After 7 happy years of marriage, my husband and I decided it was finally time to have kids. But to our dismay, we discovered that we were having fertility issues. This was surprising to us because I was only 33 and my husband was 27.
We had been trying to conceive naturally for about a year before we realized something may be wrong.
I decided to go to the OBGYN and that’s when I found out that I had a cyst on my ovary.
Ovarian cysts were just the beginning.
After this discovery, the next step for me was to get surgery to remove the cyst. But little did we know that the cyst wasn’t actually a cyst.
I had laparoscopic surgery so the doctors could have a better visualization of what was going on. It turns out that instead of a cyst, I have what is called a blocked tube. It means that one of my fallopian tubes was closed off and that’s why I hadn’t been able to conceive; the passageway for my eggs to release was blocked off.
After the surgery, my OB told me that because of my blocked tube, my best chance of getting pregnant was to go with in vitro fertilization (IVF).
My husband and I were in total shock and I definitely hadn’t realized how traumatic this was going to be.
I mean, I went into surgery to get a cyst removed and I came out learning I had a blocked fallopian tube instead. And then the next thing I knew my OB was telling me that If I wanted to get pregnant, I had to do IVF.
What were our options?
I could have had surgery to unblock my fallopian tube but I was told that even if we did unblock it, the muscles in my tube would have been too weak. With the weak muscles, if I got pregnant, it could turn into an ectopic pregnancy.
So I decided that I was going to do IVF and started researching.
At this point, I was depressed. I was fixated on IVF.
Whenever I thought of IVF, which was often, I kept thinking about how expensive it was going to be. And on top of that, I thought about what we would do if it didn’t work. I was feeling so many emotions all at once.
I felt like less of a woman and thought, why is this happening to me?
I looked around and saw all these women who were able to have babies and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t. But I wanted to try.
I wanted to try and do IVF. I wanted to get pregnant, but I had to think about my situation at the time.
My husband and I were raising our son, my husband’s son from a previous relationship, and I had to keep in mind that we both needed to financially support the family that we already had.
It was one of the most anxious and stressful times I had felt.
I am so grateful that my husband is such a wonderful supporter. He’s what got me through this tough part of our journey and kept me going. We thought to ourselves, “Hey, we’re already here. It might take a financial tug at us but it’ll be worth it in the end”.
It’s like it was fate.
When we started trying to do IVF, we quickly came face to face with the costs. At the time, my insurance wasn’t covering anything related to fertility. And it just wasn’t feasible.
But this is when fate started kicking in.
I started working a new job and they had fertility insurance!
When that happened, I quickly switched my insurance.
Through my new insurance, I learned of a discounted fertility treatment program called the WINFertility Program. As the expenses of IVF was one of my main concerns, I, of course, applied for this program. And I was approved!
I started looking through the list of fertility clinics participating in this program and stumbled across Reproductive Fertility Center.
RFC was only my second phone call and as fate would have it, they were able to make an appointment for me to come in right away!
I told my husband and we thought, “This is it. This is the place.”
And we were right.
Things were finally falling into place
Throughout the IVF process, I’d say one of the most memorable moments was when I did my egg retrieval.
I had 40 eggs collected!
It was quite a surprise. I mean, you really don’t know how many eggs you’ll be able to retrieve until the doctor goes in there. And I mean, I was hopeful but 40 is a lot!
Out of those 40, we were able to make 16 eggs into embryos. We decided to transfer 8 of those embryos and freeze the other 8.
We waited and waited until the day had finally come to take a pregnancy test.
I remember it was the daytime and I went to the clinic to get my blood work done. My coordinator Jess had told me she’d call me with the results later that same day.
I was so anxious after waiting the whole day. But she called, and we were pregnant!
My husband and I broke down crying. It was such a crazy and emotional moment. We were so overjoyed it felt as if we were the only two people in the world and I’ll never forget it.
Nine months later, my husband and I welcomed our daughter, Evie, into the world.
How we got through this journey
When we first discovered that we were struggling with fertility, I didn’t say much about it to anyone other than a close circle of family. We were scared and unsure if IVF was even going to work out for us. It was hard for us to talk about it.
Infertility isn’t something that’s commonly spoken about and when you do face fertility struggles, you feel ashamed.
I’ve spoken to many women in the past who were able to conceive naturally and it made me feel ashamed that I couldn’t. It’s difficult for people who haven’t gone through similar experiences to understand what a fertility journey is really like.
But luckily for me, my family was so supportive throughout my journey. They honestly had more faith than me.
To get through this journey, you need people to tell you it’s going to work. You need to have a support system to give you positive reassurance when you get good news, even if it’s small good news. Because you ultimately doubt yourself in the process.
I would come home and feel so negative, but my family would keep me positive by just really talking to me.
Throughout my process, I leaned on my family as much as I could.
I had faith and my family, and I ran with it.
What I learned from my journey
What I learned from struggling with fertility is that the most important thing you can do is stay positive. I know how it sounds, but you cannot let yourself get into that dark place where you eat, sleep, and breathe IVF. You cannot let it take over you.
You still have to live your life!
Don’t put yourself in that dark place. It’s easy to say, but I’ve been there myself and I don’t want other women to also be in that negative space.
What helped me was to keep busy. I cleaned the house and volunteered to help out my family whenever I could. It helped me destress and kept my mind and body calm enough to not think about babies and IVF all day.
What's next?
Today, my husband and I are living our dream. We’ve recently welcomed our daughter, Evie, into the world and it couldn’t be any better. My husband has been so supportive throughout our journey and he’s really kept me going. I genuinely couldn’t ask for anyone better.
We’re both so happy and excited that our daughter is finally here.
We want to try again and have another baby but I had a traumatic delivery so I’m not sure if I’m ready. But, we do still have 8 frozen embryos and if we decide to use them, we’d do everything the same again!
We love RFC and everyone there! Trust and have faith in your coordinators and doctor. Jess and Nataly, who were my coordinators, were so amazing, and of course, my doctors were too!
For now, my husband and I are going to bask and live in the fact that our dream finally came true.
