It was August 30th 2011, Tommy and I were still in the newly-wed phase of our marriage as evidenced by my willingness to both order and deliver his dinner when he worked late. Nearly two years later, things have changed ever so slightly: no more delivery and all dirty dishes are his domain. The only problem with the dinner for two was that I couldn’t eat a bite.  Though I had been fine all day, that evening I felt strange and decided that Tommy would be dining alone. So I went home, crawled into bed and hoped to feel better in the morning. I was not so lucky; at 2:00 am I awoke to feelings of stomach pain, still I wasn’t sure that it was serious, so I decided to wake up Tommy and allowed him to join the debate – that went over really well. “Toby,  do you want to go the TEREM?!” (the emergency clinic). He was exhausted  and I don’t remember him offering to accompany me.  In any case, I didn’t really want to go out in the middle of the night so I rolled over and went back to sleep… eventually.

That morning I probably should have gone to the doctor before heading to work. However, I prefer to go the route of ignoring it and seeing if it just disappears; it’s kind of the opposite of hypochondria. I was not always like this, as a child I used the tiniest possible ailment to enjoy a day off from school- my parents lovingly nicknamed me “Sarah Heartburn.” Nowadays, I wait for a clear symptom before I accept that something is actually wrong. More importantly, I was three days into a new job and really did not want to be sick so I willed myself to feel okay.

Then, at about noon, I sneezed and felt a horrible stabbing pain on my right side. I jumped out of my chair and yelled “ouch” -nobody heard as I have my own office. Okay, I decided (with some coaching from a few g-chat friends) I should go to the doctor- after work, of course.

After a brief exam where she put pressure on my side to see if it hurt  and it did, the doctor told me to go the emergency room ASAP. She thought it was either and appendicitis or an ovarian torsion, either way I needed to go to the hospital.

Tommy and I headed to the hospital at 6:00 pm and there began six hours of debate between the gynecologists and the general surgeons. Basically, they needed to rule out a torsion to determine that it was appendicitis. As we waited between tests we called a family friend who is a doctor to get his opinion; he thought it was neither because I was far too talkative to be in pain! Do you even know me?! I managed to convince myself that it couldn’t be anything because if it was really serious, they would obviously be able to diagnose it with relative ease. At about midnight they sent me for a CT to rule out a torsion. I was convinced that I would soon be heading home.

Nope. About an hour later the surgical resident came to speak to us and appendicitis it was. He did his best to demonstrate compassion and empathy, but he was a little too excited at the prospect of being able to perform a surgery – if I hadn’t already known this from all the Grey’s Anatomy I have watched, it became blatantly obvious when he bragged to his colleagues as he accompanied to surgery! “How do you know?”I asked. Actions speak louder than words and in response he places pressure on my right side, “OUCH!” Really, I can’t say enough about bedside manner. Tommy called our doctor friend who said, “don’t worry any idiot can perform an appendectomy.”

I went into surgery with so many things on my mind: I gave all of my personal belongings to a nurse who helped me get ready for the surgery while Tommy signed a bunch of papers and I hoped that he would actually receive them; the next day I was meant to have been in charge or a really important project at work or not; I was nervous about the operation and possible infection; mostly, I was in pain.

The next thing I knew I was in the recovery room. Tommy’s was the first face I saw and I remember feeling love and relief. I would be Okay. My new colleagues sent flowers. I, however, was still not convinced that I had actually had appendicitis; maybe it was  just pain from a cyst. I consulted with my family doctor who requested the pathology report. Turns out that sometimes it is just appendicitis.

May 31st, 2010 was my last day on the job in Haifa and the  very next day, I started my new job in Jerusalem. I took no time off between the jobs; this was not one of my better decisions but I had only myself to blame. There is never an excuse for not spending  at least one day fully in pajamas between jobs; lesson learned.

My move signaled that our wedding planning was now in full swing. A couple of weeks later Tommy’s parents arrived in Israel from Budapest – that was the first time that I met them – and my parents flew in from Philadelphia. Tommy and I wanted our parents to meet one another before the wedding and an engagement party was the  perfect excuse (if you are asking yourself, ” hey, why wasn’t I invited?” you can relax, it was family only). Of course I was a little afraid that their first meeting would go something like this:

Amazingly, we discovered that we had the essential component to the perfect in-law relationship, a total  language barrier. Sure, at the end of the visit Tommy was sick of being a Hungarian-English translator, but that is a small price to pay for a total lack of minor disagreements that can become a whole lot of stress.  In most cases, Tommy would translate any bit of Hungarian to an English, “very good”. Of course, I had enough Hungarian to realize that the only thing my parents ever said to his parents could be summed up in two Hungarian words, “nagyon jó!” Everyone had a great time and we were all excited to celebrate in November.

