Explained

The lap went well. Really well. When they got inside, they found an enormous mass of scar tissue left over from an infection I had (and was hospitalized for) three years ago. Instead of a 25 minute procedure, it took my doctor over two hours to remove everything. He suspected that there could be some scarring when we first discussed the surgery, but from what J has told me about the report he and my mom got after the surgery was over, even the doctor was suprised at how much scarring there actually was.

When I was wheeled into recovery, still mostly asleep, I heard the doctor tell me that he had found "a ton" of scar tissue, removed it, and that we shouldn't have any problem getting pregnant now. Even though I was almost completely gorked out, I almost started crying. Now that I'm home and more awake, I still have to resist the urge to repeatedly ask Juan or my mom again if I'm just imagining this wonderful news. After pretty much resigning myself to being "unexplained", finding out that this was probably our biggest problem all along feels incredibly surreal.

I'll be recovering from the surgery for the next couple of weeks. We may or may not have to take this cycle off, depending on how I'm feeling. We'll obviously need to work up a completely new game plan for when (or if) I should make an appointment with the local RE. Since the scar tissue almost certainly prevented my eggs from even reaching my fallopian tubes during the last 17 cycles, we're effectively beginning again with a clean slate. Under the circumstances, I think it's unlikely that we'll attempt IUI or any other fertility treatment plan until we've tried on our own for at least a few months.

It's been an incredibly long day and I'm exhausted so I'll wrap this up now, but I just needed to share how well everything went today. While not finding anything would have been fine, knowing that there's an identifiable reason why we haven't gotten pregnant yet has lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.