My journey to motherhood and lessons I learned during my IVF pregnancy
After my husband and I got married in our late twenties, we talked about kids, travel, and what we wanted out of life. But, when we talked about kids initially, we seemed to share the mindset of “we are a family just us” and wanted to approach the idea of having children with an “if it happens that's great! But if it doesn’t, that's okay too” mentality.
Once our thirties rolled around we thought to ourselves that we might as well try and see what happens. Even though we didn’t feel “ready”, we felt we had traveled to some pretty cool places, had family that would support us, and thought about the regret we might have if we never tried. We also admitted that the feeling of being “ready” may never come.
As someone who has worked with children my whole life in various roles, I’ve always loved them, and always thought I would be a mom. But I think I wanted to have the attitude of “go with the flow,” and not get too attached to the idea of kids if it was something that wasn’t in the cards for us. It’s interesting how much my mentality changed as we began to “try”.
What I learned was that once we decided to just go for it and see, I slowly wanted a baby more and more. After six months of trying, and six negative tests, we decided to go to get some testing done. All the tests came back “fine”. With nothing too alarming to deal with, my doctor was hopeful about doing IUI, a less invasive procedure than IVF that didn’t involve medications.
We tried it once. We tried it twice.
And over the course of many months, we tried it SIX times, which looking back, if we could do it over we would not have done it so many times. Finally, after enough dancing around the scary thought of IVF, we decided to move forward to an actual fertility clinic for further testing, and discuss the possibility of IVF. By that point, it had been over a year and half, due to all the waiting for tests, waiting for cycles to match up with appointments, and so on. To say we had to be patient was an understatement.
But, making the switch to the fertility clinic gave us newfound hope. It felt like a fresh start, and that we’d be getting more specialized treatment. By that point, I think any fears about the process, or squeamish-ness towards the thought of needles never entered my mind. I was ready to try something with more promise. And I am SO thankful my husband and I were on the same page. I needed to know if I was going to be able to have children or if I needed to mentally prepare myself for a different future.
We liked the doctor and he gave us hope…. at first. After more months of waiting, tests, insurance debacles, medication delivery mishaps, two grueling rounds of hoping for a solid number of eggs to retrieve, we were left with two more rounds of bad news. The matter of fact “sorry-maybe-next-times” were beginning to feel normal, and like that would be the news until infinity.
By the end of these two cycles, my doctor also didn’t sound very hopeful that my body would be able to produce eggs that were strong enough to lead to a pregnancy. He very matter-of-factly said I was responding like a “woman in her late forties”, that my egg quality was poor, and I wasn’t responding to treatment the way he’d hoped. So even though they were able to fertilize my eggs, they never made it to a state viable enough to transfer them in order to even ATTEMPT a chance at pregnancy. All those needles, and waiting, I didn’t even get one single attempt.
We were so committed to doing it right, that we even had a family friend once break down our basement door to get into the house to grab the syringes I left at home in a cooler when we took a trip five hours away from home, and deliver them to us so I could take my doses on time.
Despite all of that, we were back to square one.
But now, things were different. My doctor said we would need donor eggs and that I wouldn’t be able to have my own kids. I’ll never forget how casually he asked me “do you have a sister?” suggesting if I did have one, that the easy solution was that she could give me hers, and voila! I’d have a biological child! But deep down, I felt even if I did have a sister, this wasn’t a pair of jeans I’d be asking to borrow, and going the route of donor eggs was a MUCH bigger deal than how this doctor presented it to us. Anyway, since I didn’t have a sister, and didn’t have good eggs, the doctor gave us a pamphlet on choosing donor eggs.
I have always been kind of an impulsive person, so by now, a couple years into trying to conceive, all the waiting had really gotten to me. By this point I began to accept the news, and started picturing myself flipping through an album of donors, trying to find someone that looked like me— olive skin complexion, curly hair, and “at least our baby would be half my husband’s”! I thought. I started to feel okay about this, and that it wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t biological on my end. “There are plenty of ways to create a family” I rationalized. Our baby would still be half me and I couldn’t imagine NOT feeling love, and care for a baby after carrying them for nine months, and bringing them into this world.