There was one small hitch: I went ever so slightly bridezilla when my sister in the US called my parents during their visit to inform them that she was pregnant and would be 8 + months pregnant at the wedding! All I could think about was the possibility that she would go into labor the day of MY wedding and steal the spotlight. I also knew that there was a chance that she would not be able to attend the wedding. I was annoyed and irrational and in the end everything worked out wonderfully. My sister came to the wedding and her adorable son was born a month later.

In retrospect, I have to admit that what bothered me the most about my sister getting pregnant was that I had just been told that I would likely have difficulties in that area. In the midst of all the celebrating, I was somewhat worried that we would be in for a struggle when it came to starting a family. Tommy and I talked about the possibility quite a bit and we decided to take things as they come.  At the moment we would take the opportunity  to celebrate the engagement, wedding and time with our family.

Our parents went home and I made an appointment with a gynecologist; I asked around for recommendations from friends but figured he had to be better than Dr. Google. I showed him the images from the ultrasound and the new doctor could see all of Dr. Google’s notes. I explained that I needed a second opinion. After reviewing everything he gave me one piece of advice, “If a doctor ever tells you that you need to have immediate surgery, make sure that a different doctor actually opens you up”.  He may have overstated it as a hard-and-fast rule, but the point was well taken; my inclination to get a second opinion had been validated. Yes! This doctor wanted to monitor the cysts for a bit, especially since I was not in any pain. He told me to come back after the wedding and he will order new ultrasounds and blood tests. I left the appointment relieved and ready to enjoy the exciting few months that lay ahead.

It has been awhile since my last post; it turns out that I have a difficult time writing about infertility when my in-laws are in town. Who knew?

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The first time that I was told that I might have difficulty getting pregnant was in 2010, the moment itself is actually etched into my memory. Right before I moved from Haifa back to Jerusalem, I am sorry to say, that I paid another visit to Dr. Google – I know, I have no excuse.

I told Dr. Google that it would be my last visit as I was moving to Jerusalem and would be getting married at the end of November. Mazal Tov! I could tell that he was genuinely happy for me. He asked me how old I was and told me that at 32 I had no reason to be concerned about trying to get pregnant. “It’s a wonderful age,” I believe were his exact words. We talked about the vitamins that I should start taking a few months before we tried to conceive. There was a lighthearted air in the room.

Then he started to review my electronic medical records which included his own notes.

His tone changed and his face appeared concerned.

“Eh, you have ovarian cysts,” he says.

At this point I am thinking, “yeah, we have been through this for the past two years; it’s all in the file that YOU wrote!”

Without any warning or much explanation – that is pretty much par for the course with this guy – he tells me that I should have the cysts surgically removed and that he can take them out next week.

WHAT?! Okay, next week, you want me to cancel everything and have surgery at the drop of the hat? There were many things that I had planned for the upcoming week: I was going to finish my job in Haifa, move to Jerusalem, start a new job, oh and yeah my parents and in-laws to be were arriving so that we could finalize the plans for the wedding. Why not just add a surgery in to make the week complete? I was starting to feel pretty overwhelmed by the conversation. I told Dr. Google that I would consider his advice and get back to him.

I walked home considering the option. How pressing was this? What about a second or third opinion? Did I really want Dr. Google to be my surgeon? The more I thought about it, the more it was clear to me that I needed to learn more about the situation before considering this surgery.

I also realized some important things that are crucial and have changed my approach to dealing with infertility. Our doctors work as partners with us, they don’t dictate all decisions that are made. We all know that doctors can make mistakes, miss the whole picture and have conflicting opinions. The decisions regarding the treatments that we choose are mine and Tommy’s to make. We don’t ignore medical advice. Instead, we consider it as we make our decisions about how we want to proceed.

More importantly, I learned that infertility cannot trump all  the other aspects of my life – in most cases.  This is a part of what I am doing these days. Yes, I do move mountains to have tests and procedures done at specific times and places so that I can get pregnant. It is not, however, all consuming.

Sometimes the cysts have to wait, and wait they did.