No More Empty Arms: I'm Finally A Mom At 41

When I was 19 years old I saw my first reproductive endocrinologist. He told me that I'd probably have problems getting pregnant - that I had low progesterone and high Prolactin. He was going to give me some medicine to help me ovulate, but I backed out at the last minute.

I guess subconsciously I was scared because I wasn’t married yet, just living with someone. Like most young girls, I'd dreamed of the husband, the house with the white picket fence, and the 2.3 children. I married at age 25, which ended in divorce at age 27. I remarried a month after our divorce, right before my 28th birthday.

I knew that if I wanted children, I needed to go to the doctor. The first thing this reproductive endocrinologist did was a HSG, which was a test to check my fallopian tubes. The test showed that both of my tubes were shut on the ends. The doctor advised me that I would need IVF in order to conceive, or that I could try tubal repair surgery, which had a five per cent success rate.

I contacted my insurance company and they would only cover the surgery to repair my tubes, not the IVF. At that time 1996 IVF cost at least $8,000 plus medications, which cost another couple of thousand dollars. So, I underwent the surgery to repair my tubes in May 1996.

In June of 1997 I did have a positive pregnancy test, but when I went to the doctor, the blood count of the pregnancy hormone was really low, and the following day it fell to a negative level. This pregnancy is what they called a "chemical pregnancy," and it is still unknown if it was in the uterus or tube.