Prologue

Adam & I had always planned on getting married, me finishing medical school, him establishing a career and then starting a family. Needless to say it was quite a blow when we found out at the beginning of the summer that I had a congenital uterine anomaly that left me with extremely high odds of having difficulties getting pregnant, and staying pregnant for that matter. At the end of June, after suffering from abdominal pain and vomiting for days, I finally decided to go to the GYN. They did a whole battery of tests, and ended up doing an ultrasound to check if maybe an ovarian cyst was the cause of my symptoms. They did indeed find a cyst, but they also informed me that I had a uterine septum. This didn't sound like a very good thing to me, so I had a bunch of questions for the doctor right away. She explained that I was born with a septum, basically a wall of tissue, dividing my uterus, essentially making it heart shaped instead of pear shaped. She told me that it wasn't a problem right then because we weren't planning on having children yet, but when we did decide to try and conceive we would probably run into some issues and would have to seek the assistance of a specialist. I left the office devastated, and immediately starting looking up the diagnosis online (I know.. as a medical professional I really should know to stay off the internet.. but I couldn't help it.) I decided that instead of reading forums and horror stories online that I was going to be proactive and find a specialist right then and there, get professional advice, and start building a relationship with a doctor that we would hopefully keep until we decided to have children. I found an amazing doctor, and was able to set up an appointment with her mid-August. She was so helpful and informative. She clearly explained my diagnosis, and told me all of the odds that were against me. She told me that there was about an 80% chance of having a miscarriage every time I conceived, since there was a high probability that the embryo would implant on the septum, and would not be provided with the appropriate nutrients to survive. If I beat those odds, and the embryo implanted elsewhere in my hostile uterus, I would have an 80% chance of going into preterm labor because due to the septum, my uterus wouldn't be able to stretch like it would need to and the baby would be born early. As if those statistics weren't bad enough.. I had a 90% chance of having to have a C-section, due to the septum preventing the baby from turning into a head-down position therefore, leaving the baby in the breech position. She informed me of a surgery that was an option to remove the septum, but explained how that came with its own set of risks of course, many of which were the same as if I just left it in. I felt so much more informed after meeting with her. Even though everything she said left me horrified, I was happy to have the right information. It didn't make things much easier though, since being a mother was the only thing in the world besides being a doctor that I wanted to do in life. I always said I wanted a whole litter of kids running around, and I wanted to have them all naturally with no epidural. Needless to say this diagnosis basically looked at my life plans and laughed in my face.. Adam was very supportive and helped me through a lot of the emotions I was feeling. With August coming to a close, school starting up again and me starting my new job, I decided that my hostile uterus had to take the back burner and that I would deal with it when the time came. But you know what they say.. once you stop wishing for something is when you typically get it..