Clinical Trial

I've gone back and forth trying to decide whether to actually write anything about this.  I generally try to write things that may be of some encouragement to someone else, maybe give someone a little giggle, update friends and family on happenings in our adoption journeys, etc. 

You know, something of some small value to others. 

This post does none of that.  This post is really just to make me feel better. 

Feel free to stop reading if you want.  I won't be insulted.

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This post is to make me feel a little "normal."  Please take it in the spirit in which it is intended, which is not to make anyone else who has walked the journey we have feel that they are not normal.  You are.  We all are, in that we are all humans struggling with the human condition.  This post is just to re-affirm that for me.

Ok.  Enough throat clearing.

A couple weeks ago, I received a letter from our local research hospital.  They were asking me to participate in a clinical trial for the treatment (reduction) of endometriosis.  They apparently got my name because they were looking for patients who had a surgical diagnosis of moderate-severe endometriosis.  I had a laparoscopy back in 2009 that revealed some endometriosis.  Isn't that a HIPAA violation or something for my other doctor to release my name to this researcher?

Anyhoo, the letter sat on my desk for many days.  I didn't know whether I wanted to respond to it. 

I finally did.  I received all of the information about it.  Investigational study.  A pill. Six month treatment cycle followed by another 12-18 months of monthly monitoring.  Stipend of $2300. 

But, buried in the disclosures, something caught my eye.  This medicine could stop ovulation while taking the pill.

Last summer, my ob/gyn put me on Clomid to determine if I ovulate.  He determined I didn't.  It was a surprising (and upsetting) diagnosis to me, but I grew to at least tolerate it.

But, something caused me to wander into my doctor's office last week to get a blood test.  It just so happened that I was at a place in my cycle where it would be ideal to get a blood test to determine if I do actually ovulate.  If I don't ovulate, I told myself, I'll do the clinical trial.  If I do, I won't.

Sure, we have only like a 1% chance (seriously, we've been told that figure) of getting pregnant on our own.  Yes, we are happily pursuing adoption through the state.  But, getting these results was not really about any of those things.  It wasn't really about the hopes of a pregnancy (although that's definitely still there), and it wasn't about veering off course from our adoption pursuits (we are still doing that). 

It was about trying to feel like a "normal" (non-infertile) woman.  Or, at least moving more into the acceptance that maybe if I wasn't "normal" in that way, I was still "normal" in many other ways, and blessed beyond belief.

If I ovulate, I told myself, then I will feel more "normal."  That's it.  It doesn't increase our chance of pregnancy (still 1%), and it doesn't change our path to our next child.  It just makes me feel better.  If I don't ovulate, I told myself, then okay, the chance of us ever getting pregnant pretty much closes, and perhaps I can stop daydreaming that it will ever happen, and take the next step toward accepting how God will build our family. 

I got the test results back the next day.

I do, it turns out, ovulate.  Regularly.  On schedule.  Just fine.

A brief moment of normalcy after 7 years of feeling abnormal.

It's kind of nice.