My Journey Through Infertility

At 30, I had resigned myself to the fact that I may never meet the love of my life and I may never have kids. As it turned out I hadn’t quite waited long enough. I met him shortly after and we married in October 2011. He has a daughter from his previous marriage and we knew we wanted to have our own kids together. Easy right? Month after heartbreaking month went by and nothing. We decided it was time to get things checked out and just make sure there was nothing wrong. In July 2012, I scoped out a new OB who specializes in infertility and struck gold! She is absolutely amazing and most of all she listened to my concerns and took me seriously. I was amazed at how much they could tell by doing a blood draw on cycle day three and an ultrasound on a specific cycle day. Everything was looking good until I went in for a HSG (hysterosalipngogram). It’s a simple procedure where they insert a dye through the cervix and into the uterus and flush it through to make sure the tubes are opened. The radiologist tried and nothing happened. He tried again and was able to force some dye through but it only showed 1 tube and what appeared to be a unicornuate uterus (only 1 horn instead of 2). I managed to make it out to my car before I broke down. Had my dream to have kids been crushed in this one appointment?

I went in to meet with my OB to review the results of all of my tests and everything looked good except for my uterus and tubes. We learned IVF was going to be our only option to have kids. She also recommended that I have a laparoscopy surgery to check my tube that was connected and get a good look at my uterus. I was heartbroken. One of the most important things my body is supposed to be able to do as a woman was one thing I would not be able to do. It took a little while to mourn the idea of having kids “the old fashion way.”

We were referred to a fertility clinic nearby and decided we needed to at least explore our options. We attended a seminar in September. After listening to the presentation given by one of the doctors, I still wasn’t convinced IVF would work for us. All reference was made to a “normal uterus.” It certainly didn’t seem mine would be considered normal. We were able to get a few minutes one on one with the doctor after the seminar and he seemed very optimistic. We decided we couldn’t not give it a try. We called and made an appointment with the clinic to see if this was the best option for us.

We met with our new fertility doctor (RE) in October. She decided to take a chance on us but it was decided that a shared risk program was going to be our best option. We would pay more, but we would get several tries and if nothing worked we would get some of our money back. It was recommended that we only transfer 1 embryo to make sure both baby and me would be safe. In order to proceed though, I first had to have the recommended surgery.

November 1st I went in for surgery. We decided that we would remove both tubes since she was already in there to avoid any future complications. In addition, she removed a rudimentary horn on my uterus, some endometriosis and a large cyst on my ovary. I went in 2 weeks later for a follow up and got the best news ever – I could get pregnant as soon as January 1, 2013. We were overjoyed. We finally received some good news!

We went back to our RE and got things rolling to start our first IVF cycle. It was scary and overwhelming and exciting all at once. We started stimulation (stims) in mid January and went in on January 30 for our egg retrieval. It wasn’t a moment too soon. I was pretty sure my ovaries were going to explode. They harvested 12 eggs. Of those, seven were mature, five fertilized and three made it to blastocyst stage (a good embryo). Our transfer was scheduled forFebruary 4th. Oh my gosh we were getting excited.

When we went in for our transfer, everything went perfectly. Our little blastocyst was doing great! After the transfer we would have to wait two weeks to find out if it worked. On February 15th we got the call, we were pregnant!!

All of our hard work, patience and persistence paid off and we received the ultimate reward. My pregnancy was very uneventful, and after being told I would likely go early given my “special uterus,” it also felt very long. Our baby girl was born just 3 days early.

I share our journey with anybody that will listen. I remember feeling very alone and I don’t want others to feel that way. I want people to know they have a place they can turn if they are dealing with similar circumstances.

We recently went through a FET (frozen embryo cycle) which ended in a blighted ovum. Devastation struck our family again, but we will not give up. We have one more embryo and when the time is right we will try again. Never give up on something you truly want!