Day light at the end of the IVF nightmare: Infertility saga

One of the deepest fear my wife had was the fear of not being able to conceive. The fear wasn't baseless. She had a history of physical abuse by her brother who used to beat her on a regular basis. Hits to the stomach and abdomen was parts and parcel of the whole ordeal. I always tried to downplay the issue and never invoked this as a reason for our problems. Maybe what I did was right or wrong, thats a discussion for a different day. 

I never wanted a kid just after getting married. I always thought of having some time to ourselves after marriage, get our finances sorted before bringing a baby to the world. After 3 years of marriage, my wife finally convinced me that it was right time to have a baby. 

We started trying for one(you know how its done). And we failed. Months after months and her fear was slowly turning into reality. 

Somewhere deep inside I knew something was wrong as well, but I wasn't agreeing on the fact. Finally against all my wishes, we went to see a doctor. 

Mind you, I was of the mind to wait for another few months before going to the doctor. But my wife suffers from Bipolar disorder and the anxiety just worsens her condition.

We did the routine blood work, urine tests and sperm testing. Turns out I had low sperm count due to some blockade. Like low enough that it would be difficult to conceive without naturally. 

A few months of medical treatments showed no improvement. We were left the options of either having an IUI or an IVF.

Since we didn't think some thing was wrong with my wife and IUI was much cheaper and way less intrusive than an IVF, we went with the former. 

Two rounds, two hits on our moral. The doctor assured us that we will have a child. IUI does take multiple rounds for a successful pregnancy. I scoured the internet and it was same print every where. 

Still the doctor suggested one more test called an HSG. He said he didn't do it earlier since it was very intrusive and can be painful. 

When my wife came out of testing, her hair were disheveled and had tear marks on her face. It was that painful for her. The report came out equally horrifying as the suffering caused by the testing. Both her fallopian tubes were blocked. Remnants of scaring. One of the cause could have been the beatings she recieved. I didn't mention that. It would spiral her already fragile mental health. She was crying herself to sleep everyday over a baby everyday. Things weren't really looking bright. 

We lost the faith in the doctor. We felt cheated since the IUI was useless process for us. Mind you, he was one of the best doctors around us. 

We went around visiting all available doctors and IVF clinics. We settled on a doctor, equally good success rates, but known for being a little rude at times. 

We went with our reports. He wasn't rude, but neither cordial as well. We decided to let it be, the baby would be more important to us either way. 

Round one of IVF. After so many medicines and the countless injections and the egg extraction, we finally had an inplant. 

But you might have read the theme right. Tragedy stuck. My father-in-law passed away just after a couple of days after the procedure. Its adviced to have a little rest and have a stress free atmosphere. She might not have had the best of relationship with her father, but it was her father. 

Maybe it was the stress, may be it wasn't. But it was a failed attempt. 

Round two added to our misery. And such procedures are tough. We had enough embryos for one more attempt. 

Round three failed us as well. We started to face the heat of crippling finances and poor mental health. We had to visit our psychiatrist once again and take medicine for mental well being. 

We went back to our doctor and my wife just broke down in front of him. She cried and cried. At that point, I saw the doctor break his stoic shell and console my wife whole heartedly. He repeatedly assured her that he will help her however, even with financing and discounts. Infact, he assured us that if we wanted to go ahead with a donor embryo, he will do it for free. 

It was a big decision to make. A donor embryo meant the baby won't be genetically ours. It never mattered to me. But my wife was hesitant about it. 

She said it would be effective cost wise, I said I will borrow whatever is needed of she wants to have our own baby, but I don't want her to go through the whole egg retrieval process. The medicines used to increase the follicles are harsh. 

She finally agreed for the donor embryo. I was kind of relieved about it tbh. You see, bipolar disorders run in a family. It depends on genetics and our kid not having a part of that heritage seemed like a good thing to me. He would also miss the chance to have a wandering eye from my side of the family. 

We hit gold on the fourth attempt. 

Will talk about the next part of the journey if people are interested in it. 

Also, questions regarding IVF, Bipolar disorder and the whole infertility scenario is welcomed. I know how difficult it can be and am willing to help as much as I can.