologist had already done, that my urethra was about 1 cm off from where it was suppose to be located. This in turn, directs a small amount of urine into the vaginal cavity and causes a significant amount of urinary tract infections along with a myriad of other issues. He then said that in his 35 years of practicing, he has never seen this situation before and wasn't sure if it would be able to be corrected or not. I then received a referral to see another urologist, as he attempted to comfort me by saying, "if there was a doctor who would have a solution it would be this new doctor". We then went to make the appointment only to be informed that there would be another two month wait to get into see him. This appointment will be December 12th, and I am very hopeful he will be able to repair and correct my urethra.

As for the OB/GYN, I went to that appointment and was again referred to another doctor who specializes in fertility treatment. Luckily this appointment was scheduled just a week and a half following this visit.

My first fertility appointment arrived November 10th, and I could hardly contain my excitement of the possibility that he would have an answer for me as to why I have been unable to get pregnant. Once again he wasted no time in finding a solution, as I underwent a series of tests and blood work. He discovered that I was not ovulating and that is why I had been bleeding for several months. He then ordered and HSG test to determine if there was any blockage in my right fallopian tube (since I only have one) and to get a clear picture of the shape of my uterus. During an HSG test, they shoot dye into you uterus and watch the path of the dye flow out through your fallopian tubes. It is done by taking a consecutive series of x-ray images as the dye is injected. It causes severe cramping for the point of dye injection up to two days later. I had watched a video of a normal HSG test before I went in for the procedure so I would know what to expect.

During the procedure I couldn't see the screen of the X-rays, but once they were done, the doctor sat me up and pulled the screen over to show me the results. The second I saw the images, my heart sank. I knew something wasn't right because my images looked nothing like the normal HSG test I had watched online. I left the hospital that Wednesday with a brief explanation of what the doctor thought might be wrong, but he told me that my fertility doctor would go over the results with me on Thursday. In my heart, I knew the outcome was not what I was hoping for. I spent the rest of Wednesday lying in bed because of pain from the procedure while I looked online for further explanation of what I had seen. There was alot of tears as I read through article after article describing my situation.

Yesterday was the follow up appointment for the test results. Going into the appointment, I had pretty much prepared myself for what the doctor would be telling me. He sat us down in his office and went through everything with us for almost an hour. I was born with a rare uterine abnormality known as a unicornuate uterus. This basically means I have about half the uterus that most women have. My unicornuate uterus has a left horn and a right non-communicating rudimentary horn (as seen in the diagram below, for a picture of a normal uterus please click here).




I have a very healthy right ovary and fallopian tube but there is no communication between them and my uterus. It is suggested that there are several women who have this condition and never experiance any problems from it. It is often diagnosed when a women suffers from repeated miscarriages, pre-term births, or infertiltiy. In my situation it has caused steralization. This is due to the fact that they removed the only fallopian tube that had communication with my uterus because of the damage the tube withstood as child. My uterine malformation was not discovered during my childhood operations because of the initial distortion of the organs from the blood that they held.

The doctor also suspects that I have endometrosis. He has suggested that I undergo a laprasopic surgery to remove my right uterine horn and fallopian tube and the portion still remaining of my left fallopian tube. This will resolve the pain caused from the endometrosis which has built up in my rudimentary horn and decrease the risk of any tubal pregnancies. I am waiting to see if the urologist will be able to operate on me to correct my urethra, and if so, I will have each doctor do their surgeries on the same day.

My options for motherhood are IVF (invitro fertilization), surrogacy, or adoption. If we were to go forward with IVF they would only be able to implant one egg at a time (they usually implant multiple Embryo's). This decreases the chance of the procedure being as affective. They would do this because of the risk involved if all the embryos took and I carried a multiples. Because of my uterine size, carrying just one is like carrying multiples for everyone else. I would be considered a very high risk pregnancy and the chance of miscarriage and preterm births are very high. The babies are usually breeched as well, because there is not enough room for the fetus to turn.

Amongst a lot of sorrow, there is certainly hope, but I have a significant amount of odds to fight. I know that if it is meant to be, the Lord will provide a way. Please keep us in your prayers as we continue are quest to become parents. I can't thank you enough for the immense amount of love and support that you all have shown. I will keep everyone updated as to what we find out over the coming months.

Part 1 of My Story

My road to motherhood has not been easy, but it is my hearts greatest desire and hope that someday I can say, "it was all worth it".

For the majority of my childhood I led a very happy and healthy life. At the age of 11 that all seemed to change right before my eyes and my life has been a medical battle ever since. That battle has been a personal struggle, but I wish to say, that I have been richly blessed in dealing with such a trail. We are all given certain trials or challenges in our life for one reason or another, and in all honesty I am not sure I would trade my challenges for one second to receive another individual's earthly test.

