My husband and I got married in May 2018. When we started dating, we talked about how we both always knew we wanted to have kids and soon enough that dream started to become our dream together. We would make plans, talk about what our own children would be like, and dream about our future.
We decided to start trying a few months after our wedding. We got pregnant the first month we started trying – a faint line on a cheap pregnancy test strip. Unsure if this was truly positive, we retested the next day and found a darker line but followed was what I thought was my period. I thought it was a fluke but I later realized this was my first pregnancy loss, better known as a chemical pregnancy.
We tried again and a couple months later, we were pregnant again. We both agreed not to really believe it until we saw the words “Pregnant” on a Clear Blue test. Those words appeared and we thought this must be it. We told our families and started the early phases of hesitantly dreaming, buying pregnancy books, and anxiously awaiting a doctor appointment. A couple of weeks later, I started spotting. We called the Doctor and went in for an ultrasound and we saw an empty gestational sack and were told to wait it out. I went on a work trip and miscarried in the hotel room miles away from my husband. We were devastated.
We were eager to move on from this loss and get pregnant again. My bloodwork showed no signs of known risk factors for repeat pregnancy loss. We tried acupuncture, supplements, endless google searches, “relaxing”, all the old wives tales…you name it we tried it or rolled our eyes at it. For 6 months, no pregnancy and we decided to seek help.
We called the fertility clinic and did all of our initial bloodwork and ultrasounds. Everything looked “good” and we were diagnosed with Secondary Unexplained Infertility. Secondary because we had gotten pregnant spontaneously before and unexplained because fertility testing didn’t identify a cause to explain our infertility. My numbers looked great, my husband’s numbers looked great.
We started off with doing IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) with fertility medication: Femara (or Letrozole) to help me increase egg production and a trigger shot (HCG injection) to time my ovulation for the IUI procedures. None of our IUIs worked and we don’t know why. Each produced a negative pregnancy test.
After the first 3 IUIs failed, we decided to move forward with IVF. While we were doing the testing necessary to get cleared for IVF, we did our last IUI. After that IUI failed. We had a month break in between that IUI and IVF starting and, to our surprise, we got pregnant on our own.
Cautious, but hopeful, we informed our IVF doctor and they agreed to closely monitor this pregnancy. During this grueling time of weekly limbo between doctor visits, COVID hit. We watched the clinic get emptier each week, as they were cancelling IVF and IUI cycles. We went in for weekly ultrasounds. One week it looked like this may result in another loss and the doctor told us to prepare for another miscarriage. Then the next week, it looked promising, like this may be progressing. Though we were encouraged by some of the growth we saw, we never saw a heartbeat. At the end of March 2020, we saw on the ultrasound screen that this pregnancy was not viable and had stopped growing, still no heartbeat at what should have been 8-10 weeks gestation.
I asked to have a D&C (Dilation and Curettage) procedure to remove the pregnancy tissue from my uterus rather than waiting to miscarry at home on my own. Having already been through a traumatizing and very painful miscarriage on my own, I didn’t know if I could handle the physical and emotional pain of it all again. More than that, we were desperate for answers as to why this was happening to us again and I knew that I could have the tissue genetically tested should I have a D&C – which could possibly give us some answers. My doctor informed me that because of COVID, there were no “elective” procedures allowed at that time. I walked away from the clinic in tears with a prescription in my hand for Cytotec to help encourage the miscarriage to happen at home rather than waiting for my body to recognize the pregnancy was not viable, which could take more weeks.
After that loss in late March, we waited a few months for my body to heal again and for the world to slowly open back up. In July, my clinic got us on the IVF calendar for October 2020. We went through our first round of IVF. We got 18 eggs, 13 mature, 10 fertilized, 7 blastocysts to send for Pre-Implantation Genetic Testing (PGT-A), and 2 came back as genetically normal. PGT-A normal embryos have a significantly higher implantation and live birth rate.
We were both elated and, to be honest, a little defeated. We knew too well that not all embryos end in live birth. We had a hunch that our issue with the previous pregnancies were genetic abnormalities (even though neither my husband or I have genetic abnormalities ourselves). Our IVF results helped unofficially confirm that this was the case with our previous pregnancies with the less than 30% of our embryos coming back genetically normal. Our doctor told us that PGT-A embryos greatly reduce the risk of miscarriage however, with my history of unexplained infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss, she thought it was best to have 2 PGT-A normal embryos per live child that we want to have.
While there are many, many unfair pieces to infertility, this was the hardest for me. Having to think about and plan if we wanted more than one child while trying so desperately to have our first. Knowing how long everything was taking with clinic wait times and the fact I was getting older as far as my fertility was concerned, we decided to do another round of IVF before transferring one of our embryos.
Well, after that first IVF round, we got pregnant spontaneously yet again. This time, we were far less hopeful, but the hope never died. Things looked good with my HCG numbers to start. We decided not to go in for weekly ultrasounds and just wait until 8 weeks when we should definitely see a heartbeat. Unfortunately, on the day of the ultrasound we didn’t see a heartbeat. I was able to get a D&C this time. We tested the pregnancy tissue and found out that the baby had extra copies of 2 different chromosomes and would not have been compatible with life.
In April 2021, we did our 2nd round of IVF. We added in some different supplements in conjunction with adding a few tweaks to our IVF medications this time along with some lifestyle changes in hopes of getting more normal embryos. We retrieved 17 eggs, 13 mature, 9 fertilized, and 5 embryos were sent for PGT-A testing. We got 3 normal embryos!
We moved immediately forward with a transfer in June 2021 and transferred an embryo from our latest round since it was the highest graded and recommended to transfer first by our doctors.
10 days after our embryo transfer, we took a home pregnancy test and we saw a dark second line. It worked! We felt so much relief and comfort knowing that this was what we knew to be the first time we were pregnant with a genetically normal embryo. We knew anything could happen but the odds were more in our favor this time.
When we saw our baby’s heartbeat for the first time, it was the best sound we could have ever heard. After countless silent ultrasounds, this was the most unexplainable relief and joy. I couldn’t help but cry tears of so many emotions.
Our pregnancy progressed beautifully and our baby boy, Ryder Anthony, was born on February 16, 2022. It was not an easy road to get him here until we got him in the car to bring him home. I spent 4 days in induced labor, 4 hours of pushing, and he spent 5 days in the NICU due to complications from our Labor and Delivery. All of the trials, tribulations, pokes & pricks, tears, and heartache was all worth it to have him in our arms. We could not be more grateful for his health and to be able to see the life that breathes through him daily.
Infertility was by far the hardest chapter of my life. It has given me a whole new outlook on life and has changed me as a person. You may think it changed me in a negative way, maybe made me more cynical. In some ways, sure. But in more ways, it’s brought me deep gratitude. Gratitude for the science it took to bring our son home, patience we built, and gratitude for the miracle of life, even when it happens inside an IVF lab.
