Transcript Code Refined (cleaned) Code Theme Interviewer: My first question is just a really broad question that is...how did the experience of infertility affect you?               Jane Doe: Say that again.               Interviewer: How did the experience of infertility affect you?               Jane Doe: So I’d say, in general, it was shocking. It’s not something that you actually think that is going to happen. At times, it felt lonely because it wasn’t something that other people were experiencing. There was a strong sense of loss in terms of biology being passed from yourself to a child. There wasn’t really a lot of information out there about it. People were scared because there were a lot of unknowns and every situation is different, so when you were trying to find something specifically about your situation, you would find someone who maybe they had a piece of what you were going through but not everything that you were going through.               Interviewer: Right.               Jane Doe: So I had to compare like "Oh well, the doctor could this for me or this is what I did. In the beginning I was really vocal about it which I don’t know if I should have been. I think for me that was the way we thought that did. So we thought a lot of unsolicited advice and so, once you start inviting people into that, you can’t uninvite them.               Interviewer: Right.               Jane Doe: I found that I was angry a lot of times and I took it out on a lot of people. Looking back in high site, there a lot of  I had no business attending, friends that I really did not treat well because I couldn’t deal with it. My view at that time was, “Woe is me, look at what I’m going through,” and so, you know, “excuse me for snapping off on you, but I can’t have a baby.”               Interviewer: Uh huh. Tell me a little bit about how you came to learn that you had been diagnosed with some fertility issues?               Jane Doe: I decided in 2007 that I was going to stop taking birth control and that we were going to start trying. After having a lot of conversations with my doctor, we determined that my cycles were not normal and so we did the ultrasound and I learned about the fibroid's so one of the fibroids was remove the fibroid's and you’ll be able to become pregnant and it was that simple. So, we scheduled that as a result of the surgery. For 6 months, and I was told after that you should be fine to go ahead and try. After trying for probably – at that point it had been about a year – I went back to the doctor and we started running a lot of tests.               Interviewer: Okay.               Jane Doe: At that point, one of the things that I learned was that because of the surgeries I had significant scar tissue and that the scar tissue connected my tubes to my uterus, and that one tube was knotted up so that was the start of it, but I’d say after that, there were a lot of extra things that I learned along the way.                               Jane Doe: Tell me how far do you want me to go?               Interviewer: Why don’t you talk about that because I’m also interested if you had to have any additional surgeries or if you have to take any medication or anything like that.               Jane Doe: I then was referred to an infertility specialist. We discussed whether I would go back to in vitro or an IUI. I was told that the chances were a lot higher with IVF then because of my advanced age, that I might want to think about that. For me, I decided to go straight through that because, I’m like, “You know what, I’m really not wasting time on an IUI. So we started the process. Before they would do anything or be tested and things like that. So, John Doe then got tested and we find out that he has zero sperm count. At that point, we needed to be more detailed but they can’t put him on medication for a year and he had different medication for his sperm count to come back. After the surgery, we were able to retrieve sperm from his testes and so at that point, we were able to start the IVF. With the IVF, what they don’t tell you is that they don’t really know a lot about stuff until they go in, and so after we started the IVF, one of the things that I was told was that I had low ovarian reserve. Also, I didn’t ovulate. I was physically ovulating and so, each of the times that I did the IVF, it was really…you know, people were like “Oh, I got 16 eggs! I got 20 eggs!” And I was like I have 2. And of those 2 they were really poor quality.                Interviewer: Okay. What kind of bodily changes or states were you aware of during this time?               Jane Doe: During that time [or during that time of the actual IVF?                               Jane Doe: I tell you, in terms of bodily changes…prior to starting any medication, I didn’t have a lot of…these bodily changes had more to do with the surgery and not feeling like my…there was any muscle in my stomach and then I started to get back pain because of that or pain in my hips because I was so off center with my abdomen not having enough muscles to support my back.               Interviewer: Uh huh.