The first time I can ever really remember having pain was when I went to girl's camp for church. I remember telling the nurse at camp of how I was feeling and she quickly gave me the prognosis that I was just starting my menstrual cycle for the first time and experiencing menstrual cramps. This same cramping pain went on for several months. I remember times when it would get so bad I would wake up in the middle of the night and lay in a warm bath of water in an attempt to sooth the pain. Then one day while lying in my bed, I noticed a large lump on my abdomen about the diameter of a golf ball. My mom rushed me to our family doctor a few tests were performed and I was then referred to an OB/GYN. That visit to the OB/GYN would inevitably change my life forever.

Unfortunately I don't remember all the details or really even the sequence of the events following that appointment. I guess in my way of coping with the situation as a 12 year old, I have blocked many portions out. What I do remember about that day is that what they discovered wasn't positive. During an ultrasound they discovered what they thought to be two VERY large ovarian cysts (one on each ovary). The mass on the right measured 16.5 x 9 x 10 cm, and the mass on the left measured 6.2 x 4 x 6 cm. The doctor recommended that I undergo an exploratory laparatomy to have the masses removed and intern my ovaries as well. She went into great detail about the repercussions of such an outcome and also the possibility of other diagnosis's if that was not what they found. The outcomes that she listed included ovarian cancer, possible loss of hormonal function, and sterilization. At that time the only possible outcome I remembered hearing was the last.

Although at the tender age of 12, pregnancy and motherhood were about the two furthest things from my mind, it still seems to be what you mold your life around as a female. The grim possibility that I would not be able to ever bear children wasn't what I had planned or could have ever expected for myself. The diagnosis the doctor felt most confident in, would result in not being able to have children. It was more than I could swallow or understand. When we returned home, I remember running next door to where my best friend lived and crying to her about what they had just told me.

I underwent the surgery a few days later but the diagnosis quickly changed when they surgically went into my abdomen. They did not discover cysts on my ovaries, but rather a large left fallopian tube that was completely scarred shut and blood filled and an enlarged, distorted uterus extending up to my umbilicus. They then went in vaginally to find a thick vaginal septum, this was opened which released between 350-400cc of old, thick, tarry blood from my uterus and left fallopian tube. Basically I had started my menstrual cycle for the first time approximately 3 months before hand, but because of the vaginal septum the menses had nowhere to go. The damage that my organs had withstood from holding the blood, in turn resulted in the removal of my left fallopian tube.

As for the battle wound, I have a nice 3.5" scar along my abdomen which included 26 staples at the time of the surgical recovery. I spent three days in the hospital on large amounts of morphine and received several visits, with lots of gifts and flowers, from friends and family. Those few days in the hospital are filled with funny stories of all the crazy things I did because of the medications… it's the one part of this story that as a family we could all laugh about. My dad's favorite one is when I attempted to take a drink from a juice box that they had given me. I made it about half way from the tray in front of me to my mouth, at which point I fell asleep.

There were a few other minor surgeries and procedures in the months that followed to attempt to correct some problems that arose after the major operation. Unfortunately, those problems remain with me today and are the one aspect of this whole story that is too personal for me to share with everyone. These congenital issues have resulted in a series of Chronic UTI's (urinary tract infections) and in a few severe cases those UTI's have spread into my kidneys causing unbearable kidney infections.

This basically sums up "Part 1" of my story. "Part 2" begins in more recent months as I have actively seeked out answers, and more importantly, solutions, to the chronic UTI's and heart breaking infertility. I am not emotionally ready to share this portion of my story with you tonight, but I hope that tomorrow will give me new strength as I continue down my road to motherhood.

For a link to Part 2, click here.