Although this is a route many families take, my husband on the other hand acknowledged that this was way too big of a life changing decision to just jump into, and felt strongly about considering a second opinion. And I am so thankful for his sense of reason through all of this, because getting a second opinion made all the difference.
Thankfully we had access to a cutting edge fertility clinic known for more complicated infertility cases in the Boston area. After a bit more, of course, waiting, we finally were able to consult with our new fertility specialist. I actually didn’t believe him when he expressed he was confident I would be able to conceive with my own eggs, with the help of the seemingly more experimental treatment protocols they offered. They came up with a cocktail of drugs completely different from my previous clinic, and miraculously, I was able to end up with TWO grade A embryos. In about three years I had never gotten this far in the process. And I was very aware that for many women, the number of eggs retrieved are often in the double digits, and that it could take multiple embryo transfers to be successful.
With this in mind, I aimed to protect my heart and kept my expectations low that either of my two would be successful and lead to a live baby.
Well, we ended up being blessed with nothing short of a miracle (although, I can’t say enough great things about the lab and excellent science they are doing at this clinic). Three days after my embryo transfer, I was indeed pregnant, and had at least ten positive tests to prove it. I moved along the early stages bouncing in between states of denial and disbelief. It wasn’t until I graduated to my regular OB, and the number of times I received good news began to outweigh the bad news, that I began to accept and anticipate this pregnancy as REAL.
The pandemic was just beginning when I learned of my pregnancy, and in all honesty, I felt mostly unfazed by the “cons” of a pandemic pregnancy. I wasn’t sad about needing to trade in a big baby shower for a small backyard lunch. And didn’t bat an eye over the fact that I couldn’t go shopping with my family for baby things. ALL of that meant nothing, as long as my new little guy kept growing well. I was very lucky to have a smooth, healthy pregnancy, and amazing labor experience after all that we had gone through.
To this day when I look at my five month old baby boy, I am just as blown away that he is here, as the day he made his appearance.
My journey to motherhood taught me five important lessons:
I am strong! I’ve always struggled a bit with self-confidence, but if anything, this experience has taught me that I can push through hard things, and bring myself to the brink of exhaustion and still keep going. It was the rollercoaster of this experience - the cycle of hope, grief, anticipation, and disappointment that I learned I am truly capable of much more than I give myself credit for.
I can be patient. There was no way to rush any bit of this process. I was forced to wait—for blood tests, cycles to begin, appointments, and even for a new box of medications after one got stolen off my doorstep once! I used art therapy, other forms of distraction to help with patience as the periods of grief loomed, as well as online support groups, dark humor, and sharing experience with others who had been through something similar. It was definitely worth the wait and I’m glad I didn’t give up.
I learned not to question others about when they are having kids. This is because I know that you can never know what kind of infertility struggle someone is going through or went through. I know that it is much more common than it is spoken about.
Support is everything. There is no way I would have been able to continue through this experience without the support of others. I learned it's okay to need different support at different times. At times I wanted nothing to do with the topic and other times I needed to share what I was going through and hear other people’s stories. The women that shared their infertility experiences in support groups or even acquaintances that chimed made all the difference in this experience, which was isolating at times.
I have so much love to give. I never knew I could love like this! My heart explodes with love when I see my son each day first thing in the morning, smiling in his crib. Each new milestone, and mini achievement, each smile, laugh, and just seeing him be, thinking about how he will grow and who he will become made the whole ordeal completely 100% worth it.
I also have a special place in my heart for mothers who are still on a motherhood journey that was similar to mine, still riding that emotional rollercoaster wondering when it will end. This will be my first Mother’s Day, and it is truly one worth celebrating!
To find and infertility support group visit: resolve.org