Infertility Archives - Living Our Sunshine with Susann Deysel

September 8, 2015 2 Mins Read

Infertility, a good reason to change your spending habits

I have been asked how we can afford fertility treatments a few times recently. It got me thinking on what I have changed to be more responsible at saving. Here goes…

I don’t go out with my girlfriends anymore. Buying new clothes is a thing of the past. Spa visits, what is that again? I don’t buy myself anything lavish. I gave almost all my comforts and spoils up to save as much as I can.

Now I hear you thinking, but why isn’t she freelancing or have a second job… Well, when I get home I don’t want to have additional pressure to have delivery deadlines and clients nagging me. I actually cannot think of anything worse than adding unnecessary stress on myself. Yes, I could’ve done freelance design work like designing (but I really hate design and would rather outsource it anyway as I have no creativity left after all these years) or managing other people’s websites and social media. I just want to keep the time after work to do things that helps me relax, like going to gym or taking the cats for a walk.

I also have to admit that my husband pays the biggest portion of the treatment expenses. If it wasn’t for him we probably would not be able to afford fertility treatments. He owns his own company, so it really is our saving grace.

On the note of fertility treatment costs, it is expensive as hell. Medical aid also doesn’t really reimburse you for anything either. You are pretty much on your own. You may expect a little something back from SARS at the end of the year, but don’t pin your hopes on that either.

August 13, 2015 1 Min Read

Feeling A Bit Dark Today

Sometimes I wish I could just be one of those happy people that seem to have no problems. I want to wear more than just black without feeling uncomfortable.

Even though I just came back from this really amazing holiday in the Maldives I just can’t help but still feel super depressed about my situation. No matter where I look I see people with kids and sometimes you can just see that they do not even know how lucky they are. I would give everything I own to have my own kid, even if it is a screaming hell-raiser. I would give anything.

Now that my in-laws are here I feel even more resentment at how little people were there for me when I needed them most. I just feel abandoned and I will never forget or forgive.

February 23, 2015 1 Min Read

Aspiration, Anesthetics and Me

Big words that scare me. Tonight I will get yet another injection in preparation of Wednesday’s procedure. Tuesday night my eating and drinking must stop at 10pm. Wednesday I will be in a clinic gown and hopefully I will be home by 1pm.

What scares me most of all the big words are those that could see me never waking up. Those words that they do to you when you are in a medical facility and you get wheeled out in a coffin. I have a real fear of being placed under anesthetics.

I am an optimistic realist – or so I like to think of myself. Just in case anything does go wrong on Wednesday my will is up to date – and I would like to eat a meal fit for a queen. I want chicken and chips with a Cinnabon.

If I make it through this – I deserve a Pandora bracelet this year.

February 20, 2015 1 Min Read

The race to finding eggs

The most frustrating thing about not being able to fall pregnant or to predict a cycle is that I have to wait for a miracle. To get the miracle I have to ingest pills like candy, get poked and injected. It is just horrible.

Seriously, I wish I didn’t have this issue and could just fall pregnant like a stupid teenager.

Monday we will be back in the clinic and hopefully it will be better news than last time. I am seriously in need of extremely good news. if there is no good news we have to wait for yet another cycle.

January 13, 2015 1 Min Read

Failure 1 – Hyper-stimulation and only 1 follicle on day 5

Today we abandoned this cycle. The FS found only 1 follicle on day 5 of hyper-stimulation. Next month we get to do this all over again with a different dosage.

I am so heartbroken.

September 8, 2014 2 Mins Read

How & Where To Find A Surrogate

If you were looking for information on how to find a surrogate, know that you are not alone – we have been down this road for 9 months (irony).

If your fertility clinic keeps a “waiting list for a surrogate” get onto this list asap. (That is the easy one.) Don’t rely on this “waiting list” to produce a surrogate for you – you are probably going to wait a very long time.

Be proactive about finding a surrogate. Talk to all your friends and family and ask them to share your story (if none of them are willing to be your surrogate). Get the info together on what your surrogate can expect – tests she will be expected to go for, fertility drugs, legal and everything else – and put this in an email anyone can send out.

What to expect when you are looking for a surrogate:

Expect many women saying they would love to help, but her husband won’t go for it.
Expect to be asked why you aren’t adopting if you can’t have kids.
Expect to be asked what is wrong with you and can’t you just have IVF.
Expect women saying they will be your surrogate and then just disappear – even if they have discussed it with their husbands and said they will make the appointment for first tests.

Don’t get your hopes up before your potential surrogate went for all the necessary tests and the legal contract is in place.

Never give up. Cry each time you’ve been let down by yet another potential surrogate and get up the next day to start looking again.

Do not limit yourself to 1 clinic or city. We literally put the word out that we would be willing to have a surrogate anywhere in SA that would be willing to travel.

Find your surrogate and hopefully you will be lucky to have your own kid.

September 8, 2014 3 Mins Read

My infertility journey – the tests and fertility clinics (Part 4)

I am so tired. I hate that we are in this situation just because all the gynaecologists I complained to over the years did not listen to my complaints and diagnosed endometrioses. They could have diagnosed this and maybe I would have been able to have kids like other people has. I would NEVER recommend my last gynaecologist at a Life hospital to anyone that would like to have kids.

I have complained to the hospital and to her and she has not had the decency to apologise for her role as physician that she miserably failed in.