Terms and Abbreviations

AD--adoptive parent
AF--aunt flo (your period)
AH-- assisted hatching
AI-- artificial insemination
Anlage: The name for the undeveloped or rudimentary müllerian duct.
AO-- annovulation
Arcuate: AU A variation of normal uterine development in which the top of the uterus has a slight dip. Rarely a problem.
ART-- assisted reproductive technologies
AU: "Arcuate uterus"
BBT--basal body temperature
BF--biological father
BFN--big fat negative
BFP--big fat positive
BG--blood glucose
BH--braxton-hicks contractions
Bicollis: Meaning "2 cervices." Many septate, bicornuate and didelphys uteri can have a double cervix. Eg. "uterus bicornis bicollis."
Bicornuate: BU Meaning "two horns," it describes a uterus with a distinct division (> 1 cm.) visible from the outside, caused by incomplete fusion of the two müllerian ducts. A.k.a. "uterus bicornis."
BMom--biological mother
BP--biological parents
BP--blood pressure
BU-- Bicornuate Uterus
B/W--blood work
CBAVD--congenital bilateral absence of vas deferens
D&C--dilation and curettage
DD--dear daughter
D&E--dilation and evacuation
DH--dear husband
DP3DT--days past three day transfer
DP5DT--days past five day transfer
DPO--days past ovulation
DS--dear son
DW--dear wife
Dx--diagnosis
Dysmenorrhea: Painful menstrual cramps. Women with uterine anomalies frequently have painful menstruation, typically from associated endometriosis, outlet obstruction, retrograde menstruation and the disorganized muscle contractions caused by an intrauterine septum.
E2--estrogen level
EDD--estimated due date
Endo--endometriosis
ER--egg retrieval
ET--embryo transfer
FC--foster care
FET--frozen embryo transfer
FSH--follicle stimulating hormone
GnRH--gonadotropin-releasing hormone
GS--gestational surrogate/surrogacy
hCG--human chorionic gonadotropin
HPT--home pregnancy test (also called a peestick)
HSG--hysterosalpingogram
IC-- incompetent cervix
ICSI--intracytoplasmic sperm injection
IF--infertility
IM--intramuscular
IUGR--intrauterine growth restriction
IUI--intrauterine insemination
IVF--in vitro fertilization
IVIG--intravenous immunoglobulin
Lap--laparoscopy
Lap/hyst: Abbreviation "Laparoscopy/hysteroscopy"—a combination of two operations in which the uterus is inspected inside and out, to determine the extent of the malformation. A lap/hyst is the `gold standard' of diagnoses in differentiating between a septate or bicornuate uterus. It is also commonly done during hysteroscopic septoplasty to monitor the operation and verify whether or not a uterine perforation has occurred in the course of the hysteroscopy.
LH--luteinizing hormone
LP--luteal phase
LPD--luteal phase defect
MA: See: Müllerian anomaly. A.k.a.: Müllerian duct anomaly.
Magnetic resonance imaging: MRI A noninvasive test useful in seeing the contours of the uterus and differentiating between a septate and bicornuate uterus.
M/C--miscarriage
MF--male factor
Müllerian anomaly: A developmental abnormality of the internal female sex organs resulting from the failure of the müllerian ducts to either fuse and/or resorb properly. Müllerian anomalies include hypoplastic uterus, arcuate uterus, septate uterus, bicornuate uterus, unicornuate uterus, T-shaped (DES) uterus, uterus didelphys, Rokitansky Syndrome, and others.
Müllerian ducts: Two long tubular structures found in both the male and the female embryo. In the male, these ducts dissolve, but in the female, they unite to form the uterus and oviducts.
O--ovulate (or O'ing)
OB/GYN--obstetrician/gynecologist
OHSS--ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome
p-- parenting
P4--progesterone
PAP--potential or prospective adoptive parents
PCOS--polycystic ovarian syndrome
PG-pregnant
PGD--preimplantation genetic diagnosis
PGL-- pregnancy loss
PID--pelvic inflammatory disease
POF--premature ovarian failure
PROM--premature rupture of membranes
PUPO--pregnant until proven otherwise
RE--reproductive endocrinologist
RI--reproductive immunologist
RPL--recurrent pregnancy loss
Rudimentary horn: the small, undeveloped horn of a unicornuate, didelphic or bicornuate uterus. A.k.a. anlagen.
Rx--prescription
SA--semen analysis
S/B--stillbirth
SHG--sonohysterogram
SIF--secondary infertility
Septate: SU. Adjective describing a uterus with an extra fibrous/muscular band in the middle of its cavity, giving it two horn shaped hemi-uterine cavities. This is the most common müllerian anomaly, and results from the partial or total failure of the wall between the united müllerian ducts to dissolve. A.k.a. "uterus septus." Subcategories of the septate uterus include "total," or "complete," in which the septum involves the cervical canal and even the vagina, and "subseptate," in which the septum's lower end stops short of the cervical canal.
SU-- Septate Uterus
TS--traditional surrogate/surrogacy
TSH--thyroid stimulating hormone
TAD-- trying to adopt
TTC--trying to conceive
Tx--treatment
UD-- Uterus Didelphys
Unicornuate: UU. An asymmetrical uterine anomaly in which one of the two müllerian ducts has failed to form properly. The hemiuterus is a small, banana-shaped organ frequently accompanied by an anlage, or rudimentary uterine horn or bud, which may or may not have an open endometrial cavity. Pregnancies in the smaller horn almost invariably rupture, and to prevent this, a hemihysterectomy may be recommended. Women with UU usually have bilateral ovaries, and may have an associated kidney anomaly on the side with the anlage.
UIF-- unexplained infertility
U/S--ultrasound
UTI--urinary tract infection
UU--unicornuate uterus
VBAC--vaginal birth after cesarean
xfer--transfer

*If you have terms or abbrevations to add, please let me know.

Note: For other lists of applicable terms and abbrevations, please visit the following links:
Stirrup Queens
Mullerian Anomalies