Fertility Clinic #1

I was at VL in Johannesburg to receive the initial bad news. Here we were told to find a surrogate ourselves and to do it quickly. We obliged by speaking to all friends, people we know and don’t know – and advertising on Facebook. We finally had a volunteer from Nelspruit and my sister (who isn’t suitable). The Nelspruit lady eventually disappeared before going for the blood tests, but sent through her forms on 3 June – which I immediatly forwarded to the clinic. By 13 June I had left numerous messages on the phone and email for our case worker to get back to me. By end June this really slow case worker finally contacted me to say she didn’t know I was still waiting for an answer…

I was livid.

Then my sister went for her blood tests and after a week I phoned to ask if the case worker had received the results – she didn’t reply. Eventually I emailed her. Another few days passed and I drove to the clinic and threw a huge fit to get VL to send someone 1 floor down to Lancet Laboratories.

I told the woman that eventually pitched that I have had it with VL and that this is the last straw – I will go to another clinic as clearly incompetence is the norm and I do not need the extra stress to have to deal with AH that NEVER responds to any message.

Fertility Clinic # 2

After 9 months of NOTHING happening at VL we moved over to MF and DR C. Another internal sonar, more blood tests, but at least the people seem to more competent and willing to get the ball rolling. Dr C also mentioned that he is willing to put me on DHEA.

I am hopeful that we made the right choice to move clinics.

What tests have I had done thusfar?

AMH, HIV, HEP everything and at MF another internal scan, FSH, Glucose and a bunch of others. I am also back on iron and try to get more sunshine and a variety of veg and fruits in weekly.

September 6, 2014 2 Mins Read

My infertility journey & how to end up without friends and family (Part 3)

I don’t remember a time before the dark circles under my eyes became a permanent fixture. The last day I didn’t cry was somewhere in January. Most days just passed by without me taking much notice of changing seasons, news, life outside, friends…

When you hear news as bad as ours you kind of expect to hear from your friends or family – even if it was just a message on Facebook – especially if you begged everyone on Facebook to share your “Help me find a surrogate” posts.

To this day, not 1 of my more than 20 cousins have contacted me. I have written my family off. If family cannot be there for you when you need them most (and for the first time ever), then you are better off without them. I will never see them again. I will forever remember the lack of support.

I went as far to write them a public Facebook post to ask them why they did not contact me and tagged them. There is NO EXCUSE good enough after that.

My so-called best friend since 14, also magically disappeared after I shared the news with her in January. By end April I called her out on not being supportive or even attempting to contact me. Her reply was “I still want another kid and was scared that you might ask me to be a surrogate”.

I heard you gasp.

I ended that friendship. I also made sure I removed and blocked every person that never made the effort to just send a “thinking of you” or ANY message.

Yes, I let go of a friend just because she got pregnant. I had to. This was the worst thing for me to hear. 3 months of trying and there we go, baby on the way. I knew that she cared about what happened to me, but I also knew that I would not be able to stay sane while sharing in her happiness.

My old life and relationships ended. I have no family other than my parents and sister. I barely have friends left. I no longer look at people and think they might care for anyone other than themselves.

I know my husband has to put up with all of this, but I still do not think he realises the severity of my depression.

September 4, 2014 2 Mins Read

My infertility journey & search for a surrogate – a story of heartbreak (Part 2)

After all the bad news I had to educate myself on all the details of my condition, alternative treatments and making sense of FSH, AMH and a bunch of other letters that made no sense. Most importantly, I had to find a surrogate somehow.

What is Endometrioses? Here is what the Mayo Clinic posted on their website:

“Endometriosis occurs when tissue that normally grows in the uterus implants and grows in other locations. This extra tissue growth — and the surgical removal of it — can cause scarring, which may obstruct the tube and keep the egg and sperm from uniting. It can also affect the lining of the uterus, disrupting implantation of the fertilized egg. The condition also seems to affect fertility in less-direct ways, such as damage to the sperm or egg.”

Finding a surrogate had become my number 1 task. When I wasn’t asking people I was running a Facebook campaign encouraging people to share my posts. I was proactive. I believed that their would be some person that would stand up and say “yes, I will do this for you”.

There were plenty of “yes I want to help” or “how much will you pay?”. There even was a “we have talked about this numerous times and DEFINITELY do this”. To this day not a single person stepped up to do what they said they would do.

Every single person that got my hopes up just to not deliver on that promise of becoming my surrogate drove me into depression. I removed myself from the outside world, from any place or person that could remind me of what I will never have. It has been 9 months since I have been a part of my old life. There is nothing left of the old happy me.

September 2, 2014 2 Mins Read

My infertility journey & search for a surrogate – a story of heartbreak (Part 1)

I wish I had never wasted my time my whole life complaining to gynaecologists. If only one had bothered to listen to the symptoms I described, they would have been able to diagnose me – and possibly have saved me from this infertility journey.

Not a single gynaecologist diagnosed endometrioses – when all the symptoms I described pointed towards it. They rather prescribed “the pill” – even when I complained that it had no effect previously. These so-called specialists in female conditions could have flagged and treated this condition.

Every single gynaecologist gladly took my money and never ever really cared. Now I can never have kids without the help of a surrogate. I am so angry. I am contemplating protesting in their offices.

I eventually went to a fertility (or should I say infertility?) clinic after letting my husband talk me into “trying just a little longer”.

At the fertility clinic they just confirmed what I had always suspected and worse. My uterus might as well have been Mars. Endometrioses have literally made it the most hostile landscape with no possibility of ever sustaining a pregnancy. To top the news off, I possibly had very few eggs left and quality may be an issue.

I was devastated.